Monthly Archives: May 2014

Federal Regulation (U.S.), James River, Local Regulation, Lynchburg Virginia, Water quality

State of Virginia forms Task Force on Railroad Safety & Security

Repost from The Lynchburg News & Advance

McAuliffe names co-chairs of new railroad safety task force

Autumn Parry/The News & Advance  |  May 15, 2014
Olympia Meola Richmond Times-Dispatch
Train derailment
Autumn Parry/The News & Advance – Train derailment – Three CSX tankers sink as they leak crude oil into the James River after the train derailed in Lynchburg on April 30.

Virginia’s secretaries of Transportation and of Public Safety and Homeland Security will co-chair the state’s Railroad Safety and Security Task Force established in the aftermath of the train derailment in Lynchburg that thrust cars carrying crude oil into the James River.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Thursday announced leadership of the interagency panel that will also include representatives from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, the Department of Environmental Quality, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, the Virginia Department of Fire Programs, the State Corporation Commission, the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Virginia State Police.

The task force, which will hold its inaugural meeting at 1 p.m. on June 4, will solicit input from the public and present recommended state and federal actions intended to prevent future accidents and ensure the state is prepared should one occur.

The tanker car derailment April 30 in Lynchburg raised concerns over the potential threat to public water supplies in the Richmond area and the ecology of the James River.

The CSX train was carrying 105 tanker cars of crude oil from shale fields in North Dakota to Yorktown. Seventeen of the tanker cars derailed, and a massive fire ensued. Three of the derailed cars tumbled into the James River.

McAuliffe said in a statement that the task force is an important step toward ensuring that Virginia “is doing everything it can to keep our railroads and the communities around them safe, and that we are prepared to respond to incidents like the derailment and fire in Lynchburg earlier this month.”

“I have asked Secretaries [Brian J. Moran] and [Aubrey Layne] to bring our public safety, transportation and environmental protection agencies together to investigate what happened in Lynchburg and make recommendations of how Virginia can work with the federal government to keep our communities and our natural resources as safe as possible.”

Bakken Crude, Davis CA, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Richmond, Valero

CBS TV Sacramento: uprail communities concerned as crude by rail spikes

Repost from CBS13 Sacramento
[Editor: Rather a poor report, with a few errors (for instance, six explosions, not three) and a pessimistic ending.  But good tv exposure on the issue.  See the excellent quote by Davis Mayor Joe Krovoza, and note how the Valero Benicia spokesperson evades the reporter’s question on “Who will pay for safety?” in the interview near the end.  – RS]

Crude Oil Shipment Spike Has California Residents Along Railways Concerned

May 13, 2014


DAVIS (CBS13) — It’s been a deadly year for the oil and railroad industries as crude oil tankers on North American railways explode in three separate incidents, calling into question what dangers are we willing to accept in our insatiable quest for fuel.

Welcome to North Dakota, where the earth is gushing oil. But the black gold blessing is quickly becoming a shipping curse.

The number of trains carrying crude oils is rapidly expanding, putting residents like Errin Enos of Davis at risk.

“Of course I’m scared, they go right past my house,” he said.

About 1 million barrels of oil a day is being extracted from the Bakken Oil Field in North Dakota. Getting it from there to refineries in California has created a controversial and dangerous dilemma.

“Frankly, it’s just the odds,” said California state Sen. Beth Jackson. “If we’re transporting more things by rail, it’s just going to happen at some point no matter how we try to be careful.”

Oil industry insiders know about the controversy involving the third-largest refining state.

For the most part, crude oil is transported around the world on ships, through pipelines and by trains. Each of those has risks.

Three accidents involving oil trains have occurred in the last year alone:

July 2013: A train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in Quebec, Canada, leveling portions of the town of Lac Megantic and killing 47 people.

December 2013: An oil train collided with a derailed train near Casselton, North Dakota.

April 30: A train loaded with crude oil derailed in Lynchburg, Virginia. Some cars burst into flames, others plunged into the James River.

But even shipping has its dangers.

November 2007: A Cosco Busan oil tanker rammed the Bay Bridge, spilling 53,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the San Francisco Bay—or less than two rail cars full of oil.

March 1989: The Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Prince William Sound Alaska. Up to 750,000 barrels of crude oil spilled, making it one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters.

On land, millions of barrels of crude oil are moved through pipelines and trains. So which is safer?

Juan Acosta represents Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad and recently testified at a hearing at the state Capitol.

Even though pipelines are safer, he says, environmental groups strongly oppose building new pipelines, meaning America’s overflowing oil reserves are now hitting the rails.

Crude Spike Means Busy Railways

Railroads have several lines to bring crude oil into California. Many of them converge at refineries in our part of the state in cities like Richmond and Benicia. In the coming years, officials estimate that 25 percent of crude coming into California will arrive on trains.

Cities and towns that line these train tracks are fighting the trend, because there’s a plan to send even more crude oil through Northern California.

That has Davis Mayor Joe Krovoza concerned.

“If those same tracks are going to be be carrying hundreds of thousands of cars of crude oil through Davis every day, that’s absolutely a situation we can’t have in this community,” he said.

The plan would send 82,000 barrels of North Dakota Bakken crude oil on California tracks through Roseville, West Sacramento and Davis on their way to the Valero refinery in Benicia.

Chris Howe is the director of health, safety and environment at the refinery where they convert crude oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. They hope to build a special station where they can offload North Dakota’s oil from train cars.

“Today about 80 percent of the crude oil that we process at the refinery comes in by marine tanker,” he said.

Currently, a little more than five percent of oil comes into the state by rail, but that’s almost certain to increase dramatically.

With a record amount of crude oil being extracted from North Dakota and a lack of pipelines to ship it, and with the world’s appetite for oil products increasing in places such as China and India, the oil industry says it’s a basic business principle of supply and demand.

And it’s not just in Benicia. Oil is alreayd being offloaded from rail cars and onto tanker trucks at McClellan Park near Sacramento.

Who Will Pay For Safety?

At a recent hearing at the state Capitol, Lisa Stark testified for Union Pacific, saying safety is a top priority.

“I know we’re very aggressive on safety, so it may not make a huge difference here in California because we already have a very aggressive program here,” she said.

But at that same hearing, emergency responders from a host of state agencies were concerned about their ability to respond to a catastrophe.

“What we did learn is that there really is no preparedness,” said State Sen. Jerry Hill.

He says not only are local emergency crews not prepared, but he says only the railroads are willing to pay to train local firefighters, not oil companies.

“They’re fine with most of what’s being proposed,” he said. “It’s the oil companies who are opposed to any additional fees that would be imposed on crude oil that comes.”

Something Howe doesn’t confirm, but doesn’t deny either.

REPORTER: So you think Union Pacific would be willing to go into some of these smaller communities and offer training?

HOWE: I’ve read their commitment to do that and it’s my understanding …

REPORTER: But it’s not something Valero would be willing to do?

HOWE: I would surely encourage the railroad to help do that.

Living along the tracks, Enos believes more trains filled with explosive crude oil will be rolling by his home in the near future.

“They’re gonna get their way,” he said. “I mean I could talk, talk, talk and it’s not gonna make any difference, I don’t believe.”

Bakken Crude, CPC-1232 standard, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Regulation (U.S.), James River, Lynchburg Virginia

Lynchburg city leaders: ‘We dodged a bullet’

Repost from The Lynchburg News & Advance

James River Association reflects on train derailment

May 14, 2014 11:08 pm  |  Alex Rohr
River association reflects on train derailment
Bobby Harris listens to Lynchburg City Manager L. Kimball Payne III speak during a community meeting on rail safety concerns hosted by the James River Association at the Craddock Terry Hotel and Event Center on Wednesday.  Photo by Autumn Parry

The phrase repeated throughout a James River Association forum reflecting on the CSX train derailment of two weeks ago was “we dodged a bullet.”

No one was killed in the wreck that caused 17 tankers of a 105-car train to derail on April 30. No one died in the subsequent fire after one tanker breached, spilling 20,000-plus gallons of oil into the James River. The damage to environment likely is minimal.

But the JRA held a forum Wednesday with City Manager Kimball Payne, Upper James Riverkeeper Pat Calvert and City Councilman Turner Perrow to reflect on the incident, the aftermath and what to do going forward to prevent a worse disaster.

Payne and Perrow had just left a meeting at City Hall when they were told separately about the wreck. Payne, who was named JRA’s 2014 River Hero at the beginning of the meeting, recounted watching black smoke from a window at City Hall.

He immediately thought downtown was on fire, the Depot Grille had been destroyed, and people had died.

“It was a horrifying thought. …So I, like an idiot, headed for the river,” Payne said.

By the time he arrived, police and firemen were on the scene, knew the tankers were hauling Bakken crude and were acting accordingly.

“Then I realized the Depot Grille was still standing and I felt a lot better. But the river was on fire. … It could have been a lot worse.”

As the April 30 incident unfolded, Payne, Calvert and Perrow found themselves in a national discussion on rail safety, fielding questions from reporters across the country.

“I don’t know how they got my cellphone. I was getting texts from CBS news,” Payne said.

Safety concerns related to the hauling of Bakken oil — more volatile than standard crude — have been growing nationwide following the fatal wreck in Quebec, Canada in July as well as derailments resulting in environmental damage. The National Transportation Safety Board, the agency investigating the derailment, held a forum the week before the Lynchburg wreck on rail safety, referencing a national increase in rail traffic.

“The national discussion is happening. We’re on the sidelines right now,” Perrow said after the meeting.

“What this did is it pulled Virginia into the conversation. We’ll see if we have a seat at the table or not.”

