Spill of animal fat by railroad expected to stink

By ANDREW McGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

Greene County’s coordinator of emergency management Monday afternoon was asking why Union Pacific Railroad didn’t notify the county about a “significant” spill of animal fat.

“We didn’t know it until we went looking for them,” Dennis Morlan, coordinator of Greene County Emergency Management and Homeland Security, said of UP.

Morlan was notified about 12:30 p.m. Monday of some kind of spill by Jefferson’s public works director, Dave Morlan, who also happens to be his son.

Upon further investigation, Dennis Morlan learned the spill stretches from at least Missouri Valley to Cedar Rapids — a distance close to 300 miles.

“It goes track to track and it is significant,” Morlan said.

“You know as well as I did it went over the Raccoon River,” he added.

The tallow — a rendered beef fat — is believed to have spilled after a cap came off a train car, Morlan said.

“My understanding,” he said, “is that it stinks.”

And that’s just in liquid form, he said.

Once it begins to solidify, he said, it’s said to smell even worse.

The city of Jefferson has put down an absorbent at crossings to try to contain the smell, he said.

As many as 75 trains operated by Omaha-based Union Pacific pass through Jefferson daily — and that number is projected to rise to 120, the company has told city officials in recent years.