Category Archives: Crude By Rail

CEO hopes town where 47 died will OK oil trains

Repost from The San Francisco Chronicle, Biz & Tech

CEO hopes town where 47 died will OK oil trains

David Sharp, Associated Press  |  May 16, 2014

FILE - In this July 6, 2013 photo, smoke rises from flaming railway cars that were carrying crude oil after it a train derailed in downtown Lac Megantic, Quebec, Canada. A large swath of the town was destroyed after the derailment, sparking several explosions and fires that claimed 47 lives. John Giles, top executive of Central Maine and Quebec Railway, that purchased the railroad responsible for the derailment, said Friday, May 16, 2014 that they plan to resume oil shipments after track safety improvements are made.

Paul Chiasson, AP  – FILE – In this July 6, 2013 photo, smoke rises from flaming railway cars that were carrying crude oil after it a train derailed in downtown Lac Megantic, Quebec, Canada. A large swath of the town was destroyed after the derailment, sparking several explosions and fires that claimed 47 lives. John Giles, top executive of Central Maine and Quebec Railway, that purchased the railroad responsible for the derailment, said Friday, May 16, 2014 that they plan to resume oil shipments after track safety improvements are made.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The company buying the assets of a railroad responsible for a fiery oil train derailment that claimed 47 lives in Quebec plans to resume oil shipments once track safety improvements are made, its top executive said Friday.

John Giles, CEO of Central Maine and Quebec Railway, said he hopes to have an agreement with officials in Lac Megantic, Quebec, within 10 days that would allow the railroad to ship nonhazardous goods, restoring the vital link between the railroad’s operations to the east and west of the community.

The company plans to spend $10 million on rail improvements in Canada over the next two years with a goal of resuming oil shipments in 18 months, he said.

“In the interest of safety, and I think being sensitive toward a social contract with Lac Megantic, we have chosen not to handle crude oil and dangerous goods through the city until we’ve got the railroad infrastructure improved and made more reliable,” he told The Associated Press.

The oil industry is relying heavily on trains to transport crude in part because of oil booms in North Dakota’s Bakken region and Alberta’s oil sands.

In July, a train transporting Bakken oil was left unattended by its lone crew member while parked near Lac Megantic. The train began rolling and sped downhill into the town, where more than 60 tank cars derailed and several exploded. The accident killed 47 people and destroyed much of the town. Three workers were charged this week in Canada with criminal negligence.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants the railroad and Lac Megantic residents to work together on a final plan.

“Any plan the company has should take into account the tragedy the people of Lac Megantic have gone through and should be done in collaboration with the administration of the city,” said Carl Vallee, a spokesman for the prime minister.

Transportation Minister Lisa Raitt said only that she was monitoring the situation.

Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche, who had no comment on Friday, previously told the new operator that she wanted the railroad to be re-routed around the downtown.

News that the new railroad is already talking about resuming operations upset Yannick Gagne, owner of the cafe-bar that was at ground zero of the tragedy.

“People are still in distress, in pain, facing financial problems, and we’re talking about the train company starting up,” the Musi-Cafe owner said.

Giles said he intends to move slowly and understands the community’s concerns. He said he hopes to convince the people of Lac Megantic that the rail is safe enough for shipments of dangerous goods by this fall. He said he wouldn’t press for crude oil shipments until later.

“I want to get the railroad in position that by January 2016 that I can at least begin to compete for potential crude business moving east-west,” Giles said.

What business may be available at that point is unclear, the company said.

New York-based Fortress Investment Group was the winning bidder for the assets of Hermon, Maine-based Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, which declared bankruptcy after the disaster. Central Maine and Quebec Railway closed on the sale of U.S. assets on Thursday and is expected to close of the Canadian assets in a couple of weeks.

Giles made his comments Friday in a telephone interview from Bangor, where his company had called former Montreal, Maine and Atlantic workers for a two-day meeting to talk about safety and operations.

He said the rail is in rough shape, with speeds reduced to 10 mph in many sections in Canada. He said the goal is to improve the track to safely increase train speeds to 25 mph. He also said he has no plans to operate trains with a single crew member.

With repairs, the company can transport crude safely, Giles said.

“The railway is important to the community, people, jobs and commerce,” he said. “We believe and we’ve proven … that we can handle every type of commodity safely and efficiently.”

___

Associated Press writer Rob Gillies contributed to this report from Toronto.

