Repost from Bloomberg [Editor: Note 3 mentions of crude by rail, and in the final paragraph a reference to local opposition to CBR in Santa Maria, Pittsburg and Benicia. – RS]
California Isn’t Feeling U.S. Oil Boom as OPEC Dependence Grows
By Robert Tuttle, May 4, 2016 9:01 PM PDT
• State sourced a record 52% of its crude from overseas in 2015
• Falling in-state and Alaska production is driving imports
The shale oil boom that cut U.S. crude imports by 32 percent in a decade isn’t being felt out west as California grows increasingly dependent on Middle East supplies.
California brought in a record 52 percent of its crude from abroad last year, up from just 9 percent 20 years earlier, according to California Energy Commission data. The state hasn’t yet released the specific countries that supplied that oil in 2015, but in 2014, about 58 percent came from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, the most recent data show.
Foreign dependence is only expected to grow as supplies from within the state and Alaska diminish and efforts to bring U.S. crude from the Midwest by rail face local opposition.
“Regulatory impediments have kept California isolated from the growing sources of domestic crude production,” John Auers, executive vice president at Turner Mason & Co., said by phone from Dallas. “California refiners won’t be able to take advantage”’ of lower-priced domestic crude.
Growing imports mean that California refiners have some of the highest crude costs in the U.S., which are passed onto consumers in the form of higher gasoline prices, David Hackett, president of Irving, California-based Stillwater Associates, said in a phone interview.
Imported crude is priced off Brent, which was selling at less than a $1 premium to U.S. West Texas Intermediate Wednesday. While the lifting of restrictions on U.S. oil exports has narrowed the gap from as high as $15 a barrel in 2014, the spread between the grades could widen again when oil rises and U.S. shale oil production picks up, Hackett said.
Drivers in Los Angeles paid the highest pump prices in the U.S. for much of last year, exceeding $4 a gallon last summer, according to AAA.
Domestic Supply
Alaska supplied the state with 73,000 barrels a day of crude in 2015, about 12 percent of California’s total supply, state data show. That’s down from as high as 46 percent in the early 1990s and may fall further as Alaska’s production is forecast to drop to 319,100 barrels a day in 2023, down from almost 500,000 barrels a day this year, official datashow.
California itself produced about 225,000 barrels a day in 2015, supplying about 36 percent of its own needs, according to state data. That’s a drop from 240,000 barrels a day in 2014. The decline in the state’s own production came as producers cut output amid falling oil prices and following the shutdown of the Plains All American pipeline near Santa Barbara after a spill curtailed about 38,000 barrels a day of offshore production, Stillwater’s Hackett said.
California could benefit from cheaper Midwestern oil if crude by rail terminals were built. New terminals planned for Santa Maria, Pittsburg and Benicia have been stymied by local opposition and regulatory holdups, Hackett said. In February, for example, Valero Energy Corp’s planned crude-by-rail project was rejected by a city commission.
Repost from the Times Herald-Record, Middletown NY [Editor: Another seemingly minor derailment, involving cars carrying “non-hazardous” products: liquified salt and a plastic compound. No spills, no injuries, no evacuations. The point? Derailments DO happen frequently, and it could have been much worse. – RS]
2 train tanker cars derail in Montgomery
By James Walsh, Times Herald-Record, May 2, 2016 at 11:48 PM
A derailment Monday sent two railroad tanker cars falling into a wooded area off Route 17K in Montgomery. JAMES WALSH/TIMES HERALD-RECORD
VILLAGE OF MONTGOMERY – Two railroad tanker cars at the rear of a freight train derailed on a sharp bend of the tracks Monday afternoon, but the public was never in danger.
Village Police Chief Steven Walsh said the tankers carried non-hazardous cargo. The cause of the wreck was undetermined.
Officials say there was no danger to the public after the train cars derailed. JAMES WALSH/TIMES HERALD-RECORD
“No leaks, no spills, no danger to the public,” Walsh said near the wreck off Route 17K near the village’s downtown.
The train, operated by the Middletown & New Jersey Railroad, was pulling 11 cars including the two that derailed, when the accident occurred at about 3:15 p.m.
Four other tankers were among the cars that remained on the tracks. The tracks are owned by Norfolk Southern Railway.
