LATEST DERAILMENTS: A 3rd in Selkirk Railyard in less than 2 months, and 1 in Arkansas

[Editor: This is the 3rd derailment in the Selkirk Railyard since June 24.  See LATEST DERAILMENTS: 2 in Selkirk NY in a week, another same day in Selkirk, Manitoba.  – RS]

Eight freight cars derail at Selkirk CSX rail yard

By Kevin O’Toole, August 13, 2016, 8:42 pm, News10, Albany

SELKIRK, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Emergency crews responded to a train derailment at the CSX Rail Yark in Selkirk, N.Y. Saturday evening.

A CSX representative told News10 that around 7 p.m. Saturday eight cars of a CSX freight train derailed.

There are no reports of leaks or injuries from the incident.

The CSX representative said the train cars were carrying intermodal freight from Chicago to North Bergen, N.J.

Emergency crews are still assessing the scene, and CSX says the investigation to identify the cause of the derailment will begin once the scene is safe.

Contractors are on standby to help clean up the site, and clear the derailed cars once crews have finished assessing the scene.

Union Pacific train derails in SW Arkansas

31 railroad cars derail on Highway 82 causing major traffic snarl
By Nancy Cook, 08/15 2016 10:50AM, ArkLaTex.com
derailment_LafayetteCoAK_2016-08-14
Derailment – Lafayette County, Arkansas

LAFAYETTE COUNTY, Ark.  |  A Union Pacific train derailed just outside of Lewisville, Arkansas this afternoon, causing a traffic slowdown on Highway 82 that is expected to cause delays throughout the day Monday, though there were no injuries.

Lafayette County Sheriff Obie Sims says the call came in about the train derailment involving 31 cars around 12:45 p.m. today.

Lewisville is about 20 miles south of Texarkana, and Highway 82 is the main thoroughfare to Texarkana from Magnolia and Hope.

The tracks run parallel to Highway 82, which has been reduced to one lane during the clean-up. Sims said the cleanup will continue throughout Monday, and until it’s complete, traffic will be very slow.

The cars were carrying frac sand, which is made from sandstone and is not hazardous, but, Sims said, made a mess and “ripped up the bridge.”

DESMOGBLOG: Science advisors tell EPA not to downplay fracking-related water contamination

Repost from DeSmogBlog

EPA’s Science Advisors Tell Agency Not to Downplay Fracking-Related Water Contamination

By Sharon Kelly, August 14, 2016 – 17:12

On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific advisors finished their review of EPA‘s national study on fracking and sternly rebuked the EPA for claiming that its draft study had found no evidence of “widespread, systemic” impacts to drinking water.

The EPA had not provided the evidence to support that claim, the Science Advisory Board (SAB) peer review panel found. The phrase was widely quoted in the press, but appeared only in a press release and the Executive Summary of EPA‘s draft study of the impacts of fracking on drinking water.

Environmentalists challenged EPA‘s summary of the data, arguing that the agency’s conclusion wrongly ignored the thousands of spills, leaks, and other problems described in the body of the draft report.

The science advisory panel, in a letter signed by 26 of the 30 panelists, agreed. “The SAB is concerned that these major findings as presented within the Executive Summary are ambiguous and appear inconsistent with the observations, data, and levels of uncertainty presented and discussed in the body of the draft Assessment Report,” the SAB wrote.

The SAB finds that the EPA did not support quantitatively its conclusion about lack of evidence for widespread, systemic impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources,” the SAB wrote, “and did not clearly describe the system(s) of interest (e.g., groundwater, surface water), the scale of impacts (i.e., local or regional), nor the definitions of ‘systemic’ and ‘widespread.’”

The SAB‘s 180-page letter makes clear that if the Obama administration claims that fracking has not led to “widespread, systemic impacts” to water, it bears the burden of proving that their assessment is actually supported by evidence.

The SAB concludes that if the EPA retains this conclusion, the EPA should provide quantitative analysis that supports its conclusion that hydraulic fracturing has not led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources,” the reviewers wrote.

Environmental advocates welcomed the science panel’s findings as vindication.

