Monthly Archives: July 2014

Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Massive increase in crude-by-rail, State regulation

Emergency Management Magazine: States Focus on Rail and Energy Pipeline Safety

Repost from Emergency Management Magazine
[Editor: Note the source of this article.  From the “About” page: “Emergency Management is the award-winning, all-hazards publication of record for emergency management, public safety and homeland security stakeholders charged to protect our communities, critical infrastructure and the security of our nation.”  – RS]

States Focus on Rail and Energy Pipeline Safety

Sharp increases in U.S. oil production have caused safety problems transporting the liquid. Now states are trying to fix the problem.
Jeffrey Stinson, Stateline | July 31, 2014

The sharp increase in U.S. oil production and its promise of energy independence is coming with a disastrous byproduct: spills that threaten lives, communities and the environment.

In the past 18 months, about 1.2 million gallons of crude oil produced in the U.S. or Canada has been spilled from train cars and pipelines in at least seven states, sparking explosions, fires, or the evacuation of homes or offices in four instances.

Nobody has to tell the residents of Lynchburg, Virginia about the danger of the millions of gallons of crude oil rolling along rail lines or through pipelines every day. On April 30, more than a dozen train cars filled with crude oil derailed near Lynchburg’s downtown, causing a fire that forced hundreds of people in a 20-block area to evacuate. Nobody was injured, but thousands of gallons of oil spilled into the James River.

In response to the growing problem, the U.S. Department of Transportation last week issued proposed rules calling for upgraded railroad cars, better braking systems and tighter speed controls.

The federal action followed stepped-up efforts by several states to try to prevent spills and respond to disasters:

  • The California legislature last month approved a new 6.5-cent fee on every barrel on crude oil carried by rail and some pipelines through the state. The state will use the money, estimated to bring in $11 million in the first full year, to expand its coastal spill prevention and response program to inland streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands. It’s also beefing up its rail safety inspection program.
  • Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, signed legislation in May to implement stricter oversight of railroad companies, require more rail inspections and provide for better emergency response training and preparedness. To pay for it, Minnesota this year will collect $6.4 million in fees from railroads and pipeline companies.
  • New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, signed legislation earlier this month that authorizes the state to impose stricter preparation and response requirements on pipelines than federal law requires. The state Public Utility Commission also was given authority to inspect interstate pipelines to provide more frequent checks than federal officials give.
  • Oregon Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber last week released a study of oil moving through his state that calls for more state rail inspectors, more money for training and improved cooperation with railroads. Last month, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, ordered a similar review of risks, regulations and preparedness in his state. In January, New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo also issued a similar order and dispatched inspectors to rail yards to look for defects on cars that could cause derailments.

Nearly all the action in the states was prompted by disasters governors and lawmakers saw in other states or across the border in Canada. Their worst fear is what happened in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, where 47 people were killed last July when an unattended 74-car train derailed. The spilled crude caught fire, then several cars exploded and about half the downtown was destroyed.

“I want to know how much oil will be shipped through my state and how we can be assured the kind of tragedy that happened in Quebec won’t devastate families in our communities,” Inslee said last month in ordering the study in Washington.

Matt Swenson, Dayton’s press secretary, said Minnesotans only needed to look at neighboring North Dakota to see what could happen: Last December, a train carrying grain derailed in front of a mile-long train carrying crude oil near Casselton, not far from the Minnesota border. Twenty cars spilled oil, some exploded. Fire forced evacuation of the town, but nobody was injured.

Every day, seven similar oil trains with about 110 cars carrying about 3.3 million gallons of crude travel through Minnesota, the state said. Other states are witnessing similar traffic, and it’s on the rise.

About 264 million gallons of crude oil were shipped by rail through California last year, said Alexia Retallack in the state Fish and Wildlife Department’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response. That’s 46.2 million gallons more than in 2012.

Railroads Pick Up Slack

More crude oil is on the move across states as production in North America booms from the fracking of Bakken oil deposits underlying North Dakota, Montana, and Canada’s Saskatchewan and Manitoba provinces, and from the tar sands of Alberta.

Production in the U.S. alone will be 8.5 million barrels a day this year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates. That’s estimated to grow to 9.3 million barrels daily next year. And there aren’t enough pipelines to get the crude to the nation’s 115 refineries to be turned into gasoline and other products.

