Category Archives: Air Quality

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Proximity to residences, Rail routing

In Albany, one official calls for the recloation of residents of an entire housing project

Repost from Metroland.net, Albany NY

The Price of Oil Trains

As tensions mount over how to address the dangers of crude coming through Albany by rail, one official calls for the recloation of residents of an entire housing project
by Ali Hibbs, July 31, 2014

One year after oil tankers went off the rails and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec—killing 47 people and leaving a community devastated—local political leaders and community members are growing increasingly concerned about a similar tragedy occurring closer to home.  A recent explosion in oil tanker traffic coming into the Port of Albany through South End neighborhoods, and the half-dozen literal explosions that have occurred across the United States and Canada since the Quebec tragedy—not to mention the local oil spill at Kenwood Yard last month—have those living in communities close to the tracks concerned for their health as well as their safety.

Over the last several months, how to best address these mounting concerns has become the cause of some political tension and has resulted in the formation of two separate local investigative bodies. Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan announced the creation of her blue-ribbon panel on rail safety last week, following Albany County Executive Dan McCoy’s seemingly sudden declaration that residents of the Ezra Prentice public housing project in Albany’s South End should be immediately relocated to ensure their health and safety.  Ezra Prentice is adjacent to tracks on which oil tank cars travel and are often left sitting, providing an ominous—and malodorous—background to a park in which children play basketball.

photo by Ann Morrow

“Headaches, dizziness, feeling nauseous: These are not uncommon reactions to being exposed to fumes associated with crude oil operations,” said Christopher Amato of EarthJustice during a press conference held this week by McCoy’s advisory committee, announcing the introduction of a hotline that the public can call to report strong odors emanating from rail terminals or the Port of Albany itself—odors, they say, that may signify serious health hazards. Amato and EarthJustice represent the Ezra Prentice Homes Tenants Association, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter and the Center for Biological Diversity in challenging the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to require an environmental impact statement before any expansion of activities by oil companies at the port.

Anne Pope, a South End resident, regional director of the NAACP and a lifelong asthmatic, also spoke of the dangers of fumes produced by crude oil. She extolled McCoy for being proactive and went on to advocate for the evacuation of Ezra Prentice if there was nothing else that could be done to remove threats posed by the nearby trains.

McCoy began actively working to stanch the flow of oil into the Port of Albany earlier this year when he imposed a moratorium on the expansion of crude-oil processing until a comprehensive study on the health and safety effects on the community could be completed. After being told that his moratorium was “prejudicial to the [oil] company,” and had “no legal basis,” McCoy convened his Expert Advisory Committee on Crude Oil Safety in May, stating, “It’s clear that the scope of this investigation requires that we bring in independent experts to help us.”

During the last two years, the Port of Albany has experienced a dramatic surge in rail-borne crude oil carried by CSX and Canadian Pacific Railway Co. from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota. At Albany, a purported 85,000 barrels of the oil-sands crude are loaded each day onto barges bound for refineries in New Jersey and New Brunswick by oil distribution companies such as Global Partners LP.  As Metroland reported last month, these developments came largely unbeknownst to anyone in the local community or government, save one—former Mayor Jerry Jennings. (As previously reported: In 2012, the DEC approved a permit allowing Global Partners to bring up to 1.8 billion gallons of crude oil into the Port of Albany annually and, according to documents pertaining to the approvals, Jennings was the only local politician who was notified—and he apparently didn’t bother to notify the public.)

Global Partners is currently seeking permission from New York State to expand its local role even further by installing a boiler system that would allow the company to import a heavier type of Bakken crude and heat it before shipping it back out of the region. This process brings with it even more concerns about possible deleterious effects on local air quality and environmental safety.

Until recently, Sheehan had insisted that the costs for safety measures, including air monitoring and environmental impact studies, should be covered by the oil and rail companies that are benefiting from expanded use of the port. In a statement responding to McCoy’s call for the removal of Ezra Prentice residents, she reiterated her stance and essentially deferred the issue of rail safety to state and federal government.

That, however, clearly is not enough for those currently living next door to the oil-laden tracks.

“I don’t know how many warnings we’re going to get,” said Charlene Benton, president of the Ezra Prentice Homes Tenants Association and resident of the community. “We have 156 children under the age of 16. . . . We have to do something.” Benton applauded the efforts of McCoy and others, but went on to say, “I don’t think we’ve done enough. . . . It’s time for us to begin to come together and come up with some resolutions.”