EPA didn’t provide/have a scientific basis for its controversial line, and today EPA SAB is calling them out for that,” Dr. Hugh MacMillan, a senior researcher for Food and Water Watch, told DeSmog in an email.

The controversial language from EPA‘s 998-page draft fracking study‘s Executive Summary had said: “We did not find evidence that these mechanisms [which included wastewater spills or treatment problems as well as underground water contamination] have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”

The EPA was asked by Congress to investigate fracking’s impacts on drinking water back in 2009.

That “widespread, systemic” language matters beyond headlines. When state and federal regulators decide whether fracking requires regulation or restrictions like bans, it matters enormously whether the EPA says that problems with fracking are severe enough to require action.

“This, of course, goes to the very heart of the issue, because it’s one thing if, occasionally, there have been some unfortunate accidents — but another if there is something inherent to the entire process of unconventional gas development that harms drinking water,” the Washington Post explained in its coverage of the SAB‘s scathing letter.

The EPA‘s study had long been under fire for apparent coziness between researchers and the shale industry. Repeatedly, news outlets obtained drafts of the EPA‘s study plans that showed a powerful industry influence over the study and a steady narrowing of the study’s scope — which would mean that real-world problems would not make it into EPA‘s on-paper review of fracking’s potential hazards.

“'[Y]ou guys are part of the team here,’ one EPA representative wrote to Chesapeake Energy as they together edited study planning documents in October 2013, ‘please write things in as you see fit,’” DeSmog previously reported.

The SAB science advisory panel, which worked for over a year on reviewing EPA‘s draft study, included scientists from academia, government, and the industry. Four of the 30 advisors dissented, writing their own opinion. “While the report could have articulated the agency’s statistical assessment more clearly, there has not been any facts or evidence demonstrating a systemic or widespread impact to existing drinking water resources or other water resources,” the four dissenters wrote.

So what is in the body of EPA‘s study that was left out of its executive summary? DeSmog reviewed and found that the EPA described numerous problems, including the following:

Meanwhile, accidents keep on happening, both above-ground and under, by the hundreds or thousands. One in a dozen spills by drillers wasn’t contained before it hit drinking water sources – and the spills that hit water supplies tended to be much larger spills than those that didn’t (p. 38). Although gas wells are generally depicted as having numerous layers of concrete and steel casings to prevent the gas, wastewater and chemicals inside the well from interacting with the environment outside it, two thirds of wells had no cement along some portions of their bores (p. 275), an EPA review found. And conditions underground, which can leave wells under high pressure, high temperatures or in “corrosive environments” sometimes caused well casings to have “life expectancies” that run out in under a decade (p. 281) – but the oil and gas industry has told investors that shale wells are expected to keep pumping for 30 years or more.

In its letter yesterday, the SAB peer-review panel also took the EPA to task for neglecting some of the nation’s highest-profile cases of water contamination, like Pavillion, WY, Parker County, TX and Dimock, PA. People from those towns whose water was contaminated had testified before the SAB in November, questioning the panel about the EPA‘s apparent decision to ignore what had happened to their communities.

“I feel that the EPA abandoned me,” Steven Lipsky, of Parker County, Texas, who faces a defamation lawsuit from driller Range Resources after EPA dropped its investigation into the flammable water at his home, told the SAB in November.

In its peer review, the SAB called on EPA to include those three high-profile incidents and questioned the EPA‘s decision to zoom out the lens by focusing on “widespread” problems. ” These local-level potential impacts have the potential to be severe, and the final Assessment Report needs to better characterize and recognize the importance of local impacts, especially since locally important impacts are unlikely to be captured in a national -level summary of impacts,” the SABtold EPA.

On Thursday, oil and gas advocates sought to closely parse the SAB‘s language, suggesting that the EPA did not necessarily have to change its language. “The panel does not ask EPA to modify or eliminate its topline finding of ‘no widespread, systemic impacts’ to groundwater from fracking – it asks EPA to provide more details or a ‘quantitative analysis’ of how the agency came to that conclusion,” Energy in Depth wrote in a blog post on the study.

Dr. David Dzombak, a member of the SAB who helped prepare the SAB‘s opinion told reporters that the SAB was backing a call for the EPA to drop the “widespread, systemic” phrasing.

