All posts by Roger Straw

Editor, owner, publisher of The Benicia Independent

Rail company ends shipping of crude oil in Maine & New Hampshire

Repost from The Portland Press Herald
[Editor:  Interesting summary of various effects on rail companies following the Lac-Mégantic disaster.  – RS]

Irving ends rail shipping of crude oil through Maine

The cutback is due to a drop in global demand and is not related to the Lac-Megantic rail disaster, the firm says.
By Tom Bell, July 15, 2015

Irving Oil has stopped shipping crude oil on railroads through Maine and has no plans to revive the practice.

The Canadian company, which operates an oil refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, confirmed the policy change in a June 30 email to the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting.

The change means there will be no more oil shipments though New Hampshire and southern and central Maine on Pan Am Railways. In addition, there will be no more oil shipments on the Eastern Maine Railway, which connects with Pan Am at Mattawamkeag and continues through Washington County to the Canadian border.

The cutback is because of global oil-supply-and-demand issues and is not related to the fallout from the Lac-Megantic rail disaster, Mark Sherman, Irving’s chief operating officer, told the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting. The U.S. demand for Canadian-produced petroleum products has declined in the wake of an oversupply of oil from domestic and Mideast sources.

In 2012, Maine railroads shipped 5.2 million barrels of crude oil, but shipments declined sharply after the July 6, 2013 accident in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, when an unattended 74-car freight train carrying Bakken crude oil rolled and derailed, resulting in a fire and explosion that killed 47 people.

The railroad involved in the disaster, the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, never carried oil again and went bankrupt. Its successor, the Central Maine & Quebec Railway, also has never carried oil because of political opposition in Lac-Megantic.

Pan Am, whose trains travel through Portland, carried just 15,545 barrels of oil in all of 2014, according to records the company filed with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. In 2015, Pan Am has carried 37,128 barrels. All those shipments occurred in February, the last month the railroad delivered oil to the Irving refinery, according to the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting.

An official with Pan Am could not immediately be reached for comment.

John Giles, CEO of Central Maine & Quebec Railway, had been seeking an agreement with Lac-Megantic officials to restart oil train shipments through the Canadian town. On Tuesday, Giles said the railroad does not need to carry oil to be profitable.

“I was never counting on moving crude oil in the first place,” Giles said.

Giles said his railroad spent $10 million to upgrade the rail line last year and is spending $6 million this year, with about half of that investment in Maine.

An investigation after the Lac-Megantic accident found that the tank-car labels understated the flammability of the oil. Twenty-five companies have offered a total of $431 million (Canadian) to settle lawsuits arising out of the disaster. Irving Oil’s contribution is $75 million. The settlement is being considered by U.S. and Canadian courts.

2015 Stop Oil Trains Week of Action Roundup

Repost from ForestEthics
[Editor:  Nice summary here.  Lots more photos and details at ForestEthics.org and on Facebook and Flicker.  ALSO, see excellent coverage onTar Sands Solutions Network: 100 Actions, 5,000 people: Biggest oil trains protest in history.  – RS]

2015 Stop Oil Trains Week of Action Roundup

'Lions Park, Mount Vernon.  July 9, 2015. (Photo/Wendelin Dunlap) Images provided by Alex Ramel'
Lions Park, Mount Vernon. July 9, 2015. (Photo/Wendelin Dunlap) Images provided by Alex Ramel — at Lions Park.

The 2015 Stop Oil Trains week of action marked the second anniversary of the fatal Lac-Mégantic, Quebec oil train disaster. This year 5,000 citizens gathered in 100 cities and towns across the US and Canada to demand a ban on these dirty, exploding trains.

To see ALL pictures from the week of action check out our Flickr Group – http://bit.ly/Flickr_StopOilTrain

Phillips 66 Santa Maria Refiney project protest. San Luis Obispo, CA. July 11, 2015. Keynote speakers: San Luis Obispo Mayor Jan Marx; Santa Barbara County Supervisor Salud Carbajal (Photo/Andrew Christie) — in San Luis Obispo, California.

Highlights

ForestEthics's photo.
In Ventura, California.

Highlights from the week of action are too numerous to count. National press coverage included pieces in MSNBCDemocracy NowEcoWatch, The Hill, AP, & VICE – alongside dozens upon dozens of local print, TV, and radio pieces.