Expert Presentations: Oil Spill Prevention & Response Forum, Vallejo, CA

Powerpoint Presentations from the Oil Spill Prevention & Response Forum, Vallejo 16May2014:

1. Ernie Sirotek – Petroleum Crude by Rail
2. Gordon Schremp – OSPR Meeting Vallejo – CEC Final 5-6-14 GDS
3. Neil Gambow – New Regulations for Tank Car Construction
4. Joy Lavin-Jones Regs PP
5. Ed Hughlett – Casualty Lessons Learned CMA 2014
6. Lexia Littlejohn – First 96 Hours.CMA Presentation.Littlejohn
7. M Thomas OSPR Regulatory Overview
8. Nicole Stewart Spill Prevention and Response Day – KM
9. Geoffrey Ashton – LNG in NA safe bunkering procedures

Maine emergency officials: new fed rules don’t apply to some crude oil trains

Repost from The Bangor Daily News
[Quote: “Railroads that transport crude or refined oil into the state are required to pay a monthly 3-cent per barrel fee into the state oil spill cleanup fund.”     Editor: Seems to me that California – and each county along the rails, and the City of Benicia and other refinery towns – should seriously consider adopting such a fee.  – RS]

New US rail safety rules will not apply to all trains carrying explosive

By Marina Villeneuve, Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting
May 15, 2014

AUGUSTA, Maine — Just as the state has revealed that crude oil shipments by rail have resumed along the state’s rail lines, Maine emergency officials say new federal rules about shipping hazardous materials such as crude by rail don’t go far enough.

For example, the new rules do not apply to trains carrying less than a million gallons of crude or other material, yet such trains can cause explosions such as the recent one in Lynchburg, Virginia.

On Wednesday, officials at the Department of Environmental Protection said they have official reports of trains carrying crude resuming in March, after a four-month lull while crude was shipped by other means, mostly by sea or pipeline.

According to last Wednesday’s federal order on rail safety, carriers must tell state emergency response commissions the routes on which they will transport at least a million gallons of crude oil from the Bakken shale region of North Dakota. Carriers also must estimate how many trains will travel, per week, through each county.

“It doesn’t help us with a mixed train, if it’s a train with other hazardous materials on it or if there’s a train that doesn’t meet that million gallon threshold of 35 cars,” said Bruce Fitzgerald, Maine Emergency Management Agency director. He called the order “a start.”

Each state has such commissions as part of the 1986 Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act, which requires federal, state and local emergency-planning and industry reports on how hazardous chemicals are stored, used and released. Fitzgerald heads Maine’s commission, which began in 1987.

Since a crude-oil train disaster left 47 people dead in a Quebec village last July, trains carrying the crude oil have derailed and ignited in Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama and in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and New Brunswick.

The order, said Fitzgerald and other officials charged with coordinating emergency response in Maine, fails to answer practical questions about railroad accidents involving hazardous materials, such as who will provide the needed equipment and manpower.

Though it encourages railroads to invest in training and resources for first responders such as firefighters, “there’s no requirement there,” said Mark Hyland, the emergency agency’s director of operations and response.

Robert Gardner, technological hazards coordinator for MEMA, said that by not addressing such issues, this burden remains with state, county and local officials. Safety officials’ best guess at what types of, and how much, hazardous materials are coming through Maine is reading the placard on a stopped train that indicates what it’s carrying.

“If a facility stores a certain amount of chemicals … we’d find out on annual reports if it’s in Maine,” said Gardner. “If a rail car or tractor-trailer is going to Quebec from Massachusetts or from New Brunswick to New York, and they’re not stopping in Maine, we have no idea what those products are. Do they add to the problems that exist already? Or are they different chemicals that we don’t normally see in Maine?”

Gardner noted that when a train operated by Canadian National Railway derailed 16 miles from Maine’s border in Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, this January, five tank cars carrying crude oil and four carrying propane derailed and generated a four-day long fire and huge clouds of orange smoke.

“Trains carrying a smaller quantity wouldn’t fall under this executive order,” he said. A tank car typically carries 30,000 gallons of crude oil.

In March, Pan Am Railways carried 15,545 barrels — or 652,890 gallons — of crude oil into Maine, according to Department of Environmental Protection records. This is down from 385,566 barrels — or 16.2 million gallons — last March, and 70,484 barrels — 3 million gallons — reported last October, the last time Pan Am Railways reported carrying crude into Maine.

Railroads that transport crude or refined oil into the state are required to pay a monthly 3-cent per barrel fee into the state oil spill cleanup fund.

In March 2013, 13 tank cars operated by Pan Am Railways derailed and spilled about one gallon of crude oil near the Penobscot River in Mattawamkeag.