Republican North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple said last month that pipeline capacity in his state needs to double to about 1.4 million barrels a day by 2016 to carry all the crude produced there. Currently, the state is producing about 220,000 barrels a day more than pipes can carry.

Railroads are picking up the slack, even though the Congressional Research Service said in a May report that it can cost from $5 to $10 more a barrel than pipeline delivery. The number of carloads of crude oil, each carrying about 30,000 gallons, that ended up inside the U.S. rose to 435,560 last year, the Association of American Railroads says. That’s up from about 30,000 in 2010.

In a recent analysis of data from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration, the McClatchy News Service found that 1.15 million gallons of crude oil spilled from rail cars in the U.S. last year. That’s more than in all the years combined since the data was first collected nearly four decades ago.

The worst accident was in November in Aliceville, Alabama, where 748,800 gallons spilled from a 90-car train after 12 cars derailed and three exploded. Nobody was injured.

Although widely considered safer than rail shipment of crude, pipelines do spill. A split in a pipeline in March 2013 dumped as much as 5,000 barrels of Canadian tar sands oil into a neighborhood in Mayflower, Arkansas.

Concern over pipeline spills is what drove New Hampshire state Sen. Jeff Woodburn to sponsor the legislation giving his state greater control over pipelines. The source of worry is that the 236-mile Portland-Montreal Pipeline, built to carry conventional crude oil from Maine, through New Hampshire and Vermont to Canadian refineries, can instead be used to ship to the U.S. tar sands oil, which is heavier and dirtier.

A spill, Woodburn, a Democrat, said, could devastate the fragile environment in his northern area of the state, which attracts tourists.

An analysis of federal spill data by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research last year found that through 2009, pipelines released more oil per spill than rail.  Even with the recent increase in oil transported by rail, pipelines still carry much more. Furthermore, because pipelines often run through isolated areas, it often takes longer to get to the site of a leak and seal it.

But there’s a difference between pipeline spills and rail car spills, said Carl Weimer, a Whatcom County, Washington, commissioner and executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust that studies and advocates for greater pipeline safety.

Pipelines may spill more oil when an accident happens, Weimer said, but they usually cause mostly environmental damage because they’re located in out-of-the-way places. Railroads travel through populated areas and their spills can endanger more people and cause greater property damage.

“The real question is: Is either one as safe as they need to be?” Weimer said. “I don’t think they are.”

Lighter and Sweeter

The nature of much of the oil being shipped is heightening states’ concerns. Bakken crude is a lighter, sweeter crude that federal regulators say may be more flammable than other crude – though the American Petroleum Institute that represents the oil and gas industry disputes that.

Bakken crude was involved in the fiery crashes in Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama and in Quebec.

The new proposed federal rules are largely aimed at Bakken crude. Older rail tanker cars will be banned from shipping it across the states within two years unless they’re retrofitted with thicker skins and anti-rollover protection to meet the newest standards.

At present, the freight railroad industry says it uses about 92,000 tank cars to carry flammable liquids, such as crude, and that 18,000 are built to the latest standards.

The Association of American Railroads says the industry already has moved to reduce speeds on oil trains with 20 or more cars carrying crude and include at least one older tank car to no faster than 40 mph in 46 urban areas around the country.

Federal regulators are weighing whether they should go even slower, possibly 40 mph in all areas and 30 mph in urban areas. But the association, which represents major carriers, said going just 30 mph in urban areas could cost it 10 percent of its capacity to ship cargo, and slow down some freight and Amtrak passenger trains traveling across parts of the country.

Railroads also are alerting states when and where trains carrying 1 million gallons or more of Bakken crude will travel in keeping with a May 15 order from the U.S. Department of Transportation. And they’ve said they’ll work with the states and communities on any new spill response efforts just as they have so far.

“We take our responsibility for moving oil in a safe and efficient manner seriously,” the railroad association said. “That is why the rail industry is working with our customers, suppliers and (federal regulators) to find ways to make a safe network even safer.”

That’s what states say they’re doing, too, as they know their citizens need the energy and at a reasonable price.

“We need to move crude oil,” said California’s Retallack. “But we need to do it in a way that doesn’t pose risks to citizens or the environment.”

Or, as Sen. Woodburn of New Hampshire put it: “We want to be accepting to changes and challenges on the energy front – but we want to be in the driver’s seat.”

