Category Archives: Proximity to residences

EARTHJUSTICE: Watching The Rails – One Community’s Quest For Safety

Repost from EarthJustice
[Editor:  What it’s like to live near oil trains.  Imagine this in your town! Great photos – well done, EarthJustice!  – RS]

Watching The Rails: One Community’s Quest For Safety

By Kathleen Sutcliffe. Published May 11, 2016

WHEN FOSSIL FUEL POLLUTERS NEED A PLACE TO DO THEIR DIRTIEST AND MOST DANGEROUS WORK, they tend to locate their operations in places where they believe people have less power, often in low-income communities or communities of color. Faced with a deadly new threat, residents in one predominately African-American community are organizing their neighbors and allies from far and wide—building the power to take on a Fortune 500 company and complacent regulators.

Units at the Ezra Prentice Homes on Saturday, May 7, 2016, in Albany, New York.  The apartments are located next to the railroad tracks where oil tank rail cars travel.
Units at the Ezra Prentice Homes on Saturday, May 7, 2016, in Albany, New York. The apartments are located next to the railroad tracks where oil tank rail cars travel. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

Ezra Prentice Homes, in Albany, New York, is a community where people look out for one another.

Be Be White, a resident for 12 years, takes that responsibility seriously. Each morning he wakes at 5 am, helps his son Brayton into his school uniform and takes his post at the nearby crosswalk to usher Brayton and his neighbors’ children safely from one side of the busy road to the other to catch the school bus.

School crossing guard and Ezra Prentice Homes resident, Be Be White, stops traffic on South Pearl Street for children, including his son Brayton and Sanaiya , both six years old, to cross over to the apartments on May 9, 2016.
School crossing guard and Ezra Prentice Homes resident, Be Be White, stops traffic on South Pearl Street for children, including his son Brayton and Sanaiya , both six years old, to cross over to the apartments on May 9, 2016. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

Perhaps taking a cue from his father, Brayton spent an early May afternoon concerned about the well-being of a garden snail he found crossing the sidewalk. He and his cousin named the snail “Thomas.”

Brayton (left) and Jahcere, both six years old, watch a snail crawl across the sidewalk.
Brayton (left) and Jahcere, both six years old, watch a snail crawl across the sidewalk. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

As they marveled at the creature named after the friendly “Thomas the Tank Engine” character they adore, looming above them was another, decidedly less innocuous, train—the kind that hauls 1.8 billion gallons of crude oil past their home each year.

Antonio, 5 years old, runs through the complex with a friend.  Antonio's mother said that late at night when the train cars are uncoupling or coupling they create a loud noise and the whole apartment can shake, scaring Antonio and his older sister who come running to get into their mom's bed.
Antonio, 5 years old, runs through the complex with a friend. Antonio’s mother said that late at night when the train cars are uncoupling or coupling they create a loud noise and the whole apartment can shake, scaring Antonio and his older sister who come running to get into their mom’s bed. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

Ezra Prentice Homes, a public housing complex that is home to 179 families and 288 children, borders an industrial railyard. And since 2012, there has been a spike in trains carrying crude oil through the community to the railyard. The oil trains are the same type that have been derailing and exploding their cargo with unnerving frequency across the country.

After Exxon Mobil sold the property to Global Companies LLC, New York state officials quietly approved a quadrupling of the amount of crude oil transported to the site by rail.

Railroad tank cars in the Kenwood Rail Yard near the Port of Albany and Interstate 787.
Railroad tank cars in the Kenwood Rail Yard near the Port of Albany and Interstate 787. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

Be Be and his neighbors were never informed about the proposal.

Smoke and fire from a crude oil tank car explosion in Casselton, North Dakota, in 2013.
Smoke and fire from a crude oil tank car explosion in Casselton, North Dakota, in 2013. DAWN FAUGHT VIA NTSB

They weren’t told that the tankers, which line up just 20 feet from the community’s playground, were hauling a type of crude oil that is highly flammable and toxic. They weren’t notified that the fumes released during the tank car unloading operations at the Global facility included cancer-causing chemicals.

The seemingly endless parade of tankers that began rumbling past their homes served as their official notice.