“I disagree that those living in the shadow of bomb trains should wait for federal action to create safer standards for rail transportation of crude oil,” wrote McCoy in response to Sheehan after she implied that his recommendation was rash and unwarranted. “Experts acknowledge that even if federal action were taken immediately ordering improved standards, it would take years for new oil tanker cars to come online.” (Fact: Recently proposed federal regulations would not force the total retirement of outdated, easily punctured DOT-111 tank cars like those involved in the Quebec incident until 2020.) “The people of Ezra Prentice live every day with the danger of these cars literally in their backyard. That is why I’m asking for the Albany Housing Authority to explore seeking federal assistance to relocate these residents now.”

In addition to the moratorium and push to explore options to evacuate Ezra Prentice—a move that many decried as premature, alarmist and overreaching—the office of the county executive also recently introduced legislation imposing harsher penalties on those who do not report oil spills within an hour of their occurrence. This was in response to the oil spill at Kenwood Yard last month, when workers neglected to notify authorities for five hours after four cars derailed. His advisory committee, headed by Peter Iwanowicz, executive director for Environmental Advocates of New York, has been working closely with concerned local politicians and residents to mitigate concerns and seek out answers.  The launch this Wednesday of the public reporting hotline (“Uncommon Scents”) is intended to help “an overall assessment of possible health and environmental impacts of the rail activities in the county,” according to Iwanowicz.

While Sheehan believes that McCoy has overstepped some boundaries when it comes to this issue, she also seems to have realized the importance that it holds for the community—and that waiting for the state or federal government to step in is unlikely to satisfy those who are living (and sleeping) with the daily reality of Bakken crude in their backyards. She released the names of those who will sit on her blue-ribbon panel this week, and has said that she anticipates they will have come up with long- and short-term recommendations for assuring rail safety by early September.

For anyone living near crude-carrying rail lines: Should you or any of your family members detect any new, unusually strong or disturbing odors in your area, the hotline number to call is 211.  Iwanowicz stresses, however, that if you believe you are in immediate danger, you should call 911 directly.

Air Quality, Diesel exhaust, Odors, Particulate pollution, Rail industry, US Environmental Protection Agency

Global Community Monitor: Deisel fumes near rail yards a proven health threat

Repost from The Kansas City Star
[Editor: Has anyone monitored the diesel fumes in and around Benicia’s Industrial Park?  How much more diesel would be burnt by the daily movement of engines hauling 100 tank cars into and back out of the refinery?  – RS]

Diesel fumes near Kansas City, Kan., rail yard pose health threat, report says

By Alan Bavley, 07/14/2014
Leticia DeCaigny, a community organizer with Global Community Monitor, set up a MiniVon air analyzer to monitor for diesel fumes and particulates near the BNSF’s rail yard in the Argentine neighborhood of Kansas City, Kan. Preliminary test results reveal levels of diesel exhaust high enough on some days to send the elderly to the hospital or raise the death rate among residents.
Leticia DeCaigny, a community organizer with Global Community Monitor, set up a MiniVon air analyzer to monitor for diesel fumes and particulates near the BNSF’s rail yard in the Argentine neighborhood of Kansas City, Kan. Preliminary test results reveal levels of diesel exhaust high enough on some days to send the elderly to the hospital or raise the death rate among residents. David Eulitt/The Kansas City Star

Leticia DeCaigny straps a portable air-sampling device to the side of a neighbor’s deck. For two days, the small gray box with what looks like a chimney on top will gather evidence of pollution from diesel engines.

“It’s like a human lung,” sucking in air as a person would breathe, DeCaigny says as she pushes some buttons that set the device whirring.

Just a few blocks away is the BNSF Railway’s vast Argentine rail yard, where switch engines move hundreds of freight cars to assemble trains headed for destinations across the country.

For generations, the yard has been the lifeblood of this economically challenged Kansas City, Kan., neighborhood, providing jobs and attracting industry. The trains rolling by make a constant, even reassuring sound.

But DeCaigny knows neighbors who regularly smell the diesel exhaust from the locomotives and the trucks that pick up and drop off cargo. She knows neighbors who can’t go outside for long without risking an asthma attack.

And she knows about the growing body of research that links diesel exhaust to a host of health problems —lung diseases, cancer, heart attacks and premature births.

So, with the help of a national environmental organization, DeCaigny has been taking this monitor from house to house for the past eight months to gather air samples in Argentine and the adjacent Turner neighborhood, where she lives and which also borders the rail yard.

The preliminary results from November through mid-June reveal what the environmentalists she is working with consider to be unhealthy levels of diesel exhaust, levels high enough on some days to send the elderly to the hospital or to raise the death rate among residents.