This article was originally published by Stateline. Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Proximity to residences, Rail routing

In Albany, one official calls for the recloation of residents of an entire housing project

Repost from Metroland.net, Albany NY

The Price of Oil Trains

As tensions mount over how to address the dangers of crude coming through Albany by rail, one official calls for the recloation of residents of an entire housing project
by Ali Hibbs, July 31, 2014

One year after oil tankers went off the rails and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec—killing 47 people and leaving a community devastated—local political leaders and community members are growing increasingly concerned about a similar tragedy occurring closer to home.  A recent explosion in oil tanker traffic coming into the Port of Albany through South End neighborhoods, and the half-dozen literal explosions that have occurred across the United States and Canada since the Quebec tragedy—not to mention the local oil spill at Kenwood Yard last month—have those living in communities close to the tracks concerned for their health as well as their safety.

Over the last several months, how to best address these mounting concerns has become the cause of some political tension and has resulted in the formation of two separate local investigative bodies. Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan announced the creation of her blue-ribbon panel on rail safety last week, following Albany County Executive Dan McCoy’s seemingly sudden declaration that residents of the Ezra Prentice public housing project in Albany’s South End should be immediately relocated to ensure their health and safety.  Ezra Prentice is adjacent to tracks on which oil tank cars travel and are often left sitting, providing an ominous—and malodorous—background to a park in which children play basketball.

photo by Ann Morrow

“Headaches, dizziness, feeling nauseous: These are not uncommon reactions to being exposed to fumes associated with crude oil operations,” said Christopher Amato of EarthJustice during a press conference held this week by McCoy’s advisory committee, announcing the introduction of a hotline that the public can call to report strong odors emanating from rail terminals or the Port of Albany itself—odors, they say, that may signify serious health hazards. Amato and EarthJustice represent the Ezra Prentice Homes Tenants Association, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter and the Center for Biological Diversity in challenging the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to require an environmental impact statement before any expansion of activities by oil companies at the port.

Anne Pope, a South End resident, regional director of the NAACP and a lifelong asthmatic, also spoke of the dangers of fumes produced by crude oil. She extolled McCoy for being proactive and went on to advocate for the evacuation of Ezra Prentice if there was nothing else that could be done to remove threats posed by the nearby trains.

McCoy began actively working to stanch the flow of oil into the Port of Albany earlier this year when he imposed a moratorium on the expansion of crude-oil processing until a comprehensive study on the health and safety effects on the community could be completed. After being told that his moratorium was “prejudicial to the [oil] company,” and had “no legal basis,” McCoy convened his Expert Advisory Committee on Crude Oil Safety in May, stating, “It’s clear that the scope of this investigation requires that we bring in independent experts to help us.”

During the last two years, the Port of Albany has experienced a dramatic surge in rail-borne crude oil carried by CSX and Canadian Pacific Railway Co. from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota. At Albany, a purported 85,000 barrels of the oil-sands crude are loaded each day onto barges bound for refineries in New Jersey and New Brunswick by oil distribution companies such as Global Partners LP.  As Metroland reported last month, these developments came largely unbeknownst to anyone in the local community or government, save one—former Mayor Jerry Jennings. (As previously reported: In 2012, the DEC approved a permit allowing Global Partners to bring up to 1.8 billion gallons of crude oil into the Port of Albany annually and, according to documents pertaining to the approvals, Jennings was the only local politician who was notified—and he apparently didn’t bother to notify the public.)

Global Partners is currently seeking permission from New York State to expand its local role even further by installing a boiler system that would allow the company to import a heavier type of Bakken crude and heat it before shipping it back out of the region. This process brings with it even more concerns about possible deleterious effects on local air quality and environmental safety.

Until recently, Sheehan had insisted that the costs for safety measures, including air monitoring and environmental impact studies, should be covered by the oil and rail companies that are benefiting from expanded use of the port. In a statement responding to McCoy’s call for the removal of Ezra Prentice residents, she reiterated her stance and essentially deferred the issue of rail safety to state and federal government.

That, however, clearly is not enough for those currently living next door to the oil-laden tracks.

“I don’t know how many warnings we’re going to get,” said Charlene Benton, president of the Ezra Prentice Homes Tenants Association and resident of the community. “We have 156 children under the age of 16. . . . We have to do something.” Benton applauded the efforts of McCoy and others, but went on to say, “I don’t think we’ve done enough. . . . It’s time for us to begin to come together and come up with some resolutions.”

