It's been nearly twenty years since a train derailed on the Upper Sacramento River's Cantara Loop, dropping a tanker of metam sodium into the river.

On June 4, 1991, fishermen and residents of the area saw nearly 40 miles of the Upper Sacramento River essentially sterilized, and oddly enough, we were probably lucky it was metam sodium and not something more persistent.

Luck, I guess, is relative.

An ABC TV news team did a story about the anniversary (which I'd forgotten), and if you look hard, you'll notice Wayne Eng's backside (probably his better side) several times in the footage.

Also, CalTrout's Curtis Knight makes an appearance.



Since the spill, Union Pacific has replaced the wooden ties in the canyon with concrete, built that monstrous super trestle, and now uses "pusher" engines to reduce the strains on the cars in the middle of trains (which are the most likely to derail).

Still, a 2003 derailment in the Upper Sacramento River Canyon saw a tanker of hydrochloric acid come off the tracks within spitting distance (literally) of the river, suggesting that the safety of the river is largely an illusion.

So while UP has taken steps, it still could improve the way it builds the trains headed up and down the canyon (the spill was caused -- in part -- by empty cars in the middle of the train, which can be more easily pulled off the tracks when loaded cars are attached to the front and back of the train).

More derailments are inevitable. What they mean to the river so many of us have come to love as our own? That one's largely up to lady luck.

See you holding my breath every time a train passes through the canyon, Tom Chandler.