Lethal accidents waiting to happen

Re Lethal loads ply Toronto rail lines, April 26 I read with great interest the Star article about the amount of hazardous materials transported by rail through populated areas of Toronto. Many of these materials are toxic and can be explosive if released to the air to form a flammable vapour cloud mixture that can be triggered by a spark or flame, should an accident occur like the one at Lac-Mégantic.

Torontonians should be equally worried by the five jet fuel storage tanks residing on the Toronto Island Airport and the regular delivery service to the Pearson Airport via ferry by the large tanker trucks. Each fuel tank contains about 50,000 litres of jet fuel, which has the explosive capability of about 500 tons of TNT.

The tanks reside in a fenced off park like area at the south end of the northsouth runway and should an accident occur releasing the jet fuel to form an explosive vapour cloud mixture, a chain reaction could occur due to proximity of the fuel tanks.

The explosive shock wave could travel over 1.5 kilometres from the tank farm.

The overpressure created by this shock wave will shatter windows all along the waterfront condos, cause injuries from the glass shards to Harbourfront residents and visitors to the waterfront. If the airport is allowed to expand, then this jet fuel tank farm will increase in size by a factor of two, thus presenting us with a much more hazardous environment. Rod Tennyson, professor emeritus, Engineering Physics, University of Toronto

War in the Arctic unthinkable

Re We must be prepared in Arctic, Letter April 30 All the countries that have a stake or claim in the Arctic have no choice but to co-operate in developing and protecting the region. A military confrontation in the fragile north-polar region would be too stupid to contemplate.

Surely, we have learned something from recent wars that wasted blood and treasure and solved nothing. William Bedford, Toronto