“I disagree that those living in the shadow of bomb trains should wait for federal action to create safer standards for rail transportation of crude oil,” wrote McCoy in response to Sheehan after she implied that his recommendation was rash and unwarranted. “Experts acknowledge that even if federal action were taken immediately ordering improved standards, it would take years for new oil tanker cars to come online.” (Fact: Recently proposed federal regulations would not force the total retirement of outdated, easily punctured DOT-111 tank cars like those involved in the Quebec incident until 2020.) “The people of Ezra Prentice live every day with the danger of these cars literally in their backyard. That is why I’m asking for the Albany Housing Authority to explore seeking federal assistance to relocate these residents now.”

In addition to the moratorium and push to explore options to evacuate Ezra Prentice—a move that many decried as premature, alarmist and overreaching—the office of the county executive also recently introduced legislation imposing harsher penalties on those who do not report oil spills within an hour of their occurrence. This was in response to the oil spill at Kenwood Yard last month, when workers neglected to notify authorities for five hours after four cars derailed. His advisory committee, headed by Peter Iwanowicz, executive director for Environmental Advocates of New York, has been working closely with concerned local politicians and residents to mitigate concerns and seek out answers.  The launch this Wednesday of the public reporting hotline (“Uncommon Scents”) is intended to help “an overall assessment of possible health and environmental impacts of the rail activities in the county,” according to Iwanowicz.

While Sheehan believes that McCoy has overstepped some boundaries when it comes to this issue, she also seems to have realized the importance that it holds for the community—and that waiting for the state or federal government to step in is unlikely to satisfy those who are living (and sleeping) with the daily reality of Bakken crude in their backyards. She released the names of those who will sit on her blue-ribbon panel this week, and has said that she anticipates they will have come up with long- and short-term recommendations for assuring rail safety by early September.

For anyone living near crude-carrying rail lines: Should you or any of your family members detect any new, unusually strong or disturbing odors in your area, the hotline number to call is 211.  Iwanowicz stresses, however, that if you believe you are in immediate danger, you should call 911 directly.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Rail Administration, Hazmat notification, Niobrara crude, Rail industry, State regulation, Tank car design, Train speed

Oil Boom, Part II: How and why railroads keep oil train information from communities

Repost from Boulder Weekly
[Editor: A good summary on the various states’ responses to weak new federal emergency regulations, and the oil and rail industries’ resistance to same.  – RS]

Oil Boom, Part II: How and why railroads keep oil train information from communities

By Matt Cortina, Thursday, July 31,2014

Last week’s Boulder Weekly cover story “Oil Boom” covered the proliferation of trains carrying volatile crude oil in outdated oil tanks through the hearts of Longmont, Boulder and Louisville. With industry estimates of an oil boom in the nearby Niobrara shale formation, Boulder County residents can expect that the risk of a potential explosion from an oil train will increase over the next decade.

On the day that story was published, documents were leaked from the state of Washington’s Military Department that showed the U.S. Department of Transportation and U.S. railroad companies like Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) and Union Pacific pressured states to keep information about oil trains concealed from the public.

And so this brief part II to “Oil Boom” will take a look at why railroads are not required to tell citizens about oil trains, why this information needs to be a secret at all and how railroads are now working to enact soft oil transportation standards in order to save billions in revenue.

• • • •

Railroad companies have never been required to tell citizens, municipalities or states the contents of their train cars. Then, in May, the U.S. Department of Transportation ordered railroad companies to disclose to state emergency responders how many trains carrying one million gallons or more of crude oil from the Bakken shale region in North Dakota were coming through that state. This came after nine oil trains, many carrying Bakken crude oil, exploded or derailed in the last 12 months in the U.S. and Canada.

In response, railroad companies asked states to sign a confidentiality request form that would keep that information from being passed on to the public. Some states like California, New Jersey and Virginia signed the agreement. Colorado did not sign the agreement, but did ultimately decide to keep the information confidential.

Conversely, some states, such as Washington, North Dakota and Wisconsin, decided to make the information public. This was not without contention from the rail companies. When Montana said it would do the same, BNSF promptly wrote to the state that it would consider legal action to keep the information hidden.

And in Washington, one state official wrote in an email (obtained by DeSmogBlog), “looks like UP is trying to put the burden on us vis-à-vis information transfer on oil trains,” noting that Union Pacific’s confidentiality request claimed states were requesting information about Bakken crude oil shipments, instead of that railroads are now required to share that information.