One option for the agency would be to drop that conclusion,” he told StateImpact. “The SAB is asking here for clarification of an ambiguous statement.”

In a statement, the EPA said it would take its peer-reviewer’s comments into consideration as it moved to finalize its study draft. “EPA will use the SAB’s final comments and suggestions, along with relevant literature published since the release of the draft assessment, and public comments received by the agency, to revise and finalize the assessment,” the EPA said.

Environmental groups called on the EPA to listen closely to the SAB‘s recommendations and to take action to address the problems that the EPA‘s draft study described.

“The science is in. EPA knows that fracking pollutes drinking water,” said Lauren Pagel, Policy Director for Earthworks. “Now is the time for us to move away from this dirty fossil fuel and replace it with clean energy that does not harm public health.”

IN MEMORIAM: Benicia’s Joel Fallon: Is Crude by Rail really do or die?

Is this really adios?

[Re-posting today in memory of Joel Fallon, who died on August 11, 2016 (obituary). Joel was Benicia’s first and most beloved Poet Laureate, an inspiration to all who knew him and a thoughtful, visionary activist. Originally reposted from The Benicia Herald and here on the Benicia Independent.]

April 25, 2014 by Joel Fallon

WHAT AM I MISSING HERE? Are Benicians just kittens in a burlap sack, down by the riverside, resigned to the inevitable?

Let’s see if I’ve got this right.

(a) We’re in earthquake country (see evidence of the Green Valley fault in terrain on the way to Cordelia);

(b) We’re next to fragile wetlands (for spectacular views, click Google Maps/Benicia, hybrid setting, find rail line and follow to Sacramento);

(c) We’re contiguous with an important commercial waterway;

(d) We host an outfit whose headquarters has fought attempts to safeguard our environment (see Valero Energy Corporation’s position and funding regarding Proposition 23);

(e) A local outfit, under direction from its far-off headquarters, plans to process a dangerous, toxic product;

(f) The outfit is served by a rail system with a recent history of tank car derailment;

(g) Parts of this railroad system (built by Central Pacific RR in 1877), running through marshland to the Carquinez Strait, repeatedly sank into unstable marshy terrain, requiring hundreds of thousands of tons of rock, gravel and other materials to stabilize it;

(h) Other parts of the antique rail infrastructure seem poorly maintained and may be unsafe, e.g., the Benicia-Martinez rail bridge, built between 1928 and 1930 for Southern Pacific RR to replace the train ferry to Port Costa;

(i) Old tank cars are a problem — an area newspaper reports that BNSF railway officials told federal regulators in March of concerns that older, less robust tank cars will end up transporting crude oil because of Canadian rail pricing policies;

(j) Emergency responders are unprepared to handle spills or fires in the event of derailment of cars headed to any of five Bay Area refineries. State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, after listening to testimony from emergency responders, said, “There is a potential for very serious problems and very disastrous problems.” Chief of the Contra Costa Fire District is quoted saying, “… with the sheer volume that will be coming in, we are going to see more accidents.” The 2007-08 Solano County Grand Jury, after investigating the county’s fire districts, reports a general need for more funding, heavy dependence on dedicated volunteers and the preponderance of old fire trucks, while noting the high cost of HAZMAT suits and problems with communications caused by incompatible equipment and radio frequencies.     

And yet, despite this unbelievably horrific backdrop, certain elements in town warn us to hush lest Valero be forced out of the competitive (i.e., tar sands crude) market, destroying its “desire to remain in Benicia.”

Clearly, Valero Benicia Refinery cannot be faulted for all of the foregoing. Good workers deserve good jobs; they should be able to tell their grandkids they helped, rather than harmed, the environment. Valero Benicia is just one of many links in a chain of factors that could lead to the disaster so many in this community fear.

Am I “agenda driven” as charged? Bet your raggedy backside I am. My agenda involves doing homework to find threats to my home, my town, my state and my nation, and advising others of my findings (just in case they might care). If you detect it, yell “GAS” to alert the rest of the platoon; then put on your mask, while you can still breathe.

