The Sioux County Sheriff's Office ordered evacuations Friday near Doon, Iowa, after a train derailed and spilled oil being transported from Canada. The BNSF Railway Co. train derailed at about 4:30 a.m., said Andy Williams, a spokesperson for the company. The train was carrying ConocoPhillips oil when went off the tracks, but the amount spilled is still unknown, according to an email from the oil company. "We are grateful that there are no reported injuries to the train crew or nearby residents," ConocoPhillips said in an emailed statement. Lyon County Sheriff Stewart VanderStoep said 30 cars derailed and though not all of the cars were leaking, a significant number of them were. It's unclear what caused the train to derail. Williams said BNSF crews and a hazmat team are on the scene. VanderStoep said they suspect the derailing was flood-related, though nothing has been confirmed. BNSF cleaning equipment arrived at the scene around 1 p.m. "We don’t know how much is leaking or how bad it is," VanderStoep said. "We've got some stuff out on the water now to soak it up, but the whole area is blocked off." Photos and video posted on social media show more than a dozen oil tankers jackknifed across flooded farmland, with oil leaking into the water. Jacob Faber, who lives nearby, said many in the area had spent the previous night volunteering with flood recovery efforts, trying to fight off the rising waters that were blocking roads and covering expanses of land. "There was water on the train track and the train tried to go over it," Faber said. The evacuations were for Garfield Avenue from 270th Street to 280th Street. Federal safety officials are keeping track of crash recovery efforts, but haven't yet started an investigation, said Keith Holloway, a spokesman for the National Transit Safety Board. "We are monitoring and collecting information," Holloway said. The Associated Press reported that 31 train cars containing crude oil were involved in the incident. Nobody was injured. BNSF railroad spokesman Andy Williams told the Associated Press he was unsure how much oil leaked and how many cars were leaking. Oil is being carried downstream into the Rock River west of the derailment. Meanwhile, parts of Rock Valley south of Doon were evacuated due to flooding Friday morning, but residents were allowed to return. The sheriff's office shared a video on its Facebook page of the aftermath. Faber and others posted about the crash on Twitter. Faber, a 25-year-old construction worker from Rock Valley, lives about seven miles from the crash. He said tankers were "thrown around like LEGOs" across the flood waters. He took drone footage from a friend's nearby property. The entire area smelled like exhaust fumes, he said. "You can't describe how strong that oil smell is when you're close to it," Faber said. Des Moines Register reporters Makayla Tendall and Danielle Gehr contributed to this story.<doc-sep>At a Glance A train derailment sent crude oil into floodwaters early Friday morning in northwestern Iowa. It isn't yet known what caused the train to derail, but no injuries were reported. At least four homes near the crash site were evacuated, officials said. A freight train derailed and leaked crude oil from at least one of 31 tankers in northwestern Iowa early Friday morning, raising concerns that the residential water supply could be affected. No injuries were reported after the cars derailed at about 4:30 a.m. Friday morning just south of Doon in Lyon County, BNSF railroad spokesman Andy Williams said. Officials haven't said if floodwaters from the swollen Little Rock River caused the derailment. After the area received 5 to 7 inches of rainfall on Wednesday, the river rose quickly, and another downpour struck the area on Thursday. (MORE: Virginia Floods Shut Down Richmond Airport) A broadening sheen of oil spread near several of the tankers, which had piled up across the track and earthen berm, some submerged in the water. News of the spill was enough to prompt officials in Rock Valley, a small city about 5 miles southwest of the derailment, to shut off all the city's drinking water wells. The water towers also will be drained as a precaution, said Rock Valley public information officer Travis Olson. In this aerial drone image taken from video and provided by the Sioux County Sheriff's Office, tanker cars carrying crude oil are shown derailed about a mile south of Doon, Iowa, Friday, June 22, 2018. (Sioux County Sheriff's Office via AP) In the meantime, the city is getting its water from the nearby Rock Valley Rural Water system, which Olson said is not in danger of being contaminated by the spill. The city, with a population of nearly 3,400, will stay on the rural water system until testing by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources confirms the safety of the city's drinking water, Olson said. "I don't know how long that will be," he said. "It sounds like the cleanup is going to take a while." Advertisement Williams said he was unsure how much oil leaked and how many of the cars were leaking. Lyon County Sheriff Stewart Vander Stoep said the oil was being carried downstream into the Rock River a few hundred yards west of the derailment. No information was immediately available on how much oil each of the tankers was carrying. Cleanup crews were dispatched to the site. Vander Stoep said four homes near the site have been evacuated. (MORE: South Texas Flooding Leads to Water Rescues, Emergency Declaration) The Rock River has already carried some oil to Rock Valley, nearly 5 miles southwest of the derailment, said Ken Hessenius with the Iowa Natural Resources Department. State crews are trying to determine how fast the oil was traveling south. The Rock River joins the Big Sioux River before merging into the Missouri River at Sioux City. The task difficulty is compounded by the spreading floodwater, he said. "The river, instead of being 100 yards wide, is now maybe a half-mile wide" in spots, Hessenius said. "Our first major concerns are public water supplies," he said, adding that several towns that draw water from shallow wells near the Rock River have been alerted about possible contamination. Doon is about 40 miles southeast of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where several rain-swollen rivers overflowed Thursday. The National Weather Service has forecast flooding in the area into the weekend.<doc-sep>
Adding to the mountain of evidence that "oil trains are a disaster for our health, our safety, and our climate"—an argument environmentalists have been making for years—a 31-car freight train derailed in Iowa and started leaking crude oil into floodwaters on Friday morning, forcing evacuations of nearby homes and raising concerns about drinking water contamination. The Sioux County Sheriff posted a video depicting the aftermath of the derailment near Doon on Facebook: The derailment occurred around 4:30am local time near the Sioux-Lyon County border, and one or more train cars spilled oil into the floodwaters of the Rock River. Rock Valley Mayor Kevin Van Otterloo told Iowa's Des Moines Register that within a few hours, oil had reached his city, about 5 miles downriver. "We don’t know how much is leaking or how bad it is," the Lyon County sheriff after a train derailed, leaking crude oil into the Rock River. https://t.co/T9Pg5zdL9k — Des Moines Register (@DMRegister) June 22, 2018 Although officials on the scene told the Associated Press they are still unsure what caused the train to leave the tracks, Jacob Faber, who lives near the site of the derailment and spent the Thursday night volunteering with flood recovery efforts, said, "There was water on the train track and the train tried to go over it." Noting that the massive oil-filled tankers looked as if they had been "thrown around like Legos" across the floodwaters, Faber added that the entire area reeked of exhaust fumes: "You can't describe how strong that oil smell is when you're close to it." SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Never Miss a Beat. Get our best delivered to your inbox. A spokesman for BNSF railroad told the AP the company does not know how much oil has leaked into the floodwaters. He did not say how much oil the tankers were carrying. Ken Hessenius of the Iowa Natural Resources Department said cleanup crews are at the site, working to contain the spill. "Our first major concerns are public water supplies," he said. Multiple towns downriver from the site draw drinking water from wells near the waterway, and the state has notified local officials of potential contamination. The environmental advocacy group STAND.earth tweeted in response: