Obama on train spurs safety fear

The Secret Service issued a letter this week aimed at assuaging environmental groups’ concerns that President-elect Obama could be attacked on his pre-Inauguration train trip from Philadelphia to Washington.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FOE) wrote a letter last month to the Secret Service warning of outlying hazardous-chemicals facilities along the Eastern train corridor that Obama and Vice President-elect Biden are set to travel Jan. 17 — three days before Inauguration.

{mosads}“Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden on this day will be highly visible and relatively approachable together on the difficult-to-protect Eastern Urban rail corridor,” the groups’ letter read. “Some segments of this corridor, with very many nearby industrial chemical risks, including cargoes on rails and trucks and major storage tanks and operating facilities, [have been designated] as the most vulnerable in the nation.”

The groups’ objections come after many years of their voicing worries to the White House and Congress over the proximity of train lines and chemical materials to high-profile, high-population areas. They have long pushed, mostly to no avail, for the rerouting of train lines in such areas.

The Secret Service, while not revealing details, assured the groups that they had taken their fears into consideration and were doing everything necessary to ensure the safety of Obama and Biden.

“We appreciate their concerns and assured them that all of our security protocols and preparations are very thorough and we work very closely with subject matter experts at all levels — federal, state and local — and these concerns are not lost on us and we address them through a variety of ways,” said Agent Eric Zahren, a Secret Service spokesman.

But a spokesman for FOE said that in addition to the issue of Obama’s and Biden’s safety, the group is concerned about the safety of the surrounding communities that lie along the hundreds of miles of rail.

And even if an attack did not cause physical damage, it could be a blow to the national psyche, said Dr. Fred Millar, an FOE rail security consultant.

“We learned something from that brilliant shoe-throwing exercise,” Millar said, referring to the recent episode in which an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at President Bush. “What we learned was that you don’t have to hit the president to cause big damage. So, if you let loose a toxic gas cloud that could kill thousands of people, what does that do to the Inauguration?”