In Lac-Mégantic, the week started with a beautiful, bold, and somber march that drew hundreds of people to the tracks. The week continued with a banner hang and guerrilla projection actions in California, powerful infrastructure blockades in New York and Oregon, creative rallies in Albany, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Richmond (VA), Minneapolis, and DC – just to name a few. Then this weekend, action picked up with a jazz funeral procession in Philadelphia and a die-in in Seattle. On Saturday, thousands attended coordinated protests across California – including rallies that drew hundreds each in San Luis Obispo, Richmond, Los Angeles and San Jose – to call on decision makers across the state to reject new oil train infrastructure proposals and shut down existing operations. There are countless more to name, and every action had an impact, from gatherings of 5 to 500. No matter where or how you participated, you were a part of something extraordinary.

'Oil Train Die In.  As the gates to Safeco Field opened for the Mariners vs. Angels game, thousands of fans streamed past a rally held near Century Link Field in protest of oil trains that pass the stadiums on a daily basis. Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant spoke at the rally and joined the demonstration as they marched from Century Link to Safeco in a silent procession holding photos and names of the 47 people who died in Lac-Mégantic Quebec during an oil train explosion in 2013. Safeco Field and Century Link Field both sit within 200 yards of a rail line that sees several trains pulling the same Baaken Crude that exploded in Lac-Mégantic. The same rails carry Baaken laden trains through a tunnel that sit directly beneath downtown Seattle, including the King County Administration Building, Benaroya Hall, and Pike Place Market, not to mention several hotels and businesses and the thousands of people downtown at any given moment. Write Up on The Dignity Virus thedignityvirus.com/2015/07/11/activists-stage-die-in-in-... (Photo/Jeff Snyder) Images provided by Carlo Voli.'
OIL TRAIN DIE IN – As the gates to Safeco Field opened for the Mariners vs. Angels game, thousands of fans streamed past a rally held near Century Link Field in protest of oil trains that pass the stadiums on a daily basis. Seattle City Council Member Kshama Sawant spoke at the rally and joined the demonstration as they marched from Century Link to Safeco in a silent procession holding photos and names of the 47 people who died in Lac-Mégantic Quebec during an oil train explosion in 2013…. Safeco Field and Century Link Field both sit within 200 yards of a rail line that sees several trains pulling the same Baaken Crude that exploded in Lac-Mégantic. The same rails carry Baaken laden trains through a tunnel that sit directly beneath downtown Seattle, including the King County Administration Building, Benaroya Hall, and Pike Place Market, not to mention several hotels and businesses and the thousands of people downtown at any given moment. Write Up on The Dignity Virus thedignityvirus.com/2015/07/11/activists-stage-die-in-in-… (Photo/Jeff Snyder) Images provided by Carlo Voli.’

CCST Report: Fracking pollution poses major risks

[Editor:  Contrasting reports on a recent California Council on Science and Technology report.  – RS]

Repost from The Center for Biological Diversity

New Study: Fracking Pollution Poses Major Threat to California’s Air, Water

Scientists’ Warnings Come Too Late to Shape State’s Weak Fracking Regulations

July 15, 2015

SACRAMENTO, Calif.— A study released today by the California Council on Science and Technology warns that fracking and other oil extraction techniques emit dangerous air pollution and threaten to contaminate California’s drinking water supplies. Millions of Californians live near active oil and gas wells, which exposes them to the air pollutants indentified in the report.

The troubling findings come a week after Gov. Jerry Brown’s oil officials finalized new fracking regulations that do little to address such public health and water pollution risks.

“This disturbing study exposes fatal flaws in Gov. Brown’s weak fracking rules,” said Hollin Kretzmann of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Oil companies are fouling the air we breathe and using toxic chemicals that endanger our dwindling drinking water. The millions of people near these polluting wells need an immediate halt to fracking and other dangerous oil company practices.”

Last week the state’s Department of Conservation began implementing new fracking regulations and finalized an assessment of fracking’s health and environmental risks, even though the science council had not finished evaluating fracking’s dangers. The science council is an independent, nonprofit organization that advises California officials on policy issues.

Today’s report concludes that fracking in California happens at unusually shallow depths, dangerously close to underground drinking water supplies, with unusually high chemical concentrations. That poses a serious threat to aquifers during the worst drought in California history.

Air pollution is also a major concern. In the Los Angeles area, the report identifies 1.7 million people — and hundreds of daycare facilities, schools and retirement homes — within one mile of an active oil or gas well. Atmospheric concentrations of pollutants near these oil production sites “can present risks to human health,” the study says.

But Gov. Brown’s new fracking regulations do not address deadly air pollutants like particulate matter and air toxic chemicals. A recent Center analysis found that oil companies engaged in extreme oil production methods have used millions of pounds of air toxics in the Los Angeles Basin.

