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The 16-car derailment occurred shortly before 8 a.m., Winona County Sheriff’s deputy Bill Spitzer said. Part of the train left the railroad tracks, forcing cars momentarily into the air and then left them strewn along an embankment by the road. Ten of the cars contained soybean oil and the other six contained wheat.
No one was injured in the crash.
Clean-up crews will delay traffic on County Road 23 for at least most of today, according to the sheriff’s department.
David Morrison, a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency emergency response specialist, said that four oil cars likely had leaks, causing an estimated 30,000 gallons to spill into the soil. Pools of the yellow liquid had formed next to and underneath the cars carrying oil from South Dakota Soybean Processors.
The oil had been contained at the derailment site by Monday afternoon, Morrison said, preventing contamination to Garvin Brook — which runs about 1,000 feet from the crash site — and averting a potential fish kill.
“If we’d had a heavy rain that would not have been good,” Morrison said.
Morrison said the oil cleanup will likely take longer than the wreckage, in order to treat contaminated soil.
The cause of the crash was under investigation Monday, DM&E spokesman Herb Jones said. DM&E will spend at least today cleaning up the site, he added.
“DM&E is working with federal, state and local officials as it assembles cleanup personnel at the site and investigates the cause of the accident,” Jones said.
LeRoy Thompson of Winona was on his way home from work when he came upon the crash about a minute after it occurred, he said. A plume of dust rose out of the wreckage when he drove by, caused by the wheat in the cars, he said.
“The cars were stacked up like a spilled deck of cards,” Thompson said.
Nolan Rosenkrans may be reached at (507) 453-3519 or at nolan.rosenkrans@lee.net.