All this fuss from railroad companies concerns just one mandate on one very large amount of oil from one of several drilling areas nationwide. And that information doesn’t need to be sent until 30 days after trains pass through the state.

This mandate is effectively irrele vant for Boulder County. Crude oil shipped through the county comes from the Niobrara in Northern Colorado. Transporting this crude, like everything that’s not one million gallons of Bakken crude, does not require notification even though it can still overheat and explode and it is still shipped in outdated, dangerous tanks.

What is relevant is that the Niobrara shale region has been deemed by the oil and gas industry as the “next Bakken” region, so legislation and precedent for that region will affect how crude oil is transported through Boulder County in the future.

Now, railroads can keep the majority of oil train information hidden from the public because they have help from federal and state officials.

For instance, in ordering railroads to share Bakken crude oil train information with local emergency responders, the U.S. Department of Transportation also encouraged states to keep that information from the public in a FAQ that accompanied the emergency order.

Mark Davis, Union Pacific regional media director, says the issue is that railroads could face “security” issues if conservative monthly data about crude oil transportation is made public.

“A lot of that is the historic security concerns that were started following 9/11,” says Davis. “I know that is something that on the security side, that from a federal standpoint, they’re taking a look at and reviewing that process.”

Davis added that he was “not sure” if any actual threats to Union Pacific oil trains have been recorded, but that the security detail on crude oil transport via rail is “massive” and involves national, state and local authorities.

According to Dave Hard, director of the Colorado Division of Emergency Management, the state of Colorado is keeping what little oil train information it does receive hidden from the public not because of security concerns but because it is “business confidential.”

“The original guidance we received from the Department of Transportation […] made it clear that at the time, the federal D.O.T. considered it security sensitive and business confidential,” Hard says.

Hard says his department and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado Department of Public Safety then reviewed the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) standards and agreed that crude oil shipments were still “not subject to public disclosure.”

“They still maintain business confidentiality viewpoints. The state is still honoring that [all oil train information] is not for public disclosure, it is for the purposes of preparing [emergency response personnel],” Hard says.

Railroads are also subject to the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, which requires them to report the transport of hazardous materials to local and state emergency responders. But, for some reason, petroleum products including crude oil are exempt from this mandate.

The bottom line is that railroads are privately owned and not required to notify anyone of the contents of their trains. They are, at least, required to make their transport of volatile materials safe.

The Department of Transportation recently issued safety recommendations for railroads carrying crude oil. These recommendations included updated tank cars, new routing systems and reducing the speed of oil tank cars.

But railroads like BNSF, Union Pacific and CSX said implementing these safety measures would be too costly.

In a presentation to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which will amend and codify the safety standards introduced by the Department of Transportation, presenters for the railroads laid out the costs of implementing moderate safety measures.

First, railroads would pay $2.8 billion for capital improvements to railways across the country. Reducing the speed of trains would call for oil companies to build more tankers to the tune of $1.5 billion in order to maintain supply quotas. Reducing train speed would also cost the railroads themselves about $630 million per year because they’d have to pay for additional crew, fuel costs and “lost productivity of track maintenance workers.”

Train speed and outdated tank cars are by far the most common cause of derailments and explosions. Tank cars are not built for modern crude oil and train speed has many times caused modern volatile crude oil to overheat and explode.

BNSF went on to say that implementing these safety measures would take about four years and would result in “the immediate loss of existing business” and growth would be stifled.

Railroad officials and lobbyists are currently working beside federal lawmakers to carve out the new safety and notification rules for crude oil by rail transport. Initial regulations could come as soon as this year.

 

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Hazmat notification, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Niobrara crude

Oil Boom, Part I: Boulder County’s growing risk from trains hauling undeclared explosive materials

Repost from Boulder Weekly
[Editor – Significant quote: “The library and the post office. A dozen schools. Hundreds of homes. Parks. Every brewery (oh god). Ten gas stations. The wastewater treatment facility. It can all go up in flames at any minute — and that’s just in Longmont. All you’ll hear is a whistle and a boom.”  Along with Part II, this article covers many of the most important issues on the crude by rail boom.  – RS]

Oil Boom, Part I: Boulder County’s growing risk from trains hauling undeclared explosive materials

By Matt Cortina, Thursday, July 24,2014
Wikimedia Commons/Albert Bridge – Many oil tankers are outdated and unsafe

The library and the post office. A dozen schools. Hundreds of homes. Parks. Every brewery (oh god). Ten gas stations. The wastewater treatment facility. It can all go up in flames at any minute — and that’s just in Longmont. All you’ll hear is a whistle and a boom.

