Category Archives: Environmental Impacts

Bay Area refineries released 3.4 million pounds of toxics in 2012

Repost from The Press Democrat

Bay Area refineries dwarf Sonoma County industries’ toxic output

By     THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Saturday, February 22, 2014 at 3:51 p.m.

Sonoma County industries produce a minuscule amount of the nearly 32 million pounds of toxic chemicals released in California in 2012, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s latest report.

But across San Pablo Bay to the south lies a crescent of four oil refineries that makes Contra Costa County — better known for its tidy suburban communities — No. 3 among California counties as a source of toxic chemical pollution.

The four refineries — Chevron in Richmond, Phillips 66 in Rodeo and Shell Oil and Tesoro in Martinez — released 2.7 million pounds of toxics in 2012, the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory said.

Adding the Valero refinery in nearby Benicia (Solano County) brings the San Francisco Bay Area refinery output to 3.4 million pounds, exceeding the combined release of 2.5 million pounds from the state’s 16 other refineries in Los Angeles, Kern and San Luis Obispo counties.

Put together, the 21 refineries released nearly 6 million pounds of toxics, accounting for 19 percent of California’s total industrial releases — and 42 percent of the releases into the air, the EPA reported.

The Bay Area refineries reported the following releases to the EPA in 2012: Phillips 66, 1.1 million pounds; Valero, 655,285 pounds; Chevron, 611,255 pounds; Shell Oil, 529,045 pounds and Tesoro, 507,714 pounds.

Sonoma County industries reported a total of 6,801 pounds.

Toxic chemical releases by California wineries have declined from more than 9 million pounds in 2007 to just under 6 million pounds in 2012, the most recent year reported by the EPA.

The EPA defines a release as the amount of a toxic chemical released on-site to the air, water and land, and the transfer of chemicals for off-site disposal.

Toxic release amounts alone are not sufficient to determine exposure or assess potential risks to human health and the environment, the EPA said.

“Bomb Trains” facebook page

For Facebook users: https://www.facebook.com/BombTrains

2014 — The Year In Bomb Train Derailments

February 16, 2014
This a running list of bomb train derailments in North America in 2014.

By “bomb train,” I mean those trains hauling one or more cars of crude oil, fuel oil, ethanol, methanol, propane, butane, liquified natural gas (methane), ammonium nitrate or high-nitrogen fertilizer, phosphoric acid or some other highly volatile or especially toxic or corrosive cargo. (The list does not include coal train derailments, which, of course, are a whole nuther problem.)  I’ve also indicated whether a detonation resulted.

So far in North America in 2014, we have seen an average of one bomb train derailment every 5 days ….

  • 1/07 – Plaster Rock, NB (6 days from Jan. 1), detonation
  • 1/20 – Philadelphia, PA (13 days later)
  • 1/26 – Edmundston, NB (6 days later)
  • 1/28 – Molino, FL (2 days later)
  • 1/31 – New Augusta, MS (3 days later)
  • 2/06 – Sedalia, CO (6 days later)
  • 2/11 – South Shore, KY and Jacksonville, FL (5 days later)
  • 2/13 – Vandergrift, PA (2 days later)
  • 2/16 – 3 days and counting ….

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Casselton, ND: spill was 475,000 gallons of oil

Repost from McClatchyDC

December train derailment spilled 475,000 gallons of oil, data show

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy_Newspapers
McClatchy Interactive
February 12, 2014

New numbers in a federal database show that a Dec. 30 train derailment near Casselton, N.D., spilled nearly 475,000 gallons of crude oil, more than officials originally estimated.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration maintains a database on such spills going back to 1975. A McClatchy analysis of the data last month showed that more crude oil was spilled from trains in 2013 than in the previous four decades combined.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident, in which a derailed grain train caused the derailment of a crude oil train traveling the opposite direction on an adjacent track. The spilled oil ignited a massive fire, causing hundreds of nearby residents to evacuate.

No one was injured or killed, but he accident added to the anxiety of state and local officials about the safety of shipping large volumes of crude oil in minimally protected tank cars.

In July, 47 people were killed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, when a similar train broke loose and rolled unattended down a steep grade and derailed. The explosions that followed leveled the center of the lakeside community.

Initially, the NTSB estimated that 400,000 gallons of crude had spilled in Casselton.

The new total means that more than 1.2 million gallons of crude oil spilled from railcars last year, not including the Quebec disaster. Only 800,000 gallons were spilled from 1975 to 2012.

Federal regulators are in the process of developing new standards for shipping crude oil by rail amid concerns about its flammability. Crude from North Dakota’s Bakken shale region has drawn special scrutiny because of its involvement in multiple fiery derailments.

The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a Thursday hearing on the matter, and the House Transportation Committee will hold its own hearing later this month.

Neil Young, live: “Mother Earth”

Live from a stop on his “Honour The Treaties” tour.  Neil at the keyboard, singing, with photos of the devastation from tar sands extraction.  More information: HonourTheAFCN.ca/ – also NeilYoung.com.

“Oh, Mother Earth, with your fields of green, once more laid down by the hungry hand. How long can you give and not receive, and feed this world ruled by greed? … Respect Mother Earth and her giving ways or trade away our children’s days.” — Neil Young

Neil Young – Mother Earth (Natural Anthem) Lyrics

Artist: Neil Young

Oh, mother Earth, with your fields of green
Once more laid down by the hungry hand
How long can you give and not receive
And feed this world ruled by greed?
And feed this world ruled by greed?

Oh, ball of fire in the summer sky
Your healing light, your parade of days
Are they betrayed by the men of power
Who hold this world in their changing hands?
They hold the world in their changing hands
Oh, freedom land, can you let this go
Down to the streets where the numbers grow?
Respect mother Earth and her giving ways
Or trade away our children’s days
Or trade away our children’s days
Respect mother Earth and her healing ways
Or trade away our children’s days