Saturday is the one-year anniversary of the catastrophic oil train derailment in the Columbia River Gorge town of Mosier, Oregon.
While the fire might be out, the crash still hangs over the town.
After the crash, the city, the fire department and the school district created an intergovernmental agreement to negotiate with Union Pacific, the rail company responsible for the derailment.
Mosier Mayor Arlene Burns says the agreement is almost final.
“We’re really almost about to tie it up," she said.
"We feel that Union Pacific has been responsive to sort of an off-piste style because it’s not a litigation. We’re just trying to tell them our story and who we are and what we would like them to do to make it right. And so far, they’ve been receptive," said Burns.
Burns says the town hopes for some money, a patch of land and equipment upgrades for the fire department.
She's also negotiating access across the track so the Columbia Gorge Historic Highway between Mosier and Hood River can be linked together.
Looming over all negotiations is a proposal by Tesoro Savage to build a terminal in Vancouver, Washington, that would bring up to five loaded oil trains through Mosier each day.
Washington’s Gov. Jay Inslee is poised to make a final decision on the proposal soon.
Kristian Foden-Vencil is a veteran journalist/producer working for Oregon Public Broadcasting. He started as a cub reporter for newspapers in London, England in 1988. Then in 1991 he moved to Oregon and started freelancing. His work has appeared in publications as varied as The Oregonian, the BBC, the Salem Statesman Journal, Willamette Week, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, NPR and the Voice of America. Kristian has won awards from the Associated Press, Society of Professional Journalists and the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors. He was embedded with the Oregon National Guard in Iraq in 2004 and now specializes in business, law, health and politics.