The number of trains carrying crude oil and other volatile materials through Boulder County is increasing, and with it comes the increased risk of a catastrophic explosion — from derailments, from outdated storage tanks and from increased rail traffic.

Perhaps the most startling fact is this: The amount of crude oil on U.S. railways has increased 3,500 percent in the last five years — from 325 million gallons in 2009 to 12 billion gallons in 2013. This is because there is more crude oil to ship out of the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and — more relevant to Boulder County — the Niobrara shale formation in northern Colorado and Wyoming. In order to meet this demand, railroads and oil distributors are using outdated tank cars (at least more than half of all oil is shipped in these cars) that are not built to carry the more volatile oil that is found in the region and that can explode — and have exploded — from simply overheating.

And yet railroad companies are not required to tell citizens, local or state governments the contents of their cars. It is proclaimed both a matter of national security and industry competitive secrets.

“Railroads are certainly a private industry,” says Greg Stasinos, of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. “That’s something that they can keep within their rights” — even though those same trains are now affecting a much greater area than the rails they ride on.

In the last 12 months alone, nine trains carrying crude oil derailed or exploded in the U.S. and Canada, including a May 10 derailment outside of Greeley that spilled 65,000 gallons of oil. The worst incident by far was the July 6, 2013 derailment in Lac- Mégantic, Quebec. An unattended 72-car freight train carrying Bakken oil ran loose and exploded in the small town’s center. Forty-two people were killed and half the town’s buildings were destroyed.

In the U.S., a 90-car train derailed in western Alabama last November, shooting flames 300 feet into the sky and emptying nearly all of its 2.9 million gallons of crude oil into a swamp.

The area is still being cleaned.

Fortunately, most of those crashes occurred in unpopulated areas — the vast majority of track is located outside of city centers. However, increased output from the nearby Niobrara shale formation will send more oil trains through Boulder County in coming years — the Oil and Gas Journal (an industry magazine) says the Niobrara is emerging and “companies have been busy leasing land for future drilling. It has been compared by some to the Bakken shale formation farther to the north.”

Two rail companies operate the majority of railroads in Colorado: Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF). Union Pacific does not own rail in Boulder County; instead, they have track heading north out of Denver that bends east through Greeley and up to Cheyenne. BNSF, however, has track that runs northwest from Denver through downtown Louisville and Longmont (and east Boulder) before heading through Fort Collins on its way to Cheyenne.

If a drilling company contracts with BNSF, that cargo — if it’s headed through the Front Range — can only use BNSF rail; that is, it can only come through Boulder County.

Rick Bay

rick_bay_photo_longmont.jpg
Tracks running next to residential neighborhoods in Old Town Longmont.

Between four and 10 trains carrying Niobrara crude oil will pass through Colorado every week, says Andy Williams of BNSF. Many of those oil trains will pass along the track in Boulder County, according to Boulder Deputy Fire Chief Mike Calderazzo. (A map of Colorado track rights shows that the only full BNSF track in and out of the state runs north and south, including the stretch through Boulder County.) Routes vary greatly, Williams says, depending on where the shipper directs BNSF to deliver materials. Trains that carry crude oil, however, are likely coming from a Niobrara drilling site to a refinery on the Gulf Coast (Colorado is home to only one crude oil refinery, in Commerce City).

It should be noted that railroads, as common carriers, are required under federal law to ship hazardous materials like crude oil. They do not own many of the tank cars (less than 1 percent, according to the Association of American Railroads), or their contents, but they are responsible for its safetransport.

Williams says that BNSF does not make information available to the public about what trains are carrying and where they are going. They do, on occasion, notify local emergency responders like Calderazzo, the Boulder Fire Department and local hazardous materials teams when very large shipments of volatile materials are being transported through the county. Often these notifications come days or weeks after an oil train has passed through the area, or not at all.

“Railroads are very good at maintaining manifests so they know exactly what’s in each car, but I can’t say we receive any information letting us know what goes through each week,” says Mike Selan, Longmont Hazardous Materials Inspector.

“A lot of it is protected for national security reasons,” Calderazzo says. “They’re pretty powerful folks and they can withhold information from regular callers, but they do notify us that there are substantial amounts of crude oil coming through the county.”

