Monthly Archives: May 2014

Bakken Crude, Criminal negligence, Derailment, Explosion, Lac-Mégantic

Lac Mégantic “bomb train” employees arrested: criminal negligence

Repost from the Boston Herald

Men charged in Quebec railway disaster in court

May 14, 2014  |  Associated Press
Photo by: The Associated Press  FILE – Smoke rises from railway cars that were carrying crude oil after derailing in downtown Lac Megantic, Quebec, Canada, Saturday, July 6, 2013. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson, File)

MONTREAL — Three railway employees arrested in the runaway oil train explosion that killed 47 people were arraigned and released on bail Tuesday. They face criminal negligence charges in the small Quebec town that was devastated by the horrific inferno, which led to calls for making oil trains safer across North America.

The men were arrested late Monday afternoon, about 10 months after more than 60 tankers carrying oil from North Dakota came loose in the middle of the night, sped downhill for nearly seven miles (11 kilometers) and derailed in the lakeside town of Lac-Megantic in eastern Quebec, near the border with Maine. At least five of the tankers exploded, leveling about 30 buildings, including a popular bar that was filled with revelers enjoying a summer Friday night.

Quebec provincial prosecutor’s office laid 47 counts of criminal negligence, one for each person who died, against engineer Thomas Harding, manager of train operations Jean Demaitre, and Richard Labrie, the railway’s traffic controller. Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway Ltd., the defunct railway at the heart of the disaster, faces the same charges. Criminal negligence that causes death can result in a sentence of up to life imprisonment in Canada.

The three men entered the packed courthouse before a crowd of journalists and onlookers, including some residents who had lost family and friends.

No pleas were entered but Thomas Walsh, Harding’s lawyer, said his client will plead not guilty. The defendants were due to return to court in September.

Walsh said he had written to prosecutors several times asking that Harding to be allowed to turn himself if he was charged. Instead, Walsh said Harding was arrested by a SWAT team that swooped through his home and into his backyard, where he was working on his boat with a son and a friend. Police forced all three to drop to the ground.

“It was a complete piece of theatre that was totally unnecessary,” Walsh told The Associated Press.

Edward Burkhardt, who was chairman of MM&A, declined to comment.

The railroad blamed the engineer for failing to set enough brakes, allowing the train to begin rolling toward the town of 6,000.

Harding had left the train unattended overnight to sleep at an inn shortly before it barreled into Lac-Megantic.

The crash, the worst railway accident in Canada in nearly 150 years, prompted intense public pressure to make oil trains safer. Canada’s transport minister said in April that the type of tankers involved in the disaster must be retired or retrofitted within three years because they are prone to rupturing. The oil industry has rapidly moved to using trains to transport oil in part because of oil booms in North Dakota’s Bakken region and Alberta’s oil sands, and because of a lack of pipelines.

The arrests came just days before the bankrupt railroad’s sale closes.

The $15.85 million sale of MM&A is expected to close on Thursday in the U.S., but there could be a delay of a few days on a parallel proceeding in Canada. Most of the proceeds will be used to repay creditors. Eventually, there will be a settlement fund to compensate victims and repay cleanup costs.

The railroad’s buyer, a subsidiary of New York-based Fortress Investment Group, is changing the railroad’s name to Central Maine and Quebec Railway. The company said it hopes to recapture lost business but has no plans to try to bring back oil shipments.

Yannick Gagne, the owner of the Musi-Cafe, the establishment in the heart of town where many people were incinerated, has promised to make the new cafe a community gathering place as the town tries to move forward.

“You can understand, for me it’s a day full of emotion,” Gagne said.

Karine Blanchette, an employee who lost friends and colleagues, said she’s happy about the charges but nothing can erase the tragedy.

“Finally, there’s justice,” Blanchette said. “But it does not bring back the people we lost.”

____

Associated Press Writer Rob Gillies contributed to this report from Toronto. David Sharp in Portland, Maine also contributed.
Bakken Crude, Bay Area Refineries, Martinez CA, Phillips 66, Santa Maria Refinery, Shell Oil, Tesoro

CCTimes: concerns over crude by rail in Martinez

Repost from The Contra Costa Times

Martinez Environmental Group concerned over crude oil rail transport

By Dana Guzzetti  |  05/13/2014

MARTINEZ — Bill Nichols of the Martinez Environmental Group said the city is in “dire peril” because of trains transporting oil through the region.

“Accidents have risen exponentially,” he said, at the May 7 City Council meeting.

The Martinez group is part of a larger movement working to stop crude oil rail shipments partly because of the increased number of accidents in recent years. Explosions, fires and spills have occurred, sometimes in populated areas. Nichols cited a July 2013 accident in Canada resulting in 47 deaths.

Trains have intersected Martinez since 1877 and the tracks are now used by the BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) and Union Pacific railroads. As well as passenger service, some freight trains contain oil and chemicals.

Nichols said his concern about lighter Bakken crude is due to the fact that it is highly combustible, and because shale oil production has boomed at the Bakken formation in North Dakota. Heavier Canadian tar sands crude is also increasingly shipped from Alberta, Canada.

Mayor Rob Schroder noted that the Martinez rail switching yard is not far from his home.

“Of course we are very concerned. The safety of our residents is the most important part of my job,” he said. “It is not just Bakken oil, other trains carry chemicals.”

The Bakken crude oil is desirable in the market partly because it does not require as much refining to make gasoline, and is therefore cheaper to produce. While that helps reduce American dependence on Middle East oil, there is little pipeline infrastructure in place and new pipeline construction has been resisted for environmental reasons.

Oil producers turned to rail because it is environmentally cleaner, safer and more cost effective than trucking to refineries in the Bay Area and elsewhere, but not to Shell Martinez Refinery.

Tesoro began receiving Bakken crude shipments at the Kinder Morgan terminal in Richmond and trucking them to the refinery near Martinez, according to a Reuters report.

In March, Valero Energy Corp. revealed plans for a new rail terminal in Benicia to receive Bakken crude shipments, and Phillips 66 has plans for a project in Santa Maria which would facilitate train transport through Martinez to its Rodeo refinery.

“In 2008, there were 9,500 trainloads (of oil) in the United States,” Nichols said. “In 2013, that number has increased to 413,000.”

In spite of that volume, Lena L. Kent, BNSF spokeswoman later said, “BNSF experienced the fewest mainline derailments in its history in 2013, and the Federal Railroad Administration says that preliminary data indicates it may have been the safest year for the rail industry as well, following 2012, which had been the safest year in history for both BNSF and the rail industry.”

At the meeting, Nichols’ lengthy presentation was full of alarming statistics, and he requested the City Council to take a stand against the shipments. He asked the council to appeal to other elected officials, including Gov. Jerry Brown and to do the same.

Councilman Mark Ross subsequently observed, “It is important to pursue safety in the overall production and transport of oil, but there has to be a reduction in demand. It has only increased because it has become more profitable.”

Ross serves on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District board, but said it only controls stationary sources.

“It is up to the railroads and the federal government to make it safe. It is far short of what is needed nationwide,” Ross said. “The demand is going to be met … if they have to carry (crude oil) by buckets. It will have to be met.”

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, Bay Area Refineries, Benicia-Martinez rail bridge, Martinez CA, Spill prevention and response, Take Action

Request to Martinez City Council: moratorium on crude by rail

Repost from The Martinez Gazette

Martinez Environmental Group: Martinez moratorium resolution, facts to consider

May 11, 2014 | by GUY COOPER,  Special to the Gazette

The Martinez Environmental Group presented a resolution to the City Council May 7, proposing opposition to increased crude-by-rail (CBR) traffic through our city, mirroring similar resolutions and expressions of concern already proffered by Berkeley, Richmond, Davis, Benicia, and many other communities along the tracks. The following is what I wish I would have said in support at that meeting if I hadn’t chickened out.

A major attraction of Martinez is its status as a transportation hub. People commute and travel via Amtrak. There are connections to BART and bus destinations north, south, east and west. The train brings people to our town, sometimes for the first time. They stop, stroll, eat, drink, shop. I’ve talked to many of them. They like what they see, are amazed by the friendliness of the locals. Many are surprised such a town even exists huddled beside those hulking refineries. Basically, they come and go with a good impression that can’t hurt.

Personally, I love being able to jump on the train, catch a Giants game, make a trip to the City or Jack London Square for an event, or head towards Davis, Sacramento, or Truckee for a weekend. Naturally, money is spent on tickets, restaurants, hotels, etc.

If WestPac, Tesoro, Valero, Kinder Morgan, Chevron and Phillips 66 have their way, we could see five to six oil trains a day pass through. Each train consists of about 100 tanker cars. Each car holds about 30,000 gallons of crude. So each train contains about 3 million gallons, is over a mile long, and weighs about 28 million pounds.

A major consideration: How much can our 85-year-old rusty Benicia/Martinez rail trestle tolerate? Has it ever had to endure that kind of traffic before? What’s the frequency of inspections and maintenance of that span? None of this info is easily accessible. The Coast Guard and rail companies have haggled over a bridge refurb for years. How can it be done without contaminating the water, and who’s going to pay for it? Meanwhile, nothing happens. A few years back Channel 4 did a piece on the trestle, noting the heavy rust, separated metal and bent bolts. I guess it was stoutly built way back when, but how long can we expect our elderly bridge to endure an onslaught not seen since WWII? If the rail bridge failed under the load of one of these trains … well, I don’t even want to contemplate that disaster.

