The Vancouver Observer recently published an excellent report on the dangers of transporting chlorine gas. Here is a link to the article and the following are some interesting excerpts:
".....Millar says three possibilities could still lead to "ultra hazardous" cargoes travelling through Vancouver during the Olympics:
1) Companies other than Canexus could ship chlorine by truck, rail or barge.
2) Other dangerous goods besides chlorine can be transported in and out of Vancouver.
3) Canexus may stop producing chemicals for several weeks, but the company may ship tanks of chlorine they have previously stockpiled."
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"These cargos containing chlorine are more dangerous at night than they are in the daytime because they are toxic clouds that spread out as a cold dense killing cloud and there's about a hundred thousand shipments of chlorine and ammonia in North America. They are the top two chemicals of concern and these cargoes when they release their toxic gas clouds, if it’s as night, they don’t dissipate as readily. The reason is at night you don’t have the sun and the wind to dissipate the clouds," Millar said.
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"The Chlorine Institute's "Pamphlet 74" shows chlorine gas from a reuptured 90-ton railcar travelling downwind as far as 64 kilometers in 10 minutes, with a lethal concentration of low-lying gas closest to the lead."
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"There are safe alternatives to chlorine. So why, Millar asks, does the government not stop the flow of chlorine through urban centres or force the industry to shift to the safe alternatives?"
This article makes a number of very good points on why transporting chlorine is so dangerous. It is ironic that companies still choose to transport chlorine when inherently safer technologies like Klorigen exist for on site generation of chlorine and sodium hypochlorite.