For a glimmer of the scope of Big Oil’s operations from sea to shining sea and beyond, see the astounding number of outfits similar to Valero Energy Corp. in the U.S and Canada. Find ’em in Wikipedia (“independent oil companies — Americas”). Select a company to see its history of oil spills. Wonder why the Keystone XL pipeline is planned to extend to Texas? Check out which corporations own the pipeline and the benefits associated with Foreign Trade Zones (32 FTZ in Texas compared to 17 in California, and 15 in New York).

If folks look around a bit they may discover that Big Oil, like Big Coal and other corporate behemoths, extends powerful influence throughout the land of the free and the home of the brave. Many were hoodwinked by Operation Iraqi Liberation, in which Big Oil colluded with Big Government to achieve absolute power of life and death over us and our enemy — the one with phantom WMDs and a vast, very real amount of oil.

Is this really adios, Pilgrim? — or just “I double-dog dare you”? I don’t believe it’s Valero’s style to leave town. It’s not in the corporation’s best interests and shouldn’t be its preferred option.

What are those options? They include:

Option 1. Stay put, but back away from risky tar sands crude and focus on products involving minimum environmental risk. Backing away for good business reasons is not the same as “backing down.” CVS decided to stop selling cigarettes. The firm considered it “the right thing to do for the good of our customers and our company. The sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose — helping people on their path to better health.” Barrons online says, “We think that CVS — like anyone who quits smoking — is making a good long-term decision, even if it makes things rough short-term.” Others consider it a PR coup! CVS gained the respect of millions of customers for what is perceived as a moral and ethical decision. I shop CVS more often since they made that brilliant call; so do my friends.

Backing away from tar sands crude would take similar corporate guts; but the public would be pleased with the image of a moral, ethical, highly principled corporation — a Valero that gives a damn. Sales at Valero service stations might even increase.

Option 2. Continue to pursue tar sands crude; seeking high profitability despite increased environmental risk. The downside: prices at the pump are too high. Californians are already angry; they may avoid Valero service stations and products. I’ll urge my friends to do so. Word of mouth is powerful and spreads quickly. Contempt for an outfit that doesn’t respect its customers or our environment could lead to loss of sales in the country’s most populous state. Cesar Chavez showed us boycotts work. Most folks I know didn’t buy grapes.

Option 3. “Re-purpose” Valero’s operations in Benicia (and elsewhere) to enhance instead of degrade the environment while remaining profitable. Valero is an energy outfit. Turning to alternate sources of energy is ultimately inevitable. Valero should expand its vision and not limit itself to fossil fuels. Farmers in Ireland who grew only potatoes learned about diversification too late.

(a) Pursue wind farming if feasible and profitable. A recent Mother Earth News article about mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia cites a 2007 study that determined placing wind turbines on Coal River Mountain would provide power to 70,000 West Virginia homes while generating $1.7 million in local taxes each year. Better than ripping off the tops of mountains and dumping enormous amounts of debris into streams and rivers.

(b) Pursue solar energy if feasible and profitable. Produce solar products for sale and/or operate a solar power facility to resell power. See an article by Don Hofmann, president of RegenEn Solar LLC, looking at mountaintop removal mining and suggesting solar power instead. He recognizes there are challenges but is optimistic about lower-cost solar cells and technology in the future. He notes that the U.S. fossil fuel industry received $72 billion in subsidies from 2002 to 2006 and asks us to imagine that kind of money put into solar development.

(c) Pursue other approaches (geothermal, tidal, et al.) if appropriate and profitable.

Option 4. Determine feasibility of combining 3a, 3b and/or 3c. If appropriate and profitable, pursue the combination.

Option 1 would be the easiest and would be enthusiastically supported by most folks in Benicia, applauded by most Californians and recognized as a principled business decision.

Option 2 is the least desirable from an environmental standpoint. While profitability is high, it may incur the contempt and wrath of the public, possibly leading to damaging boycotts and a decline in profitability.

Option 3a thru 3c may seem starry-eyed, wild and outside the box. They would require imagination, foresight and courage. It can be done. CVS is showing the way and TESLA is succeeding with electrically powered cars. Examine pluses and minuses — Valero could take a quantum leap and be regarded as an industry trailblazer. Its reputation would be enhanced. Envious competitors might scoff and want Valero to take a pratfall but ultimately they would have to follow suit.