More than half the residents of Ezra Prentice live within 100 feet of the railyards. And they worry if one day they might meet the same fate as those who lived in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where an oil train derailment and explosion killed 47 people in 2013.

“I can’t rest at night, knowing those tankers are right there, worrying we could be blown up,” says Be Be. (SEE MAP OF OIL TRAIN ACCIDENTS)

Be Be White and his son Brayton stand along the fence that separates the railroad tracks from the apartments.
Be Be White and his son Brayton stand along the fence that separates the railroad tracks from the apartments. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

Be Be’s not alone. Many of his neighbors carry the same fears and raised them in meetings of the Ezra Prentice Tenants Association.

Since 2011, the Tenants Association has been headed up by Charlene Benton. Charlene’s soft voice belies the power she carries in her community. From making sure each child at Ezra Prentice gets Christmas presents to compelling local elected officials to meet with concerned residents, Charlene is determined and persistent. “Health and safety are the most important,” she says of the threat posed by the oil trains. “The more informed we are, the more questions we ask, the better. A squeaky wheel gets heard.”

Led by Charlene, the Ezra Prentice Tenants Association decided to take on Global Companies LLC, the Fortune 500 company that had pushed its way into their lives, and the state officials who had let it happen.

Charlene Benton is the president of the Ezra Prentice Tenants Association.
Charlene Benton is the president of the Ezra Prentice Tenants Association. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Storage tanks at the Global Partners facility.
Storage tanks at the Global Partners facility. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

Charlene Benton and Be Be White didn’t know it at the time, but state regulators had violated their own policies by approving the expansion of crude oil shipments without consulting Ezra Prentice residents and others in Albany’s South End community.

Under state policy, low-income and communities of color that have been overburdened with environmental pollution are designated as ‘environmental justice’ communities.

The Albany County, South Wastewater Treatment Plant is located near the Port of Albany.
The Albany County, South Wastewater Treatment Plant is located near the Port of Albany. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

Albany’s South End—where polluters like the Port of Albany, a county sewage treatment plant, and the Global facility are all located—was declared an environmental justice community by state regulators.

When Global proposed a plan to quadruple their shipments of toxic crude oil to facility, state officials were required to inform the community and provide them with any information concerning Global’s expansion. They did neither.

Ezra Prentice Homes is the complex of grey-roofed buildings bordering the left side of the train tracks—where a line of tanker cars can be seen lined up. Global's facility and storage tanks are on the opposite side of the rail tracks.
Ezra Prentice Homes is the complex of grey-roofed buildings bordering the left side of the train tracks—where a line of tanker cars can be seen lined up. Global’s facility and storage tanks are on the opposite side of the rail tracks. IMAGERY: © 2016 GOOGLE / MAP DATA: © 2016 GOOGLE

The tanker cars that rumble past Ezra Prentice homes are carrying oil drilled from the Bakken shale deposit in North Dakota, mainly using the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking.’

Lakisha Thompson speaks with Earthjustice attorney Chris Amato in the community room at Ezra Prentice Homes. Thompson's young cousins live at the apartments.
Lakisha Thompson speaks with Earthjustice attorney Chris Amato in the community room at Ezra Prentice Homes. Thompson’s young cousins live at the apartments. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

Upstate New York is home to one of the country’s most impassioned anti-fracking movements. When the groups who’d fought to ban fracking in New York—including Earthjustice, Riverkeeper and Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter—learned their state was becoming a transport hub for fracked oil, they allied with Ezra Prentice residents in the fight.

In 2013, Earthjustice Staff Attorney Chris Amato, while poring through state records of environmental permit applications, noticed that yet another expansion was planned at the Global facility.

Global executives were training their sights beyond North Dakota, to the tar sand oils of Alberta, Canada. Global wanted to ship the tar sands by rail to Albany. It applied for a permit to heat the thick, gooey crude in railcars so that the oil could be loaded onto Hudson River barges and sent to refineries along the Eastern seaboard.