Among the science council’s other disturbing findings:

  • California places no limits on how close oil and gas wells can be to homes, schools or daycare facilities, which can expose people to dangerous air pollution from fracking and other oil extraction procedures.
  • Serious concerns are raised over the oil industry’s disposal of fracking waste fluid and produced water into open pits and the use of oil waste fluid to irrigate crops.
  • The health and water pollution impacts of fracking chemicals that could be present in oil waste that’s dumped into open pits “would be extremely difficult to predict, because there are so many possible chemicals, and the environmental profiles of many of them are unmeasured.”
  • Wildlife habitat can be fragmented or lost because of fracking and other oil development – and fracking-related oil development in California “coincides with ecologically sensitive areas” in Kern and Ventura Counties.
  • Confirmation that many oil industry wastewater injection wells are close to active faults — a practice has triggered earthquakes in other states. The science council identified more than 1,000 active injection wells within 1.5 miles of a mapped active fault — and more than 150 are within 656 feet.

“These troubling findings send a clear message to Gov. Brown that it’s time to ban fracking and rein in our state’s out-of-control oil industry,” Kretzmann said. “California should follow the example set by New York, which wisely banned fracking after health experts there concluded this toxic technique was just too dangerous.”

Contact: Clare Lakewood, (510) 844-7121, clakewood@biologicaldiversity.org
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 900,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Repost from Public News Service

Report: Fracking Risk to CA is Aquifer Contamination, Not Quakes

By Suzanne Potter, July 10, 2015
PHOTO: A hydraulic fracturing well in Kern County. The safety of fracking is the subject of a new report. Photo credit: California Council on Science and Technology.
PHOTO: A hydraulic fracturing well in Kern County. The safety of fracking is the subject of a new report. Photo credit: California Council on Science and Technology.

SACRAMENTO, Calif – A new report says hydraulic fracturing can contaminate groundwater when the excess water is not properly disposed of, but is not linked to earthquakes in California.

In January, a study by the Seismological Society of America linked a series of earthquakes in Ohio to fracking, and there have been similar claims in other states as well.

The new study released Thursday comes from the California Council on Science and Technology and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Jane Long, the lead scientific researcher, says hydraulic fracturing poses some safety concerns but they’re manageable.

“A lot of things people were concerned about are things that are not as big a problem as they think they are,” says Long. “And some of the practices are things that need to change and need more attention.”

The report says the oil companies should phase out percolation ponds used to dispose of excess water because toxic fracking chemicals can get into the aquifer. And it recommends companies put aside about a third of the chemicals currently in use because there’s not enough data about them.

The Center for Biological Diversity points to the finding that oil operations can pollute the air in their immediate vicinity. Long is optimistic that the report will spur further reforms.

“Some of them are going to be recommendations that will be very easy to act on right away and I think they will be acted on and some of them are going to require some process,” she says.

The report was required by the 2013 passage of State Senate Bill 4, which established new safety measures for fracking, rules that went into effect on July 1.

 

Arrests in Martinez as Californians demonstrate against oil trains

Repost from Bay Area Indymedia
[This belated report has nothing new on the arrests on our bridge, but it shows some good pics of the Stop Oil Trains protest in San Jose.  – RS]

Arrests in Martinez as Californians demonstrate against oil trains

By R. Robertson , Jul 14th, 2015 6:22 PM
Police arrested four Bay Area protesters after they suspended themselves from the Benicia-Martinez railroad bridge to hang a banner protesting oil trains. Photos here are of the protest in San Jose, California. Both protests were part of a week of action against oil trains.
Police arrested four Bay Area protesters after they suspended themselves from the Benicia-Martinez railroad bridge to hang a banner protesting oil trains last week.
800_350sanjosebeststn.jpg original image ( 3264x2448)
Raging Grannies – NO MORE EXPLODING OIL TRAINS!

Elsewhere in California, Raging Grannies in Davis and San Jose enlivened protests there singing out, ”No more exploding trains”.

Oil trains go through almost every US state, disproportionately over poorer American communities. The crude oil moving by train is more toxic, explosive, and carbon intensive than conventional oil. It puts millions of Americans and Canadians at risk. Last week there were more than 80 protests and educational events in North America about this danger.

The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster happened July 6, 2013, when a freight train carrying Bakken formation crude oil rolled downhill and derailed, resulting in the fire and explosion of multiple tank cars. Forty-seven people died and many others injured. Last week’s events were timed to coincide with the anniversary of that catastrophe.