In conclusion the priority order of Valero’s options should be:

Option 1 — Most desirable (preferred)
Option 3/4 — Most “outside the box” (defer initially, but plan for the future)
Option 2 — Least desirable (avoid).

If Valero is really in the long-term energy game, it should choose Option 1 and start thinking seriously about Option 3. If, instead, its focus is on short term — high profits while risking irreparable harm to the environment — then Option 2 is their ticket.

If Valero wants to be recognized as rich, principled, brave and famous instead of rich, unscrupulous and infamous, then it should open door No. 3 as soon as possible.

Finally: I don’t believe it is “adios” for Valero Benicia Refinery. Unfortunately, I think Valero will not choose a clean path. They will probably press on with dirty tar sands crude. After that, “¿Quien sabe?”

I don’t intend to “go gentle into that good night.” Instead I prefer to “rage against the dying of the light.”

This whole thing could be like a colonoscopy, but a lot less fun.

Joel Fallon is a Benicia resident.


The Benicia Herald’s Poetry Corner was recently dedicated to Joel Fallon…

“For Joel Fallon” by Ronna Leon

Reposted from the Benicia Herald, Poetry Corner, August 19, 2016

You called them “dead Mother poems”
and scorned their cloying sentiment, easy forgiveness.
Your poem about your Mother named her Kali.
You hungered for life – anger, difficulty, competition, sex.
You insisted that wringing a tear from a stone
was superior to opening well oiled floodgates.

 

Now you are dead and my tears come unbidden
looking at the bookshelf, pulling a stubborn weed,
eating a pastry.
“Keep smiling” you’d instruct,
but I don’t want to brush these tears away,
each glistens with memory, swells with loss.
You are in them, like it or not.Ronna Leon was Benicia’s third poet laureate from 2010 to 2012


“Hope is the Thing with Feathers (Dedicated to Joel Fallon)” by Johanna Ely

Reposted from the Benicia Herald, Poetry Corner, August 19, 2016

“Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul
and sings the tune without the words
and never stops-at all”
-Emily Dickinson

 

If such a tiny bird,
perhaps left for dead,
or suffering from an injured wing,
its feathers matted and torn,
finds refuge in your broken heart,
then reach inside yourself
and touch this living thing called Hope,
gently bind its limp and useless wing
with Love’s tattered cloth,
and press it to your shattered heart
until it heals,
until this lovely creature sings again,
then let it fly,
and nest in someone else’s heart,
the stranger,
the neighbor,
the old friend,
the one who just like you,
needs to hear its song.
Johanna Ely is Benicia’s current poet laureate

“Joel’s Passing” by Mary Susan Gast

Reposted from the Benicia Herald, Poetry Corner, August 19, 2016

“So, I may have been wrong after all – this damn cancer may indeed be the death of me.”
-Joel Fallon, in an email of June 30, 2016

He died on the morning of August 11.
That night, meteor showers dazzled the skies:
The Perseids, at their peak.
No reason to doubt that Joel hitched a ride
On that celestial glory train,
Meeting up with all the other streaming luminaries,
Fireball to fireball.

Mary Susan Gast served as Conference Minister of the Northern California Conference United Church of Christ, now retired, and is a member of Benicia’s First Tuesday Poetry Group

Phillips 66 oil-by-rail project may be in jeopardy – deadline Aug 15

Repost from The Tribune, San Luis Obispo

Phillips 66 oil-by-rail project may be in jeopardy

By David Sneed, July 22, 2016 8:06pm

HIGHLIGHTS
• Oil company faces Aug. 15 deadline to pay $240,000 in fees and supply information or SLO County will withdraw the application
• County also is critical of Phillips 66’s recent decision to begin trucking crude oil to the Nipomo Mesa refinery
• It is unclear whether a Sept. 22 Planning Commission hearing on the rail project will take place

The Phillips 66 refinery on the Nipomo Mesa has been trucking in oil since February as it continues to pursue a plan to accept oil by rail.
The Phillips 66 refinery on the Nipomo Mesa has been trucking in oil since February as it continues to pursue a plan to accept oil by rail. Joe Johnston Tribune

A controversial proposal by the Phillips 66 oil company to bring crude oil by rail to its Nipomo Mesa refinery is at a crossroads.

