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Accidents do happen! What our community witnessed along Highway 89 in Fruit Heights last week offers both an example, and a reminder of the dangers inherent in the shipment of hazardous materials.
In this instance, it was butane. Fortunately, no one died in the resulting explosion and fire, and property loss was minimal. Still, it prompts thoughts of what could have been.
Trucks laden with such stuff regularly travel our highways. Most often, the brakes work fine. Collisions don’t occur. Our collective mentality becomes one of “out of sight, out of mind.” Then an accident happens. And we wonder: what if it had been a shipment of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods, headed for storage in Utah’s west desert? Even with all the safety precautions experts contend will be put in place if such is ever the case, no one can say for sure an accident won’t happen. No one can say a truck carrying the stuff will never crash, or a train won’t derail, or a military jet on a training run won’t suddenly veer into the stockpile.
It’s another reminder of a major reason KSL opposes turning the Goshutes’ Skull Valley Reservation into the nation’s dumping ground for nuclear waste. It would unnecessarily endanger the citizenry of Utah. Accidents, after all, do happen.