One week after the wreck, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency order requiring railroads to provide state agencies information about Bakken crude hauled by rail. The order did not include a requirement for the state to share that information with localities.

“We don’t think it’s strong enough. They need to do more,” Calvert said speaking for the JRA. He specified the JRA wants stronger regulations on rail cars, in particular the older models that have proved vulnerable even with upgrades.

While Payne said he wants to know what hazardous materials are hauled through Lynchburg in general and how to deal with them, he doesn’t know what the city would do with minute-by-minute details.

Ed Melton, general manager of RockTenn, a packaging manufacturer on Concord Turnpike near the tracks, attended the forum and said he is concerned about evacuating his employees.

But the speakers emphasized hazardous material safety is not only about crude or rail. Payne said the city needs to know the general dangers on roadways. Calvert said hazards on the James include those causing the February Duke Energy coal ash spill into the Dan River in Eden, North Carolina and the January Freedom Industries chemical spill into the Elk River in West Virginia.

“The James River watershed holds about 80 percent of the toxic substances in the state of Virginia. To me, that’s very alarming,” Calvert said.

He and JRA Chief Executive Officer Bill Street said addressing those hazards should be part of the discussion going forward.

“We don’t have all the answers. That’s why we wanted to bring people together to talk about it,” Street said.

All three speakers said because the issue involved interstate commerce — the oil was drilled in North Dakota, and the train came from Chicago on the way to Yorktown — a decision would need to come at the federal level.

Perrow said the discussion needs to include whether hazardous materials should be going through populated areas where they could cause loss to human life or less populated ones where it may take longer to respond resulting in harsher damage. He said personal safety and environmental health should be balanced with economic benefit.

“I know I haven’t given you any answers, but I don’t think they’re out there right now,” Perrow said.

Calvert said he drank out of a plastic water bottle and arrived at the meeting in an automobile — both acts dependent on crude oil.

“We’re all dependent on this. We are all sort of complicit in this. Now what are we going to do about it?” Calvert said.

Those who are interested in participating in the policy decisions, and at least making sure what can be done is done, may contact their government representatives.

Perrow, who has been educating himself on rail, and in particular rail car safety, said people should do the same, and also talk to Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner because they are involved in the conversation at the national level. The senators issued a joint statement May 5 asking for tighter regulations, and another after the May 7 emergency order urging further action.

When asked by an attendee what she and others could do to help shape policy, Perrow said they should get or stay involved with JRA.

Street said the JRA keeps its members informed about ongoing issues and lets them know when to contact representatives when decisions are being made so their voice can join others most effectively.

“We are the voice of the river,” Street said. “The more people we have in this effort, the stronger the voice will be.”

Take Action

Martinez Gazette: Healing Walk for those living near refineries

Repost from The Martinez Gazette

Healing Walk to ‘Connect the Dots’ through Martinez

May 15, 2014

Participants to walk refinery corridor, bring awareness to danger of dirty fuels

MARTINEZ, Calif. – A “Healing Walk” will be held this Saturday, May 17, starting at Waterfront Park in Martinez, as local residents hope to draw awareness to the issues related to living near refineries and show support for transitioning beyond fossil fuels.

The Valero Benicia Refinery has proposed a project to begin transporting crude oil from North American sources to Benicia by rail tanker cars. The project has raised serious questions about the health and safety of those in Benicia and beyond.

The area is home to three oil refineries, Shell and Tesoro in Martinez and Valero in Benicia.

This is the second in a series of four “Connect the Dots: Refinery Corridor Healing Walks along the Northeast San Francisco Bay.” This walk is in conjunction with the May 17 “Day of Action against Dirty Fuels” to ask President Obama and local officials to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. The Refinery Corridor Healing Walk will be one of hundreds of synchronized events with Hands Across the Sand/Land and other partners to raise awareness about the dangers of dirty fuels and the need to speed the transition to available, affordable clean energy solutions.

Citizens from Martinez, Benicia and the Bay Area will be joined by members of the Sierra Club, Martinez Environmental Group, Stop Crude by Rail, CRUDE, Sunflower Alliance, APEN, Communities for a Better Environment, The Global Monitor, CREDO Action, Greenpeace, 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations.

Residents from Martinez and Benicia are expected to speak at the morning and afternoon rallies.

The event will begin at Martinez Waterfront Park at 9 a.m. with a sign in and an opening rally with speakers from the Martinez Environmental Group and Idle No More, and will end at the 9th Street Park in Benicia. The walk is approximately seven miles.

A group of kayakers will paddle in the Carquinez Strait as a group alongside the Healing Walk, forming a kayak flotilla. They hope to draw special attention to protecting the bay, Delta and ocean. If you plan to join or have questions, contact David at dsolnit@yahoo.com.

For more information about the walk, go to https://actionnetwork. org/events/time-to-transition-no-kxl-refinery-corridor-healing-walk.