They will discuss their findings at a neighborhood meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the South Branch Library, 3104 Strong Ave.

BNSF officials, who have reviewed the environmentalists’ preliminary report, said it is too short on essential details about how the data were collected to judge its validity. But they said the kind of short-term sampling that was done isn’t enough to establish trends. A single “uncommon event” could throw off the readings coming from any of the sites where the monitor was placed.

Other factors, such as the weather and two busy highways — Interstate 635, which runs through the rail yard, and Interstate 70 to its north — also could affect the numbers, they said.

But Denny Larson, executive director of Global Community Monitor, which provided DeCaigny the air monitor, said air sampled at seven of the 16 sites where DeCaigny placed the monitor contained diesel pollution at unhealthy levels, enough to indicate a disturbing pattern.

“It’s starting to show it’s a regular occurrence that the diesel is creating a health threat,” he said. “There are days in Argentine and Turner when it’s really unhealthy to breathe the air, and people should know that.”

With international trade booming, environmentalists are focusing greater attention on the diesel pollution from ports and intermodal hubs, where cargo is transferred. Containerized shipping, using standardized metal boxes, makes it easy to move cargo from ship’s hold to a freight train or tractor-trailer, all powered by diesel engines.

Global Community Monitor, a nonprofit environmental justice organization, also is working with environmental groups to monitor air quality in Galena Park, Texas, which receives much of the truck traffic from the Port of Houston, and in the large Gulf port of Plaquemines Parish, La.

Environmentally conscious California, where most cargo from Asia arrives, has been in the forefront of research and regulation of diesel exhaust at its ports.

“We get all the pollution with no real direct benefit to the community,” said Andrea Hricko of the University of Southern California’s Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center.

Hricko’s research has found that in California counties with major rail yards, nearby residents are more likely to be people of color, and with low incomes.

“There are already health disparities with income, but this adds an environmental factor,” Hricko said.

Of great concern to environmentalists are the very small particles that circulate in the air. The particles can come from dust, smoke from a fire or exhaust from a tailpipe. Once inhaled, they can stay trapped in the lungs and affect the heart, blood vessels and lungs.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has air-quality regulations for particles 2.5 microns or smaller in width. Such particles are invisible to the naked eye, less than one-thirtieth the width of a human hair.

The entire state of Kansas, including Wyandotte County and the Argentine rail yard, meets EPA standards for this kind of pollution.

The closest air-quality monitoring station to the Argentine rail yard is at the John F. Kennedy Community Center, a few miles to the north.

For more than six years, there’s been “a steady, steady drop” in particulate pollution from that site, said Tom Gross, the air monitoring and planning chief of the Kansas Bureau of Air, which does the monitoring for the EPA. “We view that as good news.”

Larson, of Global Community Monitor, said, “We agree with the state of Kansas and everybody else that if you look just at 2.5-micron particulates, there’s not a problem.”

But there is no regular federal monitoring of air pollution from the soot particles, called black or elemental carbon, that are commonly associated with diesel exhaust. DeCaigney’s monitor is designed to pick up this kind of pollution.

Unlike other fine particles that disperse over large areas, elemental carbon tends to stay close to where it is produced. So high readings are most likely along roads with heavy truck traffic or in the immediate vicinity of a rail yard.

Larson’s group employed an environmental scientist to make calculations from data in two recent academic studies to come up with threshold levels for what should be considered unhealthy levels of diesel pollution. One study linked high levels of diesel exhaust to increased hospitalizations for heart and lung problems among people ages 65 and older. The other study found that death rates among all ages were higher two or three days after a spike in diesel pollution.

“When those levels reach these thresholds, there’s an immediate risk,” Larson said. “It’s from short-term exposure.”

David Bryan of the EPA’s regional office for Kansas City said his agency has spoken to Larson about the monitoring underway. “We’d be interested in seeing his organization’s results.”

Driving through Argentine, DeCaigny points out Clopper Field, a public park right by the tracks that on weekends is packed with soccer players. Nearby, overlooking the rail yard, is a high rise for seniors. “They’re right on top of it,” she said.

She drives west into Turner, up to a health clinic and a community garden and orchard, and then circles past Turner High School, all close by the rail yard.

DeCaigny’s 8-year-old son died of brain cancer two years ago. She is particularly sensitive to environmental health issues.

“Knowing that some of the results are serious, this is something that needs to be known by the community,” she said.