In fact, railroads have only one requirement when it comes to notifying state and local government of the trans portation of hazardous materials. It’s a recent emergency order from the U.S. Department of Transportation that calls for railroads to notify state emergency response commissions when they are transporting more than one million gallons of Bakken crude oil. When other crude oil or hazardous materials are transported — as is mostly the case in Boulder County — emergency officials need not be told. And if they are told, that information is confidential and cannot be shared with the public.

“It is sensitive, confidential information,” says Amy Danzl, an emergency management specialist with the Boulder Office of Emergency Management. “We get them straight from BNSF or UP. They consider it trade secret stuff.”

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, not the state emergency management office, manages those notifications. Stasinos, who serves as deputy director of the emergency response division at the state health department, says both Union Pacific and BNSF have sent notifications to the state saying they do not ship Bakken crude oil in Colorado yet.

So the main, and often only, resource that first responders have to prepare for the derailment of an oil train is something called a commodity flow study. These studies are provided by the railroad quarterly or annually upon request of local emergency response teams and list all the materials that have been transported by the company through a specific area in the last year.

Thus, emergency teams can prepare generally for the types of hazardous materials they might encounter in a spill or derailment, but they can’t know beforehand when a train carrying those materials is coming through town.

“We make sure our hazmat teams monitor those so they know generally what comes through,” Danzl says. “So it’s not a day-to-day, here’s what’s coming through the county, but it is, here’s what happened over the last 12 months and that allows us to analyze that and plan accordingly so we can make sure our response capabilities are adequate.”

Those commodity flow studies have indicated to Boulder and Longmont emergency response personnel that crude oil and the cars they’re transported in, although not from the Bakken region, are still major concerns.

“The worst thing that could happen is a crude oil leak and a fire in a derailment,” Calderazzo says. “Then we have to figure out what we do with the smoke, people would have real problems with that, then we need to worry about where the leak is going.

“We look at the county and we look at sensitive environmental areas and sensitive population areas. We haven’t had any incidents in the county [so far] and I don’t really believe we’re under any additional risk other than if it’s true that crude is flowing in greater quantities.”

If the 3,500 percent increase in oil shipments nationally since 2009 and the industry quotes of gold rush-like Niobrara output aren’t enough, Union Pacific’s Mark Davis says of the possibility of increase in northern Colorado oil transportation: “Oh, definitely.” (Then, less succinctly, “We have Niobrara crude moving on us. There’s a couple plants or production facilities that are looking to come online in your neck of the woods.”) The dangerous part of all of this does not lay solely in the fact that the greatest ever quantity of crude oil is now being shipped throughout the country. Instead, perhaps the greatest reason for concern is what this oil is being shipped in.

When you see a train come through town, you’re likely to see one of several car types: crates used to ship commercial goods, racks used to transport cars and big industrial parts, empty beds, etc. Crude oil and other hazardous materials are shipped in a big pressurized black cylinder that dips slightly in the middle, on the top, where the release valve is.

Newer models of this tank are built to carry crude oil, specifically oil from the Bakken and emerging regions like our Niobrara crude, which has been said to be more volatile than oil that was transported in the past. The problem is, the majority of tanks used are the old models (called the DOT- 111), and many people (even the railroad companies) are not confident it is safe to transport this newer breed of crude oil in them.

“The older crude oil tanks were designed for crude oil that did not have a lot of pressure — a lot of vapor dissolved in it,” Calderazzo says. “And I’m told the newer crude, the stuff that’s coming out from fracking, has dissolved gas in it, so the real problem is over-pressurization of tanks. They go down the tracks and overheat.” And then explode.

Eddie Scher, communications director for nonprofit group Forest Ethics, says communities ultimately bear the risk for rail and oil companies who make money sending crude oil in unsafe tanks through population zones.

“If the practice is too dangerous to do then don’t do it,” Scher says. “[The DOT-111] is an antiquated design, it doesn’t protect in derailment, it’s likely to puncture, it doesn’t hold pressure so it releases into the atmosphere. These things are unsafe and shouldn’t be carrying oil of any kind.”

The Department of Transportation urged carriers and oil companies to stop use of DOT-111 cars immediately in May. Out of a total 335,000 tank cars in use across the country, about 228,000 — or two out of every three — are DOT-111 cars, according to the Association of American Railroads.

Williams says that although BNSF does not own the current tanks, they are working to build new, safer tanks to transport crude oil or to retrofit the dangerous old tanks. Every new tank car built since late 2011 has new design features like thicker walls, a high capacity pressure release valve and thermal protection.

