Tag Archives: Federal Regulation (U.S.)

Bakken Crude, Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Tank car design

U.S. lags in dealing with danger of oil tank cars

Repost from CentralMaine.com

OUR OPINION: US lags in dealing with danger of oil tank cars

Federal foot-dragging could lead to a Lac-Megantic-type tragedy in this country.
August 20, 2014

A major milestone was reached this week in the follow-up to the oil train explosion that killed 47 people last summer in Lac-Megantic, Quebec: Canadian investigators released a final report blaming lax government oversight and poor rail company safety practices for the tragic accident.

But although the Canadian government obviously didn’t fulfill its regulatory responsibilities, Canada is still way ahead of the United States in taking steps to prevent another such tragedy. Canada has banned the most decrepit tank cars; Washington, meanwhile, is calling for a drawn-out retirement and retrofitting process that could keep some of the cars in service until at least 2017. This reluctance to take action is putting U.S. communities so far down the track in terms of improved public safety that they’re almost guaranteed to be left behind.

The train that crashed in Quebec in July 2013 was carrying nearly 2 million gallons of volatile North Dakota crude oil in DOT-111 tanker cars. When derailed, DOT-111 cars are easily punctured or ruptured, making them highly vulnerable to leaks and explosions. The cars’ flaws were first noted in a National Transportation Safety Board study more than 20 years ago. And in 2012, the NTSB concluded that the DOT-111s’ “inadequate design” contributed to the severity of a 2009 oil train derailment in Illinois that killed one person and injured several others. Because of a spike in U.S. crude oil production, moreover, the number of oil car accidents continues to climb: 116 in 2013, more than double the number of all episodes from 1990 to 2009.

Nonetheless, about 98,000 tank cars are in service — and most don’t have the latest safety features. All 72 cars in the Quebec runaway train, for example, were built to the older standard. So any of the major cities through which this train passed before reaching Lac-Megantic — including Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit — could have been the site of an equally devastating derailment, spill and explosion.

In April, Canada barred 5,000 of the most poorly made, puncture-prone DOT-111s from carrying crude oil and ethanol. But such cars will stay in service in the United States until at least 2017, under proposed regulations that call for a two-year phase-out of the cars, effective September 2015, unless they’re retrofitted to comply with new safety standards.

Announced last month by the federal Department of Transportation, the rules would apply only to “high-hazard flammable trains” that carry at least 20 cars of volatile liquids. DOT-111s that haven’t been retrofitted still could be used beyond 2015 on trains with 19 or fewer tank cars — a massive loophole.

The U.S. DOT realizes it’s dangerous to keep shipping volatile crude in substandard rail cars. The agency even said as much in the news release announcing the proposal: “The safety risk presented by transporting Bakken (North Dakota) crude oil by rail is magnified both by an increasing volume of Bakken being shipped … throughout the U.S. and the large distances over which the product is shipped.”

To have this knowledge and still fail to act on it is to take a cynical view of the well-being of the people whom the agency is supposed to be protecting — and it gives public service a bad name.

Crude By Rail, Federal Rail Administration, Hazmat notification, Local Regulation, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail accidents, Rail Safety, Surface Transportation Board, Tank car design, Traffic, Train speed

Chicago Area Mayors Meet with Feds, Call For Improved Safety Measures For Oil Trains

Repost from CBS2 Chicago

Mayors Call For Improved Safety Measures For Oil Trains

August 20, 2014
Firefighters douse a blaze after a freight train loaded with oil derailed in Lac Megantic in Canada's Quebec province on July 6, 2013, sparking explosions that engulfed about 30 buildings in fire. More than 40 people were killed as a result of the crash and fire. (Photo redit: François Laplante-Delagrave/AFP/Getty Images)
Firefighters douse a blaze after a freight train loaded with oil derailed in Lac Megantic in Canada’s Quebec province on July 6, 2013, sparking explosions that engulfed about 30 buildings in fire. More than 40 people were killed as a result of the crash and fire. (Photo redit: François Laplante-Delagrave/AFP/Getty Images)

CHICAGO (CBS) – Federal railroad officials got an earful Wednesday from the mayors of several Chicago area towns that have been affected by a growing number of increasingly long trains hauling crude oil and other volatile materials.

WBBM Newsradio’s John Cody reports the mayors expressed concerns about traffic congestion and public safety from freight trains that they said have been getting longer and more dangerous, due to larger amounts of flammable crude oil they haul in outdated tanker cars.