“It shook the building,” said Rick Wolden, proprietor of Allard Corners Garage. “It was loud. We thought it hit a car.”
Tanker cars carrying crude oil on mainlines, not on local lines like the one passing through the village, have raised concerns from environmental groups and others worried about explosions that have killed dozens of people, led to community evacuations and polluted waterways elsewhere.
The state has conducted track and tanker car inspections for more than a year with federal authorities in an attempt to ward off a hazardous derailment in populated areas including Kingston, Newburgh and Cornwall.
Walsh, the police chief, said one tanker in Monday’s wreck contained liquefied salt of the kind spread on highways before winter storms. That was destined for Nesco in the Town of Montgomery. The other contained a plastic compound bound for Hunter Panels, also in the town. Both tanker cars held about 20,000 gallons.
“The trains go very, very slow through here,” said Dorothy White, whose home overlooks the wreck site from about 30 feet away. The track speed limit is 8 mph through the village, Walsh said.
Village police and volunteers from the Wallkill Engine & Hose Co. of the Montgomery Fire Department were the first emergency responders to arrive. They were joined by the Orange County Hazmat Team, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and the state office of Fire Prevention and Control.
“The first thing we’re thinking about is public safety,” Walsh said. “A fire department assessment determined there was no hazardous cargo and no threat…It could have been worse, and we’re grateful it wasn’t.”
I have a great deal of respect and gratitude toward municipal politicians, particularly those who toil on the city council and commission level. The hours are long, the decisions tough, and the pay bad to non-existent. Heaven knows that without good folks looking after the stuff that keeps a social contract intact, Thomas Hobbes’s “natural state” of chaos, violence, and potholes would be the norm.
This goes for the folks who lead our fair city. Benicia’s mayor and members of the council seem like fine people. They attend the meetings, do the horrific amount of homework required to be conversant with the issues, and overall appear to be decent folks with a sincere believe that they are doing the collective good by serving their fellow citizens. I’m grateful for their service; but I just wish that three of them—Alan Schwartzman, Christina Strawbridge and Mark Hughes—would resign.
Their collective efforts to secure Valero’s delay of the crude-by-rail decision against overwhelming community disapproval, the unanimous rejection of the project by the Planning Commission, the concerns of every major city along the proposed rail path, and the thousands of letters and statements against the project by informed and credible experts raises the bar of small town political shamefulness.
That it was clear from the start that the three council members were going to side with Valero verges on chicanery. Why put the town’s citizens through the hope of believing that their concerns of health and wellbeing are being heard and matter, if you support a volatile project that has a blast zone that includes an elementary school?
Since none of the three has stepped forward with a clear and convincing argument about why they sided with Valero—after all Valero would still bring the oil in by existing means and really doesn’t need the continuous line of daily rail tankers to stay in business and pay its taxes—we are left with the impression that once again, a small American town is at the mercy of a major oil company.
The history of the US oil industry is a trail of tears going back to the early days of ruthless land grabs, the mendacity and murder of Standard Oil’s oligarchy, the tragic violence of the Middle East, and the rise of climate change and environmental pollution. And to think, all this could, and still can, be avoided by shifting from carbon-based to renewable energy.
(As an aside, look at Denton Texas. This small Texas oil town, home to many of Dallas’s oil executives, banned fracking and drilling in the city limits. Evidently, they didn’t want to run the risk of an accident close to parks and schools. There’s a lesson here for Benicia. As a state, New York stood tall against the oil industry, but Denton is the only US small town I know of to have the self-respect required to say enough.)
So, the question before the citizens of Benicia is now what? What good is Benicia’s formal planning process if corporate power can bludgeon a thorough and lengthy review and rejection of the crude-by-rail proposal? Why put the residents through all the work and hope of participating in the democratic process if there is no intention by the council to understand their concerns or follow their wishes?
I grew up in rural America and know what a “company town” is. In some ways, it was simple and easy, letting the company bosses tell you where to work, what and who to like, what to believe in and who to vote for.
But it lacked fulfillment and self-determination, and I moved to the Bay Area to be part of the epicenter of the world’s intellectual and scientific renaissance where freedom of thought, action, and the ideals of local democracy are so highly acclaimed. Yet, ironically, I end up in a “company town”, where a huge carbon polluter can seemly send three decent council members scurrying to service its greed.