BNSF said it has been making changes at the Argentine yard that reduce diesel exhaust. For example, switch engines are being used that turn off their main power while idling. And the rail yard’s intermodal facility is being phased out this year as BNSF moves those operations to its new Logistics Park in Edgerton. That’s taking a half-dozen diesel cranes out of service in Argentine.

But Larson said that’s not enough. He wants BNSF to fund a larger air-quality study by the EPA at the Argentine rail yard to see what further steps may be needed to reduce diesel pollution.

“It’s very laudable to bring in a new engine, but if you want to see if your measures are effective, you need to take measurements,” he said. “They’re on the right track, no pun intended. We need to make sure they keep moving ahead.”

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article727874.html#storylink=cpy

 

Air Quality, Clean Air Act, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fence line monitoring, Greenhouse gas emissions

California Groups Tell EPA: Set Stronger New Standards for Oil Refinery Air Pollution

Repost from EarthJustice

California Groups Tell EPA: Set Stronger New Standards for Oil Refinery Air Pollution

Focus on need for the EPA to do more to protect communities’ health

July 16, 2014 
Conoco Phillips Refinery in Wilmington, CA
Los Angeles, CA — California environmental and community groups—including families living near oil refineries—today provided powerful testimony about why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must strengthen protections from hazardous air pollution.The statements were made during a day-long public hearing in Wilmington, Calif., which the EPA held as part of its 60-day public comment period on proposed standards that would strengthen emissions and monitoring requirements for the country’s nearly 150 oil refineries.In advance of the hearing, Jane Williams, director of California Communities Against Toxics, said:

“The EPA’s proposal is an improvement over the status quo. However, it does not go far enough to reduce the harmful, toxic air that our children are exposed to. More must be done to reduce hazardous pollution spewed by the nation’s oil refineries to prevent cancer, breathing problems and other illnesses in our children.”

Although the proposed standards—to be finalized in April 2015—reduce hazardous air pollution by 5,600 tons each year and reduce cancer risk for millions of Americans, community leaders who have been working for decades for stronger protection say the standards fall short of the Clean Air Act mandate that all sources must follow at least, the average, emission control achieved by the cleanest refineries.

The proposed standards that were published in the federal register last month resulted from a consent decree resolving a lawsuit filed by Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project on behalf of environmental groups in California, Louisiana, and Texas that argued that EPA missed its deadline under the Clean Air Act to review and update toxic air standards for oil refineries by more than a decade.

The proposed standards, include a fence line monitoring requirement for the first time, which would require refineries to measure the toxic air contaminant benzene at the property line as it goes into the local community’s air. In addition, if benzene exceeds the new action level EPA proposes to establish, the federal agency would require a plan for corrective action.

In addition, the proposed standards would require tighter controls on emissions from storage tanks and other parts of refineries that are major contributors to toxic air pollution (such as delayed coker units) along with controls and monitoring requirements on flaring or the burning of waste gas, which is, too often, used routinely and which creates harmful new pollution.

The proposed standards also finally remove unlawful loopholes that previously allowed refineries to escape scot-free when they violated the air standards.

For EPA’s new standards to provide much-needed protection for communities on the ground, environmental groups are calling for stronger fence line monitoring requirements that would mandate the use of the best current technology to give neighborhoods a real-time, continuous measure of pollution, not just a snapshot or long-term average that masks peak exposure levels.  The standards also must require accessible public reporting and enforceable corrective action so refineries will quickly fix violations. In addition, groups want to see a hard limit on flaring to ban its routine and unnecessary use and to assure refineries minimize flaring in all other circumstances, as well as tighter controls on emissions from other parts of refineries.

Cynthia Babich, of Del Amo Action Committee said she is most focused on the real world health impacts of refineries’ pollution when considering this proposal. “The EPA must do a health evaluation using the most current scientific methods, instead of ignoring dangerous health risks our communities face,” said Babich.

“People who live near refineries are often surrounded by multiple sources of contaminants from other polluters besides refineries, like chemical plants. And in view of this and the greater risk to our most vulnerable children, EPA should find the current, high level of health risk to be unacceptable and set stronger emission limits,” she said.

Jesse Marquez, of Coalition For A Safe Environment, said his organization supports EPA’s proposal to make flares more efficient when they are used, and also calls on the EPA to limit flared emissions by setting a hard cap on flaring that will ban its everyday use.

“The oil industry claims emissions have been decreasing for decades but we found that flared emissions at the four refineries in the Wilmington area increased every year between 2000 and 2011,” Marquez said. “We must have stricter standards to end all unnecessary flaring and improve our air quality.”