The mayors spoke directly to Federal Railroad Administrator Joe Szabo and Surface Transportation Board Chairman Dan Elliott III, at a meeting arranged by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.

The senator said approximately 25 percent of all freight train traffic travels through the Chicago area each day, including 40 trains hauling crude oil.

Barrington Village President Karen Darch said the village has seen a stark increase in the number of completely full freight trains hauling 100 or more carloads of crude oil or ethanol along the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway.

“Before, half of the community didn’t even know where the EJ&E Line was. There were a couple of trains at night. Now, several times a day, traffic – all traffic – comes to a halt as the train passes through town, and these can be hundred-car trains,” she said.

quebec derailment 1 Mayors Call For Improved Safety Measures For Oil Trains

 

Darch and other Chicago area mayors said their constituents have been plagued by frequent traffic jams caused by long trains rolling through the area, and are constantly worried that a fire or worse could erupt on old tankers carrying volatile liquids.

They mayors expressed concerns about a repeat of a July 2013 freight train derailment in Quebec that killed 47 people and destroyed dozens of buildings when multiple tanker cars filled with crude oil caught fire and exploded.

Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner said safe passage is mandatory.

“About a third of the rail accidents that do occur are related to failures of the rail infrastructure itself, and so our position is basically twofold: one, improve the tank cars and get rid of the ones that aren’t safe; and second, make the rails safe.”

Durbin said the issue requires some time to address.

“I’ve talked to the tank car manufacturers, and they understand that they have two responsibilities: build a safer car, but in the meantime retrofit existing cars,” he said.

The senator said there is no way to immediately and completely ban older style oil tanker cars, but said federal railroad officials are aware of the danger they pose, and that they must be upgraded or replaced as soon as possible.

Darch urged federal authorities to institute increased safety controls and reduced speed limits for even small trains hauling crude oil.

“A huge concern for us is what about all the trains that come through that have 19 cars or less of hazmat,” she said.

Federal railroad officials said proposed federal regulations would require increased testing to keep crude oil out of older style tankers. Railroads also would be required to notify local officials when crude oil trains will roll through, and impose a 40 mph speed limit on such trains.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Take Action

Bainbridge Island Review Guest Opinion: Why I blockaded an oil train

Repost from the Bainbridge Island Review

GUEST OPINION: Why I blockaded an oil train

BY ANNETTE KLAPSTEIN, August 16, 2014

On Monday, July 28, I joined Jan Woodruff of Anacortes and Adam Gaya of Seattle in locking ourselves to barrels full of concrete on the rail spur into the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes in order to keep an oil train from leaving the refinery.

Why would a 62-year-old retired lawyer and long-time resident of Bainbridge Island take such a drastic action?

The short answer is: I could not do otherwise.

This kind of resistance may seem extreme, but these are extreme times — these oil trains present an imminent threat to the lives and safety of tens of thousands of our friends and neighbors, and our politicians have done a woefully inadequate job of addressing this.

The puncture-prone DOT-111 tanker cars were deemed “inadequate” by federal authorities more than 20 years ago. Yet every week, more than a dozen of these trains travel through downtown Seattle to refineries including Tesoro.

These trains are carrying Bakken shale crude, which the DOT has warned is unusually volatile and can catch fire at temperatures as low as 75 degrees F!

There have been very frequent derailments, including one in Seattle last week (headed for the Tesoro refinery), which occurred despite a train speed of only 5 miles per hour. Had it been going much faster, the results would likely have been catastrophic.

There have been five explosions and massive fires associated with derailments within the past year, the worst being at Lac-Megantic, Quebec, where a derailment caused a massive explosion, leveling several city blocks and vaporizing 47 people. If this happens in Seattle near the sports stadiums during a Seahawks or Mariners game, tens of thousands of people will die a horrific death.

Tesoro had a terrible safety record even before the huge increase in oil-by-rail.

After its tragic 2010 fire, which killed seven workers, it was found to have committed 39 “willful” and five “serious” violations of safety regulations.

Tesoro is planning to build the massive Tesoro Savage Vancouver Oil Terminal, a project so fraught with potential problems that the Vancouver City Council has asked Governor Inslee to reject it.

The United States Supreme Court, in its questionable wisdom, has declared corporations to be “persons” with human rights. If Tesoro and the other oil companies trying to turn our beautiful state of Washington into the Bakken shale oil dealer to the world are “persons” it is terribly clear to me what sort of “persons” they are: psychopaths — lacking all conscience or empathy. If any other group of people exposed us to such risks, they’d be locked up as the criminals they are. Instead, we get cheap bromides about “safe fracking,” while wells across the country are poisoned and billions of gallons of water in drought-stricken California are ruined: all for cheap dirty energy, in an era when the ravages of climate change are becoming increasingly visible.