The oil company has been given an Aug. 15 deadline to give the San Luis Obispo County department of planning and building additional information about the project — the company wants to install a rail spur connecting the refinery with the main line — and to pay more than $240,000 in fees or the project application will be withdrawn.

In a July 8 letter to the company, county supervising planner Ryan Hostetter wrote, “This letter serves to inform Phillips 66 that without the necessary information and funding, the county cannot complete processing the application as directed by the Planning Commission.”

As of July 22, the county had received only part of the information it has requested and none of the money, Hostetter said.

Phillips 66’s proposal to build the spur so it can bring in three trains per week, each carrying 2.2 million gallons of crude oil, has faced a storm of opposition. Communities on the rail line across California have weighed in, many saying they feared a disastrous derailment.

Phillips 66 did not respond directly to questions by The Tribune on Friday as to whether the company plans to meet the county’s Aug. 15 deadline to pay the fees and provide the missing information. Instead, it sent this statement:

“Phillips 66 presented a strong proposal, and we remain confident about the project,” the statement said. “We understand and respect the review and approval process with the county, and look forward to the next step in the EIR process.”

The county has also informed Phillips 66 that its recent decision to truck oil directly into the refinery is likely a violation of the county’s permit and will require a new permit as well as a trucking plan detailing the new oil-by-truck method. The refinery has been receiving crude oil by pipeline. The county found out about the trucking during an April 15 Planning Commission hearing on the rail spur project.

“Bringing in crude by truck is a modification of the refinery and, additionally, may have the potential to cause significant impacts,” Hostetter said in a June 30 letter to Phillips 66.

The refinery’s maintenance supervisor, James Anderson, responded to the county in a letter dated July 14 in which he denied the assertions that the trucking of oil is a modification of the refinery and disputes the notion that a trucking plan is required. The letter refers to the refinery’s official name, the Santa Maria Refinery.

“Phillips 66 does not need any new permits or modifications to its existing permits to deliver feedstocks by truck to SMR (Santa Maria Refinery) in the manner in which it is currently performed,” Anderson’s letter stated. “Such activity has been a long-standing practice, albeit intermittent, and is not part of the rail extension project.”

Hostetter said the July 14 letter answered some but not all of the county’s questions. No deadline was given for providing the information.

“They are not sitting on it, but we need more information to make a formal call on whether trucking is an allowed use or if they need a new permit,” Hostetter said.

Anderson’s letter went on to give some details about the refinery’s recent oil-by-truck activities:

▪ It began in February.
▪ The number of truck trips per day has ranged from 1 to 25.
▪ Trucks generally hold up to 150 barrels of oil. A barrel contains 42 gallons.
▪ The oil is delivered into an existing pipeline via a flexible hose.
▪ The oil generally originates within California.

Phillips 66 has proposed installing a 1.3-mile rail spur connecting to the main line as a way to expand its sources of crude oil and continue to support the 200 employees who work at the Nipomo refinery. The proposal calls for deliveries from three trains per week; each train would have three locomotives and 80 rail cars to haul 2.2 million gallons of crude oil.

Earlier this year, the county Planning Commission held five full days of hearings that drew thousands of people from around California. The commission has scheduled a hearing for Sept. 22, at which a final decision could be made.

At its most recent hearing, the commission asked for a variety of additional information from Phillips 66, such as how many trains per year would arrive at the refinery under the three-trains-per-week scenario, how many trains could arrive in one day and what impact that would have on air quality around the refinery.

Few of those questions have been answered. Whether the commission even has a Sept. 22 hearing and whether it will be able to make a final decision if a hearing is held, depends on how much additional funding and information Phillips 66 provides, Hostetter said. For example, the company has proposed only funding the project through the Planning Commission phase but not through the likely appeal to the Board of Supervisors.

County policy requires that development applicants pay all the county’s costs in processing their permit, including the cost to hire consultants and write an environmental impact report. The county has estimated the cost of processing the application through the Board of Supervisors appeal hearing to be $240,697.73.

If the county withdraws the application, Phillips 66 could reapply at a later date.

For safe and healthy communities…