DAVIS ENTERPRISE COLUMN: Benicia council calls a timeout on oil train issue

Repost from the Davis Enterprise FORUM

Benicia council calls a timeout on oil train issue

Special to the Enterprise by Elizabeth Lasensky, April 24, 2016

On Tuesday night, a majority of the Benicia City Council voted to allow the Valero refinery a continuance on hearings on its oil train project request. Valero wants the delay to petition the federal Surface Transportation Board for clarification on federal pre-emption and indirect pre-emption of its project.

Although Valero is an oil refinery, now calling itself a “shipper,” the crude oil will be traveling in rail cars on Union Pacific tracks. However, the project itself will be on Valero property within the city of Benicia.

The Surface Transportation Board’s website states this about its oversight:

“The agency has jurisdiction over railroad rate and service issues and rail restructuring transactions (mergers, line sales, line construction and line abandonments); certain trucking company, moving van and non-contiguous ocean shipping company rate matters; certain intercity passenger bus company structure, financial and operational matters; and rates and services of certain pipelines not regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“The agency has authority to investigate rail service matters of regional and national significance.”

Federal pre-emption dates to the founding of the railroads. Only the federal government has regulatory authority over railroads. Cities and states cannot create regulations regarding railroads.

The majority of the Benicia City Council members commented that they did not have enough information on pre-emption to move forward with a vote on the environmental impact report and the use permit. Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson attempted to point out that there is sufficient evidence to know how the STB would rule and that the council should move forward. In her view, there are other issues and projects on which city staff need to spend time.

By making this decision, the council chose to ignore three years of work and a unanimous opposition decision by its own Planning Commission; public comments by many of their own residents; countless hours of staff time; testimony by up- and down-rail elected officials, agencies and citizens; comments and recommendations by experts from various air quality boards; opinions by lawyers from several nonprofit agencies; and expert comments from the office of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Based on their questions and comments, it was apparent that those council members had not read the EIR and the subsequent public comments. Rather, they chose to accept the opinion of the city’s contract attorney in lieu of doing their homework.

By allowing Valero this delay to submit a petition to the Surface Transportation Board, the council has opened the door to abdicating its authority to determine its own land-use policy within the city boundaries. The EIR likely will become stale and all the work that went into that document might need to be redone. Further, any opinion offered by the STB still could be challenged in court.

Whether or not an opinion has been made by the STB, the Benicia City Council will reconvene hearings on Sept. 21. Two members insist they must have this information to make a decision and want to reconsider what to do if the decision is not returned by this date.

Up- and down-rail communities, agencies and activists will be closely following the process.

— Elizabeth Lasensky is a Davis resident and oil train activist.

SACRAMENTO BEE: Northern California towns lack resources to handle oil train fires, spills

Repost from the Sacramento Bee

Northern California towns lack resources to handle oil train fires, spills

By Jane Braxton Little, April 23, 2016 7:49 AM

HIGHLIGHTS
• Lassen County town has no reliable water supply for firefighting
• Crude oil transport by rail grew 1,700 percent in 2015
• Federal government providing hands-on response training

A BNSF train carrying dozens of tank cars crosses an 80-year-old trestle heading south to Union Pacific Railroad tracks through the Feather River Canyon.
A BNSF train carrying dozens of tank cars crosses an 80-year-old trestle heading south to Union Pacific Railroad tracks through the Feather River Canyon. Jane Braxton Little

WESTWOOD – BNSF Railway trains carrying crude oil and other hazardous materials rumble through this Lassen County community every day – past homes, churches and a scant block from the downtown commercial center.

If a tank car were to derail and explode, Westwood Fire Chief Forest Duerksen would take the only action he’s equipped for: Evacuation. Of all 1,000 residents.

Westwood Fire Chief Forest Duerksen CQ stands next to the BNSF Railway tracks, a stone’s throw from the fire station in this Lassen County community.
Westwood Fire Chief Forest Duerksen CQ stands next to the BNSF Railway tracks, a stone’s throw from the fire station in this Lassen County community. Jane Braxton Little

Westwood has no consistent source of water, and the closest trailers with enough foam to extinguish a large blaze are a full four hours away, he said: “We’d just have to get everybody out and go from there.”

Rural officials like Duerksen have been worried for decades about the chlorine, ammonia, propane and crude oil transported through their northern California communities by BNSF and Union Pacific Railroad. But a dramatic surge in production in oil fields in the Midwest and Canada increased the volume from about 10,000 railroad tank cars in 2008 to nearly half a million in 2014. In 2015, the U.S. Energy Information Agency reported a 1,700 percent increase in crude oil transportation by rail.

That’s slowed significantly in the last year, a change generally attributed to a drop in the price of oil. But emergency responders worry that the volume will swell again when crude oil prices rise. In recent weeks, many have observed an increase in the number of tank cars on trains running south toward Sacramento and San Francisco.

That could be a precursor to the half-mile long oil trains planned for travel through Northern California to Benicia. Valero Refining Co. has proposed building a rail loading station that would allow importing oil on two 50-car trains a day to the city 40 miles northeast of San Francisco.

