GPS Associates May Be Involved in Hazmat Incident

ECS-CERT announced today that they were joining the investigation of hazardous material incident involving a rail shipment of liquified natural gas that started last week. Immanuel C. Securitage told reporters that the agency’s involvement came at the request of the head of the Franklawn Fire Department, Margaret Stevenson. She had noted a similarity between Thursday’s incident and the GPS Associates related incident earlier this month in Los Angeles.

Stevenson explained that her department had been called to respond to a hazmat incident at a remote railroad siding outside of town. The Genovese and Newark Railroad had parked an LNG railcar on the siding when remote sensors had reported that the pressure inside the railcar was too high to continue transport. When the Schneider Gas and Oil team arrived on the scene to assist in the incident response, they found that the pressure in the railcar was well within the expected limits.

George Schneider, owner and CEO of Schneider Gas and Oil, told reporters that he agreed with Stevenson that it appeared that there was something wrong with the remote reporting unit on the railcar owned by his company. When Stevenson had noted that the TransTrac was made by GPS Associates she told Schneider about the LA incident and both agreed that the two incidents could be related.

John P. Morgan of the Railroad Safety Administration told reporters that all LNG railcars were required by regulation to include a tracking device that reported the location and pressure to the railroad operations center. He noted that the GNR had been transporting about one railcar of LNG per week for the last month without incident. He explained that the railroad had followed the agreed upon emergency response plan in this incident.

Morgan said: “While involving the ECS-CERT in a hazmat investigation is unusual, the involvement of the new tracking device did add a new level of complexity that the RSA was not equipped to address.”

Securitage told reporters: “If hacking of the TransTrac device was involved in this incident, the Federal Bureau of Inquiry would certainly be notified.”

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