These oil trains would use the same tracks used by the California Zephyr, the Capital Corridor commuters, the Coast Starlight.

Farmers, industrial customers, and rail passengers in the heartland of this country are already complaining about train delays and freight delivery impacts due to oil train traffic kludging up the system. What exactly will the local economic impact be if passenger rail schedules are severely disrupted?

Have you noticed the increase in delays lately just trying to get across the tracks to the waterfront as oil trains are built, rolling back and forth, attaching more cars, blocking traffic?

Exactly what economic impact do the local refineries have? Taxes, wages … I’d like to see the details. And please, not the contributions to local causes. For them, that’s just a drop in the PR bucket. What about the health effects of the carcinogens and other toxics spewed into our local environment? We rate amongst the worst in the country in that regard, because of the refineries. What are those costs? The more trains, the more detrimental health impacts. These trains out-gas toxic stuff while unloading or just sitting. Has that been factored into the cost/benefit mix? How about emergency response costs? Not just in responding to a sudden emergency, but in equipping and staffing for the eventuality. Are the oil producers and refiners offering to cover those costs?

Here’s some more math. These so-called “Bakken Bombers” carry a crude that has been likened to gasoline in volatility. One gallon of gas is equivalent to the explosive power of 63 sticks of dynamite. A Bakken Bomber contains about 3 million gallons, or the equivalent of 189,000,000 sticks of dynamite. You know, I’ve been to Hiroshima, Japan. A sobering experience. The power of the bomb that flattened that city was rated at 12 kilotons, or equivalent to 4.8 million sticks of TNT. So one Bakken Bomber train could potentially contain the explosive power of 39 Hiroshimas.

My point is, there is very little benefit to our city hosting this exponential increase in oil train traffic. And much at risk. Any one of these trains could annihilate our town or indelibly poison our water front. It’s just not worth it.

I believe the City of Martinez should be acutely concerned about this issue and wish to join our neighboring municipalities in conveying that concern to the powers at the state and federal levels that can do something about it. So I ask that the City Council call for a moratorium on crude-by-rail until all safety and health concerns are remedied. Vote to pass our resolution.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Niobrara crude, Oil spill

Second derailment of a crude oil train in two days: this one near Denver

Repost from The Republic, of Columbus, Indiana
[Editor – see also yesterday’s posting of a derailment near Estevan, Saskatchewan, Canada.  – RS]

Crews work to clean up after 6 cars of a 100-car oil crude train derails northwest of Denver

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  |  May 09, 2014
PHOTO: Crews work to clean up several train cars that were derailed and flipped along the track southwest of LaSalle, Colo. on Friday, May 9, 2014. The train, loaded in Windsor with Niobrara crude bound for New York, derailed around 8 a.m. according to Union Pacific Spokesman Mark Davis. Officials found one car of the 100-car train was leaking. (AP Photo/The Greeley Tribune, Joshua Polson)Crews work to clean up several train cars that were derailed and flipped along the track southwest of LaSalle, Colo. on Friday, May 9, 2014. The train, loaded in Windsor with Niobrara crude bound for New York, derailed around 8 a.m. according to Union Pacific Spokesman Mark Davis. Officials found one car of the 100-car train was leaking. (AP Photo/The Greeley Tribune, Joshua Polson)

LASALLE, Colorado — Crews from Union Pacific Railroad worked to clear a six-car oil train derailment that leaked some crude into a ditch Friday in northern Colorado.

State and local emergency officials determined that one car of the 100-car train was leaking after the 8 a.m. derailment near LaSalle, about 45 miles north of Denver.

The cause of the derailment was under investigation, said Micki Trost, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Division of Emergency Management. Crews had contained the spill to a ditch away from any waterways, Trost said.

The amount of oil spilled wasn’t immediately known, but a vacuum truck was brought in to suck up the spill. Tanker trucks lined up nearby to transfer the oil.

According to The Greeley Tribune (http://tinyurl.com/m96ows9 ), the train was loaded in nearby Windsor with Niobrara crude and was bound for New York. Niobrara oil comes from the Niobrara shale formation in Colorado, Wyoming and Kansas. It’s not considered as volatile as Bakken crude from North Dakota and eastern Montana.

Public and political pressure to make oil trains safer began last summer when a runaway oil train carrying Bakken crude derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people and incinerating much of the town. Other trains carrying Bakken crude have derailed and caught fire since then in Alabama, North Dakota, Virginia and New Brunswick, Canada.

Information from: The Tribune of Greeley, Co, http://greeleytribune.com