The federal emergency order states that “a pattern of releases and fires involving petroleum crude oil shipments originating from the Bakken and being transported by rail constitute an imminent hazard” as defined under federal code.

Chemicals that come through Maine include sulfuric acid and nitrous acid, according to Gardner.

Hyland said more notification of hazardous materials shipped by rail and better communications with railroads would help Maine emergency response officials better prepare for accidents.

“The communications part is something we’ve had a hard time with,” he said.

On Feb. 7, Fitzgerald sent a letter to Pan Am Railways asking for a list of the top 25 most hazardous materials it shipped through Maine in 2013.

In an email to the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, Fitzgerald said he spoke with a Pan Am Railways representative last week.

“They are reluctant to share information with us due to Freedom of Access laws in Maine,” said Fitzgerald, forwarding an August 2013 letter from the Department of Environmental Protection to Pan Am Railways. The letter addresses the company’s request to keep its oil transport records confidential for “security and competition” concerns.

“Our next step is to meet with the railroad in person to discuss our options for how they will share information with MEMA so that we can inform first responders,” said Fitzgerald, who said he hopes to have the meeting scheduled as soon as possible.

Cynthia Scarano, executive vice president at Pan Am Railways — one of the two railroads that have transported crude oil into Maine — did not respond to a request for comment.

Last August, the Association of American Railroads encouraged railroads to provide such information to emergency response agencies upon request, with the condition that officials do not share the list with the public.

Hyland said two emergency drills held in Lincoln this month and in Aroostook County last fall, where railroads helped supply tank cars and locomotives, are examples of “the kind of collaboration we want, training and exercises.”

Pan Am Railways helped provide equipment at the drill in Lincoln, and New Brunswick Southern Railway, Eastern Maine Railway and Maine Northern Railway took part in the Aroostook County drill.

“We want to continue to work with the railroad and be collaborative with them, instead of it being another regulation or a requirement that’s put on them,” said Fitzgerald, adding that if not for the federal government’s order, “we wouldn’t be getting this information.”

The Department of Transportation also issued an advisory urging oil shippers to use tank cars with the “highest level of integrity available” to transport Bakken crude.

MEMA officials said they support phasing out the tank cars most often used to transport crude oil. The cars, known as DOT-111s, have faced criticism since the 1990s for being too prone to puncture.

Peter Nielsen, Maine Municipal Association president, has come out strongly against the federal advisory, saying it sidesteps “20 years of investigations and fact-finding about the rail cars.

“We can follow our Canadian counterparts in banning unsafe DOT-111 tank cars and others known for years to be unsafe in crash situations,” Nielsen said in a press release. “That we lag our Canadian counterparts is embarrassing. Previous [U.S. and Canadian] efforts were made to move forward in concert in improving rail safety, but the U.S.’ weak-kneed measures to date will allow unsafe, rolling stock to remain in service.”

Nielsen wrote to the White House on Monday urging the ban of unsafe tank cars.

Retrofitting the existing 300,000 DOT-111 tank cars in use could cost up to $1 billion and take years, according to industry estimates.

“It’s time for a thorough review of the U.S. tank car fleet that moves flammable liquids, particularly considering the recent increase in crude oil traffic,” Edward Hamberger, the Association of American Railroads president and CEO said last November, calling for the shippers and rolling-stock leasing companies who own the tank cars to phase out and retrofit their fleets.

Irving Oil Ltd. announced in February that by the end of last month, it would convert its fleet to meet U.S. federal standards for tank cars built after October of 2011.

Since last fall, lawmakers and safety advocates have been urging the federal agency responsible for setting such standards to pass new and higher standards. On April 30, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration filed a notice of proposed rule-making, the next step in the often drawn-out process.

This story is part of the Center’s series “Lessons From Lac-Megantic.” The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service based in Hallowell. Email: pinetreewatchdog@gmail.com. Web: pinetreewatchdog.org.

Rachel Maddow: Disastrous record shows tank car hazard is decades old

Repost from MSNBC – The Rachel Maddow Show
[Editor: This is an incredible 18 minute report on the decades-long history of tank car failures, alerts by the National Transportation Safety Board … and inaction by the US Department of Transportation.  Enough!  – RS]

Disastrous record shows tank car hazard

Rachel Maddow  |  05/14/14

Rachel Maddow illustrates the safety shortcomings of the rail tank cars that are used to in large number to ship highly flammable material including Bakken crude oil, pointing to accidents, explosions, and toothless warnings going back over decades.