The trains would run through Roseville, downtown Sacramento, West Sacramento, downtown Davis, Dixon and other cities. East of Roseville, the route is uncertain. Trains could arrive via Donner Summit, Feather River Canyon, or through the Shasta and Redding areas.

WE’D JUST HAVE TO GET EVERYBODY OUT AND GO FROM THERE.
Westwood Fire Chief Forest Duerksen

On Tuesday, the Benicia City Council postponed until September a decision on Valero’s appeal of a February planning commission recommendation that unanimously rejected the proposal.

Accidents have mounted with the increase in the number of trains transporting oil around the country. A 2013 oil train explosion in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, haunts firefighters across the continent. The fire and detonation of multiple tank cars carrying Bakken crude oil killed 47 people and destroyed dozens of buildings.

No one was hurt in 2014, when 11 cars derailed on Union Pacific tracks in the Feather River Canyon, spilling corn down a hillside above the river that supplies drinking water to millions of people as far south as Los Angeles. The cars could easily have been carrying crude oil, with substantial environmental consequences far beyond the Feather River, said Jerry Sipe, director of Plumas County’s Office of Emergency Services.

“We were lucky,” he said.

In 2015 there were 574 railway “incidents” involving hazardous materials while in transport, according to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Of these, 114 were in California, and three in Roseville, site of a large rail yard. Most were minor, and none involved fatalities.

Officials in California’s up-rail cities, including Sacramento, have raised objections to plans to expand oil train traffic, saying not enough attention is being given to safety concerns. But these large urban jurisdictions are far better equipped to respond to incidents than their counterparts in rural Northern California, where train tracks pass through some of the state’s roughest terrain.

In these rural areas, the people responding first to oil spills and accidents are generally local fire departments like Duerksen’s, one of the nation’s 20,000 all-volunteer fire organizations. Among the small rural communities along BNSF’s tracks through Northern California, the Westwood Fire Department is one of the better equipped for a hazardous materials accident.

Duerksen took advantage of a BNSF program at the railroad industry’s training and research center in Pueblo, Colo. That gave him hands-on experience in using water and foam on a burning railcar, and taught him advanced techniques for containing spills.

1,700 percent
Increase in crude oil transportation by rail in 2015

Since then, several volunteer firefighters from Westwood and communities along the BNSF line have attended the training. Quincy and other fire departments along the Union Pacific line have also sent volunteers to Pueblo.

Plumas County was recently awarded a grant to acquire an oil spill trailer with firefighting foam and 1,200 feet of “hard booms,” which can contain large quantities of hazardous materials. Sipe said it will be positioned along Highway 70 at Rogers Flat for quick deployment in the Feather River Canyon, where aging trestles and sharp curves make it among the most accident-prone rail lines in the state.

“We’re better protected now than a year ago,” Sipe said.

Despite the improvements, many fire departments remain untrained and poorly equipped. In Greenville, where the BNSF line passes directly through residential and commercial areas, none of the 25 volunteers has been to the oil-spill training in Pueblo, said Chris Gallagher, general manager of the Indian Valley Community Services District, which oversees the fire department. Four of the department’s 10 pieces of equipment have been deemed inoperable by the California Highway Patrol, he said.

“We definitely need some help,” said Gallagher.

That could come through an innovative program taking the Pueblo emergency response training on the road. Rail safety experts will travel to communities around the country providing hands-on accident preparedness to firefighters. Funded by a $2.4 million award from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the mobile training program is expected to train about 18,000 first responders from remote rural communities in 2016.

The award is part of a $5.9 million grant to provide hazardous materials training for volunteer or remote emergency responders. Plumas County has already requested the mobile training, Sipe said.

BNSF strongly supports these programs, said Lena Kent, a company spokeswoman. Last year alone it trained 10,000 first responders, 1,500 of them in California.

Duerksen, the Westwood fire chief, said he feels much safer than he did two years ago, when the increase in oil-train traffic had emergency responders on edge. “We’re better trained and better prepared now,” he said.

But not everyone is content with the increased training and beefed-up emergency response equipment. Larry Bradshaw, a retired therapist and community activist in Westwood, is advocating for additional safety requirements for BNSF. He wants to see a high-risk rail designation extended from Greenville to Westwood, imposing a 45 mph maximum speed and increasing the number of inspections.

“We’re not prepared at all. There’s no way we can respond to a spill. The only thing we can do is evacuate,” Bradshaw said.

SF CHRON LETTERS: Deny the Permit | Abandon the crude-by-rail project

Repost from the San Francisco Chronicle

SFChron_logoDeny the permit

By Jan Curtis, Palo Alto, Apr 22, 2016

Thank you for “Stopping oil trains is right thing for Benicia and planet” (Editorial, April 15). I am thankful some people are paying attention. Oil trains ought not to be on tracks going through populated areas. I sincerely hope the City Council of Benicia will deny the permit.