The problems of 21st century cities, big and small, are complex and can no longer be inclusive of one economic driver or administered by one major corporate power. For Benicia to move forward and join the extraordinary Bay Area knowledge-based economy we need to say goodbye to those three council members who lack the wherewithal to help the city past its company-town era.
Other once-rural Bay Area cities have thrown of the oppressive yoke of being run by a single company, exchanging “easy” for self-determination. Cities like Sunnyvale and Mountain View long ago threw off the yoke of the defense industry and learned to reinvent themselves and flourish. Walnut Creek, Livermore, and now Richmond are joining the prosperity of a sophisticated diverse economy. Vallejo and the other cities along I-80 are showing signs of change as the robust modern Bay Area economy moves outward from Silicon Valley.
If Benicia hopes to continue as a fully functioning city with a compliment of services and a healthy and vigorous citizenry, it has to look forward, shed its dependence on Valero, and embrace a 21st century reality.
CSX train derails in Northeast Washington DC, leaking three different hazardous chemicals and disrupting travel
By Faiz Siddiqui, Luz Lazo and Michael Smith, May 1, 2016 6:31 PM
May 1, 2016 The CSX train derailed Sunday at 6:40 a.m., spilling sodium hydroxide from one of the cars. Thirteen cars of the 175- car train left the tracks. DC Fire and EMS via AP
A CSX freight train derailed in Northeast Washington early Sunday, spilling hazardous chemicals along a busy rail corridor. The wreck stranded some residents away from their homes, forced the closure of a Metro station and snarled traffic as emergency personnel sought to contain the leaks and clear the wreckage.
Officials said 14 rail cars of the 175-car train left the tracks. A rail engineer and a conductor had been aboard the train but were accounted for, authorities said. No evacuations were ordered, and no one was injured.
The cause of the wreck is under investigation, and the Federal Railroad Administration was at the scene Sunday.
Red Line service was suspended between Metro’s NoMa-Gallaudet and Brookland stations, and the Rhode Island Avenue station was closed. At least six blocks of Rhode Island Avenue NE were closed for much of the day.
The derailment occurred about 6:40 a.m. as the train was passing through Washington from Cumberland, Md., en route to Hamlet, N.C., CSX said. The crash site was near Ninth Street NE and Rhode Island Avenue NE. CSX said 94 cars were carrying mixed freight and 81 were empty.
The derailment, about 70 cars into the train, spilled half the liquid contents of a 15,500- gallon tanker containing sodium hydroxide, D.C. Fire and EMS Deputy Chief John Donnelly said. The liquid spilled onto the tracks and seeped into the ground below it.
May 1, 2016 Officials walk on the Metropolitan Branch Trail — closed to the public — as they survey the scene of a CSX train derailment. Allison Shelley/For The Washington Post
Officials said there were no air- or water-quality issues at the scene.
CSX spokeswoman Melanie Cost said the company did not have a timeline on the cleanup or restoration of the tracks.
“First let me apologize to the community for the inconvenience and the alarm that the derailment caused this morning,” she said. “Every decision that we’re making is focused on the safety of the responders and the community.”
CSX described sodium hydroxide as a chemical “used to produce various household products, including paper, soap and detergents.” It is a chemical component similar to bleach or Drano, officials said. Two other rail cars were leaking chemicals that officials described as less hazardous.
By mid-morning, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said the chemical leak was contained. But more detailed inspections revealed further leaks, according to CSX. In addition to the tank car leaking sodium hydroxide, another tank car was found to be leaking calcium chloride, described as “non-hazardous,” while a third was leaking ethanol “slowly from the base of a valve,” CSX spokeswoman Kristin Seay said.
The wreckage was visible from high-rise apartments near the crash site: A zigzag pattern of mangled tankers and overturned freight cars sat beside the tracks below the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station. A set of wheels, still intact but missing its freight car, sat upright beside the track bed.
Emergency personnel work at the scene after a CSX freight train derailed in Washington on Sunday. (Cliff Owen/AP)
Weekdays, the affected tracks are shared by Amtrak, MARC and CSX trains. The tracks also run parallel to the Metropolitan Branch Trail, popular with cyclists and runners. On Sunday, the trail was closed near the site of the derailment, and officials said it would remain closed indefinitely.
Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said barring any unforeseen circumstances, Red Line service would be restored Sunday night.
Stessel said CSX was working to upright a rail car that was leaking ethanol. When the leak is mitigated, he said, the Metro tracks would be turned back over to the agency, which would run test trains and probably restore service soon thereafter.
If for any reason CSX is not able to turn over the scene, Stessel said, “that could affect service into the morning.”
MARC announced major service disruptions for its Brunswick Line on Monday because of the derailment. Its trains will run as far south as Silver Spring, where Metro will accept passengers at no charge to continue their commutes into the District. In addition, the Amtrak line from Washington to Chicago will not run Monday, but the Northeast Corridor lines will run as normal, officials said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the effects of exposure to sodium hydroxide can include irritated eyes, burning skin, loss of hair and swelling of the lungs. The odorless solid is white or colorless and is usually in flakes, beads or a granular form. Sodium hydroxide is especially dangerous when mixed with water, because the toxin when wet creates heat that can ignite flammable products. It was raining heavily Sunday morning near the crash site.
Donnelly said the amount that leaked did not put District residents at risk.
“The fumes should not cause you any problems, and you should not be able to smell them anywhere else,” he said.
In recent years, Washington residents and elected officials have voiced concerns about rail safety and the risk of having freight trains pass through residential neighborhoods and the seat of the federal government.
Residents of Navy Yard, a formerly industrial neighborhood that is now densely populated, fought a CSX plan to reconstruct the 110-year-old Virginia Avenue Tunnel in Southeast, a key piece of the region’s rail infrastructure that is just a mile away from the U.S. Capitol. CSX is now in the midst of the $170 million project, which includes twin tunnels built to allow for double-stacked trains.
One of the most hotly debated projects in recent years, the tunnel project revived concerns about the safety and security of the city’s railways, prompting the D.C. Council two years ago to allocate funding to conduct a comprehensive rail study that would provide an assessment of all rail service: passenger, commuter and freight.
Some residents say they fear they are at a greater risk of train derailments and that once the tunnel project is completed, CSX will increase the transportation of crude oil and other hazardous materials through the area.
CSX says it rarely transports crude oil through the District and does not carry hazardous substances such as compressed flammable gases and toxic and radioactive materials through the city.
In 2009, rainwater leaking into the Virginia Avenue Tunnel from the Southeast Freeway and Virginia Avenue weakened the earthen floor. A split rail caused the derailment of two locomotives and 13 loaded gondola cars transporting scrap metal. And in the spring of 2014, a CSX freight train derailed in downtown Lynchburg, Va., sending rail cars and burning crude spilling into the James River.
Monte Edwards, a trustee with the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, which serves as a watchdog on transportation and urban planning issues, said Sunday’s spill raised renewed concerns about the viability of shared freight and passenger tracks in the District.
Speaking for himself, he said the spill showed CSX’s disregard for rail safety and inspections in the District.
“This was a hydroxide that they spilled this time. Those are nasty things coming through,” he said, reflecting on what could have happened had the chemical spilled just a short distance south, near the Capitol.
“A spill like that [one] that just occurred here in Northeast, [if] that would occur near a grate or an entrance to a Metro station, it would flood the Metro station,” he said.
The spill underscores the need for the District to devise a comprehensive rail plan, similar to state plans required under the 2008 Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, he said. The District Department of Transportation says it expects a rail plan to be completed as early as this summer.
“We would know what’s coming through,” Edwards said. “We would have inspectors. We would have rail safety officers.”
“We have said all along that derailments are very real and these trains are carrying hazardous materials,” said Maureen Cohen Harrington, a Navy Yard resident and member of DCSafeRails, the organization fighting against CSX transporting hazardous materials through the neighborhood. “And what happened today demonstrated that, and we are well aware that this could have been far worse.”
Peter Hermann, Perry Stein and Ashley Halsey III contributed to this report.
The shale oil boom that cut U.S. crude imports by 32 percent in a decade isn’t being felt out west as California grows increasingly dependent on Middle East supplies.
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