Tar sands in Alberta, Canada.
A tar sands operation in Alberta, Canada. DRU OJA JAY / DOMINION / CC BY 2.0

Tar sands oil, made infamous during the battle against the Keystone XL pipeline, is one of the dirtiest fossil fuels on earth. At each step in the process—from drilling to shipping to processing to burning—the air, water, and climate pollution is devastating.

The crude also contains high levels of benzene—a known carcinogen. Global’s plan to cook tar sands oil on site, in tankers and storage tanks at its Albany facility, threatened to expose Ezra Prentice residents to even more toxic air pollution.

This new planned expansion would not go through without a fight.

A sign in one of the windows at Ezra Prentice Homes.
A sign in one of the windows at Ezra Prentice Homes. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

Chris Amato met with tenants association President Charlene Benton, Be Be White and other community members. State officials had, again, ignored their environmental justice policy and failed to inform the community of Global’s tar sands application.

The state also claimed the tar sands proposal would have no impact on the surrounding community—the same conclusion they’d drawn about the quadrupling of rail traffic. It looked a lot like the environmental racism the state’s environmental justice policies were designed to prevent.

“It’s an absolute injustice what is taking place,” said Chris. “I guarantee that this would not be happening in a middle class white community.”

Earthjustice attorney Chris Amato, background right, speaks with concerned community members in the Ezra Prentice Homes community room.
Earthjustice attorney Chris Amato, background right, speaks with concerned community members in the Ezra Prentice Homes community room. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

In June 2014, Chris filed a state court lawsuit against Global and the state on behalf of the Ezra Prentice Tenants Association, along with Riverkeeper, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Waterkeeper Alliance challenging Global’s proposal to handle tar sands at the Albany facility. And in January, he filed a separate lawsuit in federal court challenging the illegal 2012 expansion of crude oil shipments at the Global facility.

To date, this coalition has managed to keep the tar sands proposal at bay. Local elected officials have also taken notice, imposing a moratorium on further expansions at the facility.

Promising steps. But state officials have still failed to protect residents.

Railroad tank cars, on the track adjacent to Ezra Prentice Homes.
Railroad tank cars, on the track adjacent to Ezra Prentice Homes. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

In the years since Charlene Benton and Be Be White began mobilizing their community to demand accountability from state officials, a worldwide mobilization was also taking place. Climate activists are pushing national and international leaders to speed our transition from fossil fuels to 100 percent renewable energy. And, from the Paris climate treaty to state-level community solar pilot projects, they are gaining ground.

The fossil fuel industry is resisting, bent on maximizing short-term profits. Global has made no secret of its desire to make the Port of Albany the largest oil transport hub on the East Coast.

When national opposition stopped the Keystone XL pipeline, Global had even greater incentive to bring tar sands oil into Albany by rail. But the same forces that defeated Keystone XL are now taking on dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure projects, such as the Global facility expansion, and organizing solidarity protests and demonstrations.

Be Be White, with his son Brayton (left) and Jahcere, walk through the Ezra Prentice complex. Be Be and Brayton live in an apartment right next to the railroad tracks where the railroad tank cars travel on. White has lived in the complex for 12 years.
Be Be White, with his son Brayton (left) and Jahcere, walk through the Ezra Prentice complex. Be Be and Brayton live in an apartment right next to the railroad tracks where the railroad tank cars travel on. White has lived in the complex for 12 years. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Sanaiya, six years old, often visits her grandmother at apartments.
Sanaiya, six years old, often visits her grandmother at apartments. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

The state and federal lawsuits are now making their way through the court system.

If the litigation is successful, it could force state regulators to complete a full environmental and public health review of the tar sands oil proposal or push them to reject the proposal altogether.

Antonio, outside his apartment.
Antonio, outside his apartment. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO

Just as Be Be takes seriously his responsibility of looking out for the children in his community, our leaders must take their responsibilities seriously—to communities bearing the brunt of fossil fuel industry pollution and to future generations facing the threat of catastrophic climate change.

And when our leaders delay and equivocate between protecting people and protecting profits, we all have a role to play in pushing them to choose wisely.

The choice should be clear, says Be Be White. “This is our life. It’s worth more than a tank of oil.”

By Kathleen Sutcliffe. Published May 11, 2016.
See legal documents & case timeline.

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.