Jan Curtis, Palo Alto 

Abandon the crude-by-rail project

By Allen Carroll, San Jose, Apr 23, 2016

Regarding “Stopping oil trains is right thing for Benicia and planet” (Editorial, April 15): On Tuesday evening, the Benicia’s City Council delayed its decision on permitting the Valero refinery to add a terminal for crude-by-rail shipments. Three council members are hoping for clarification of certain legal niceties via an opinion from the federal Surface Transportation Board. This is in spite of assurances from California Attorney General Harris that the council has the requisite authority, and needs nothing from the board.

Some comments expressed at Monday evening’s council session supported the idea that Valero has been a good corporate citizen, and therefore the project should be approved. But circumstances have changed. Although it can be said that we, whether residents of Benicia or not, owe our prosperity in large measure to the clever exploitation of fossil fuels, it does not follow that we owe our future to it. Quite the opposite: With each passing month, as global temperature records are repeatedly set and again broken, we find that our former friend begins to resemble a dope pusher.

We must use the resources we have to rebuild our energy infrastructure to be more sustainable. In the interest of all, and the Surface Transportation Board notwithstanding, Valero should abandon this project.

Allen Carroll, San Jose

Earthjustice map: Crude-by-rail Across America

Repost from Earthjustice.org
[Editor: I’m reposting this map today – it was recently updated and still highly relevant.  Earthjustice’s map shows Major Crude-by-Rail Accidents since 2012 (Red Symbols) and communities opposing Crude-by-Rail (Green Symbols).  – RS]

More crude oil was spilled in U.S. rail incidents in 2013, than was spilled in the nearly four decades since the federal government began collecting data on such spills.

Since late 2012, as hydraulic fracturing and tar sands drilling created a glut of oil, the industry has scrambled to transport the fossil fuel from drill sites to the east and west coasts, where it can potentially be shipped overseas to more lucrative markets.

The increase in oil rail traffic, however, has not been matched with increased regulatory scrutiny. Oil trains are not subject to the same strict routing requirements placed on other hazardous materials; trains carrying explosive crude are permitted to pass directly through cities—with tragic results. A train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed in the Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic on July 6, 2013, killing 47 people in the small community.

In the absence of more protective regulations, communities across the country are beginning to take matters in their own hands.

Legal Cases

Earthjustice represents groups across the country, fighting for protections from crude-by-rail:

FAQs: About Crude-By-Rail

Q. What are DOT-111s?

DOT-111s are rail cars designed to carry liquids, including crude oil, and have been in service in North America for several decades. They are prone to punctures, oil spills, fires and explosions and lack safety features required for shipping other poisonous and toxic liquids. As crude production in the United States has surged exponentially in recent years, these outdated rail cars have been used to transport the crude oil throughout the country.

The U.S. and Canadian government recognized decades ago that the DOT-111s were unsafe for carrying hazardous materials, finding that the chance of a “breach” (i.e., loss of contents, potentially leading to an explosion) is over 50% in some derailment scenarios.

U.S. and Canadian safety investigators have repeatedly found that DOT-111s are unsafe and recommended that they not be used for explosive or hazardous materials, including crude oil; however, the U.S. government’s proposal to phase out these rail cars fails to take sufficient or immediate action to protect the public.

Q. What is Bakken crude oil?

Bakken crude refers to oil from the Bakken shale formation which is primarily in North Dakota, where production has skyrocketed in recent years due to the availability of newer hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) techniques. The increase in the nation’s output of crude oil in 2013, mostly attributable to Bakken production, was the largest in the nation’s history.

Bakken crude is highly flammable, much more so than some crude oils. Today, Bakken crude moves in “unit trains” of up to 120 rail cars, as long as a mile and a half, often made up of unsafe DOT-111s.

Q. Are there alternative tank cars available?

Transporting Bakken crude by rail is risky under the best of scenarios because of its flammability. But legacy DOT-111s represent the worst possible option. All new tank cars built since October 2011 have additional some safety features that reduce the risk of spilled oil by 75%. Even so, safety investigators, the Department of Transportation, and the railroad industry believe tank cars need to be made even safer. Some companies are already producing the next-generation rail cars that are 85% more crashworthy than the DOT 111s. Petitioners support the safest alternatives available, and expect that the ongoing rulemaking process will phase out all unsafe cars.

In the meantime, an emergency prohibition on shipping Bakken crude in DOT-111s—which virtually everyone acknowledges is unreasonably dangerous—is required immediately. (Read about the formal legal petition filed on July 15, 2014.)

Q. What steps have U.S. and Canadian governments taken?

The U.S. government recognizes that Bakken crude oil should not be shipped in DOT 111 tank cars due to the risks, but has done shockingly little to limit their use.

In May 2014, the DOT issued a safety alert recommending—but not requiring—shippers to use the safest tank cars in their fleets for shipments of Bakken crude and to avoid using DOT 111 cars. Canada, in contrast, responded to the Lac Mégantic disaster with more robust action. It required the immediate phase-out of some DOT-111s, a longer phase-out of the remainder, and the railroads imposed a surcharge on their use to ship crude oil in the meantime.

In the absence of similar standards in the U.S., the inevitable result will be that newer, safer cars will be used to ship crude in Canada—while the U.S. fleet will end up with the most dangerous tank cars.