The fires in Washington last week were one small sample of ominous things to come. In under a week of the official fire season, more area was burned than in any full year of the past decade. If we do not take drastic measures to address climate change immediately, our children and grandchildren will have to live through the collapse of our civilization within decades. I cannot live with that on my conscience.

And what has our political leadership offered to address these issues? Feeble and half-hearted actions such as the federal plan to “phase out” the most unsafe oil-by-rail cars over the next four years.

In four years we are certain to have more disasters and more deaths — such a plan is criminally negligent and absolutely unacceptable.

We need a total ban on all shipment of Bakken crude by rail NOW, and a complete halt to the development of any new oil terminals in the Pacific Northwest.

The oil companies have no sense of responsibility to anything but their bottom lines. Companies that make decisions like this have no place doing business on our increasingly fragile planet, and we the people of the state of Washington have to draw the line.

Annette Klapstein is a Bainbridge Island resident and a retired attorney who worked for the Puyallup Indian Tribe for 21 years, primarily on fisheries issues.
California Regulation, Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail accidents, Valero Benicia Refinery

Sacramento Bee editorial: First steps on oil train safety, but more to do

Repost from The Sacramento Bee
[Editor: The Bee’s editorial board hit the nail on the head, but not hard enough.  Which is to say, the editors have joined with the chorus of legislators who want a good patch job for train wrecks that they presume are unstoppable.  Oil train safety would be best guaranteed by pressing the federal government to ban oil trains.  Allowing these “bomb trains” to rumble through our communities approaches criminal recklessness, and should be stopped.  Big business does not – or at least should not – dictate the direction we take as a nation.  – RS]

Editorial: First steps on oil train safety, but more to do

By the Editorial Board   |  Jun. 19, 2014
G092G6L04.3Staff Photographer
Assemblyman Roger Dickinson of Sacramento announced legislation in April to require more disclosure to emergency officials of oil shipments by rail. Randall Benton

These are not all the steps that are needed, but it’s good to see the Legislature trying to get ahead of a potential (oil) train wreck.  As part of the budget they approved Sunday, legislators added seven rail safety inspectors. They also included a 6.5-cent fee proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown on each barrel of crude oil that comes to California by rail. The $11 million or so raised annually will be used to prevent and clean up oil spills, especially in inland waterways.

On Monday, the state Senate passed a resolution urging the federal government to pass laws and rules to protect communities from oil train accidents, including tougher standards on tank cars, and to put “safety over cost effectiveness.” That sends an important message because so far, federal officials have not required enough of railroads and oil companies – either in safety measures or public disclosure – to keep pace with a rapid increase in rail shipments of oil extracted through hydraulic fracturing, especially in Canada and North Dakota.

But there’s more that California officials can do.

Sens. Jerry Hill of San Mateo and Lois Wolk of Davis have a bill for a second as-yet unspecified shipping fee on oil companies to fund training and equipment for firefighters and other first responders. A recent state report found that 40 percent of local firefighters are volunteers who generally don’t have the resources to handle major hazardous material spills.

First responders often don’t have all the information they need, either, as reporting by The Sacramento Bee has made clear. Assemblyman Roger Dickinson of Sacramento is pushing a bill to require companies to tell emergency officials about crude oil shipments. The latest version does away with an exemption from the state public records law; instead it says reports would be deemed “proprietary information” that could only be shared with “government personnel with emergency response, planning or security-related responsibilities on a need-to-know basis.”

Time is of the essence since oil trains could be running through the Sacramento region later this year. Valero Refining Co. is seeking approval to route two 50-car oil trains a day through Roseville, Sacramento, West Sacramento and Davis to its refinery in Benicia.

An environmental impact report released Tuesday offers some reassurances but no guarantees. The draft report concludes that while a crash or spill could be catastrophic, the likelihood of an incident is “very low.” The probability of a spill of 100 gallons or more along the 69 miles between Roseville and Benicia is calculated at once every 111 years.

Yet, it has happened elsewhere – six major oil train crashes in North America just in the last year, including the horrific fireball in Quebec that killed 47 residents.

More than 135,000 people in Sacramento and 25,000 in Davis live within a half-mile of rail tracks, the Natural Resources Defense Council reported Wednesday. They’re counting on legislators to do all they can to make sure oil trains pass safely through our cities.