But outdated tanks are not the only way in which a train carrying crude oil can cause significant damage to communities. Unprompted derailments, improper exchanges of tanks at depots, leaks, and collisions with other trains and structures have all led to serious explosions within the last 12 months. The issue is also not just the potential harm to people, but previous oil train derailments have caused negative environmental impacts, long-term damage to local infastructure and structural damage. And so adding more oil trains to the rails, specifically in Boulder County where track is narrow and frequently passes through population zones, is cause for concern.

Derailments, spills, leaks and explosions have a much wider impact area than just the immediate vicinity of the railroad (of which, unfortunately, the Quebec derailment was proof). Forest Ethics even put together a map of zones that would be impacted by a derailment and explosion (available at www.explosive-crude-by-rail.org). The map combines data from research, information from railroads and eyewitness accounts with Department of Transportation evacuation areas to create a “blast zone,” or a one-mile area on either side of a track that could experience significant damage from an oil train catastrophe.

This “blast zone” follows the BNSF track in Boulder County. The track parallels Main Street in Longmont before hooking southwest along Foothills Parkway toward Boulder. It breaks sharply east when it gets to about 28th and Arapahoe in

Boulder, then slowly crooks south through downtown Louisville, just scraping the edge of Lafayette. Again, the Department of Transportation views anything within a mile on either side of that route as a hazardous area should a derailment occur.

Planning to deal with an unknown material at an unknown time that could affect an unknown amount of people with an unknown amount of state or rail support cannot be easy. Boulder County, City of Boulder and City of Longmont officials all say they have been trained on how to deal with a variety of hazmat situations, but that they can’t prepare for everything. In fact, many local officials were still unclear about who would notify them in the case of a crude oil disaster and if crude oil was even being transported in the area.

“We can’t plan for every single [situation],” Calderazzo says.

“One tank car, depending on the product, can be a pretty big deal. Take chlorine. Chlorine, if it’s the anhydrous kind, can take just one tank car [to create major damage]. So we look at what are the most cars coming through — we only need [that information] on an annual basis. We try to go with, well, if crude oil is the big commodity then what would we do in terms of a risk assessment of crude oil?” There are regulations on what can and cannot be transported via rail and how rail companies must mark cars that contain hazardous materials. For instance, train cars carrying crude oil will have the number 1267, called a UN number (based on UN standards) on all four sides of the car and a diamond shaped warning label. Cars containing chlorine will have the number 1017, while those with liquefied petroleum gas will have the number 1075. Other hazardous materials that are transported in the area like molten sulfur, ethanol, propionic acid and diesel also have corresponding numbers available on the Department of Transportation website. (Williams says BNSF “typically [does] not operate ethanol trains in Colorado.”) Stasinos says that, at the state emergency level, training for spills with Bakken or Niobrara crude oil is the same as it is for other types of oil spills, even though it is likely more volatile than other crude oil. This training has been in place for more than two decades, he says.

That training includes a hazmat certification program run by the state that all local emergency personnel in Boulder County are required to take. Emergency personnel are drilled on how to treat all types of rail cars, learning what to do if there’s a leak, how to contain it, what to do if there’s a fire, projection modeling and how to protect people in the “blast zone.”

Oil train safety is also on the mind of state and national officials — the U.S. Fire Administration sent out a one-sheet “Coffee Break Training” entitled “Bakken Crude in Transportation” last month, while the EPA’s latest newsletter outlines the rise and risk of transporting crude oil. The newsletter heralds the recent Department of Transportation notification requirement as a step to improved community safety and encourages rail carriers to test all crude oil to determine its volatility class before shipping it.

Even BNSF is now offering three-day classes to local emergency responders on how to deal with crude oil disasters. BNSF runs free railroad hazmat response training to about 4,000 local emergency responders every year in communities across their network.

Still, advocates seeking to bring attention to the danger of oil trains say communities shouldn’t have to deal with the risk of catastrophe from a derailment. Scher says the choice of transporting oil via train or via pipeline — of which both have significant safety issues — or via any other method is a “false choice.”

“The idea that the oil has to be moved and so somebody needs to be forced to take the risk is wrongheaded,” Scher says. “It’s not something we should have to accept. We should not be accepting this massive rise of dangerous trains through our population centers. There are regulations under review at the White House; we want those to be strong. And one thing we believe is communities should have the right to say no to these trains.”