Although the oil industry is objecting to the new proposed standards, community groups’ testimony illustrated today how important it is for EPA to reduce toxic air pollution and decrease the unacceptable extra health threats millions of Americans currently face just because they live near refineries. EPA predicts its current proposal will take about 5,600 tons each year of hazardous chemicals, associated with leukemia and other devastating forms of cancer, out of the air.

Lisa Garcia, Earthjustice’s Vice President of health, said: “It is imperative that we fight industry’s unfounded attempts to weaken EPA’s attempt to strengthen health protection, and, instead, do all we can to protect everyone—especially fence line communities and those that are overburdened—from the unacceptable harm caused by oil refineries’ pollution. We must stand behind EPA’s efforts to set strong new hazardous air pollution standards, just as the Clean Air Act requires it to do.”

Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project said: “EPA’s analysis shows that the proposed emission controls are worthwhile and will have negligible impact on the bottom-line of these companies, many of which report multi-billion dollar profits every year. The communities affected by refinery pollution cannot continue to pay for this pollution in the form of medical bills and missed school and work days, which add up to tens of millions of dollars every year.”

Air Quality, Bakken Shale, Crude By Rail, DEIR, Derailment, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Energy Corporation

Bloomberg News – Valero Oil-by-Rail Plan Has ‘Unavoidable’ Air Impacts, City Says

Repost from Bloomberg News

Valero Oil-by-Rail Plan Has ‘Unavoidable’ Air Impacts, City Says

By Lynn Doan Jun 17, 2014

Valero Energy Corp. (VLO)’s plan to unload as many as 70,000 barrels of oil a day from trains at its Benicia refinery will increase emissions across California in a “significant and unavoidable” way, a city report shows.

Valero has applied to build a rail-offloading rack at the plant northeast of San Francisco that would take oil from as many as 100 tanker cars a day. The San Antonio-based company delayed the project’s completion by a year to early 2015 as it awaits approval from the city.

“Project-related trains would generate locomotive emissions in the Bay Area Basin, the Sacramento Basin, and other locations in North America,” the city of Benicia said in an environmental assessment posted on its website today. “The city has no jurisdiction to impose any emission controls on the tanker car locomotives; therefore, there is no feasible mitigation available to reduce this significant impact to a less-than-significant level.”

Valero is proposing the rail spur as record volumes of oil are extracted from North American shale formations that the U.S. West Coast has little pipeline access to. California’s refiners are already bringing in the biggest-ever volumes of oil by rail as they seek to displace shrinking supplies of crude within the state and from Alaska.

A series of explosions and derailments of trains carrying crude, including one in Quebec that killed 47 people in July, touched off a flood of letters to the city of Benicia about Valero’s project and compelled the planning commission to put off a decision until an environmental study could be done.

New Rules

Regulators in both the U.S. and Canada are imposing new rules designed to improve the safety of trains carrying oil and a group of California agencies released a report June 10 recommending ways in which the state should respond.

Earlier this month, the city council in Vancouver, Washington, voted to oppose a proposal by Tesoro Corp. (TSO) and Savage Cos. to build a 360,000-barrel-a-day, rail-to-marine complex at the Port of Vancouver.

Valero’s Benicia project would probably result in a spill of more than 100 gallons once every 111 years, according to an analysis conducted as part of the city’s environmental report. The report was prepared by researchers at the University of Illinois’s Rail Transportation and Engineering Center in Urbana, Illinois.

California’s refiners received 557,315 barrels of oil by rail in April, the most ever for that month, state Energy Commission data show. Crude from Canada made up 45 percent of the state’s total rail receipts. Oil from North Dakota accounted for 22 percent.

’Challenged’ Market

Valero has described refining in the western U.S as “a challenged market” with margins close to break-even when all of the region’s plants are running normally. Profits from the 132,000-barrel-a-day Benicia refinery are particularly under pressure, Joe Gorder, the company’s president and chief executive officer, said in a presentation May 21.

The plant “produces a significant yield of gasoline, which, of course, we’ve seen the margins compressed on and demand not be the greatest on,” Gorder said at the UBS Global Oil and Gas Conference in Austin, Texas. Sourcing alternative crudes on the West Coast “would increase the economics out there for us substantially,” he said.

Spot California-grade diesel has traded about 3.5 cents a gallon above gasoline in Los Angeles this year and averaged an 8.75-cent premium in 2013, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lynn Doan in San Francisco at ldoan6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Marino at dmarino4@bloomberg.net Charlotte Porter