Repost from DeSmogBlog
Nine days after announcing new regulations designed to improve oil-by-rail safety, the Department of Transportation quietly weakened the rules for testing rail cars and exempted shippers of bitumen from having to…Repost from KPIX 5, CBS SF Bay Area
RICHMOND (KPIX 5) — Two weeks ago, KPIX 5 discovered trains carrying explosive fracked crude oil have been rolling into the Bay Area under everyone’s radar. On Thursday, four environmental groups have filed a lawsuit over it, calling the crude by rail terminal illegal.
Earthjustice attorney Suma Peesapati had no idea the long trains were coming into the Bay Area until she saw KPIX 5’s story.
“I was flabbergasted,” Peesapati said. “This just happened under the cover of night.”
Fracked crude oil from the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota can result in deadly explosions in a derailment. Yet we discovered the energy company Kinder Morgan started bringing 100-car trains loaded with the oil right into the heart of Richmond six months ago, all without having to go through any environmental review.
“We can’t hold up their permit because there is public opposition. As long as somebody doesn’t increase their emissions, we give them a permit,” Jim Karas of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District told KPIX 5.
Karas said since the rail yard was previously unloading ethanol trains, switching to fracked crude oil was no big deal. “Very small deal, very well controlled, very few emissions,” he said.
According to permit documents obtained by KPIX 5, Kinder Morgan claimed the operation “will not increase emissions beyond currently permitted levels”, and requested that the air district treat it “as an alteration, not a modification”.
“This hardly a minor alteration. I mean this fundamentally changes the nature of the operation and the environmental impacts,” said Peesapati.
Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on behalf of 4 environmental groups: Communities for a Better Environment, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The complaint claims the Air District’s “clandestine approval” of the project “ignores the well-known and potentially catastrophic risk to public health and safety.”
“These trains are rolling and they pose an immediate threat to the local community,” said Peesapati.
“It’s really a slap in the face against the people of Richmond,” said Andres Soto with Communities for a Better Environment. He hopes the courts will take action quickly. And not just because of the danger of explosions.
“There’s a number of chemicals that are constituents in this crude oil that are carcinogenic,” he said.
Adding to the risk, Soto said the tanker trucks that deliver the crude to local refineries. “It’s going to take three trucks to unload one train car and that is an extreme expansion of the number of trips by diesel trucks on our city streets and on our state highways.”
KPIX 5 reached out to Kinder Morgan and the Air District Thursday night. Both said they don’t comment on pending litigation. The lawsuit calls on the Air District to pull Kinder Morgan’s permit, and asks the judge to issue an injunction that would shut down the terminal until a full environmental impact report is completed.
Repost from The Hill
[Editor: This January post shows what can happen when local officials and companies like Valero have no control over railroad companies’ shipping schedules. – RS]
Freight trains carrying crude oil shipments are blocking Amtrak trains in the northwest United States, according to complaints from the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP).
The passenger railway advocacy group wrote in a letter to Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx that oil-by-rail shipments are blocking trains on Amtrak’s Empire Builder route, which runs from Chicago to Portland and Seattle.
Crude oil train shipments have come under fire after a series of derailments. The railroad passenger association said trains that stay on the tracks are also causing problems for Amtrak passengers.
“Delays of up to eight to ten hours have plagued the Empire Builder, inflicting extreme inconvenience—often at considerable personal expense—to literally thousands of Amtrak passengers and their families,” NARP President Ross Capon wrote to Foxx.
“While severe weather has played a contributing factor, the delays are in large part due to the logjam of rail congestion caused by hundreds of additional freight trains transporting crude oil extracted in North Dakota to refineries in other parts of the U.S.,” Capon continued.
Capon said NARP “recognizes the key role that America’s freight railroads play in fueling economic activity in the U.S.”
But he said that Amtrak and the freight rail company that operates the tracks the Empire Builder line runs on should be able to work out a better scheduling agreement.
“Amtrak and host railroad BNSF Railway Company must come together to ensure that the Empire Builder’s passengers have continued access to adequate, reliable public transportation,” he said. “The Empire Builder serves communities in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington State, and Oregon, with some 18.8 million people living within 25 miles of an Empire Builder station. The train acts as a vital transportation link for hundreds of rural communities to essential services in urban population centers.”
Supporters of the Keystone XL pipeline have said there would be less crude oil shipment by rail if the controversial project was allowed to be built. The Obama administration has resisted calls for constructing the pipeline, citing environmental concerns, even as it plans to ramp up its regulation of oil trains.
Capon said it was particularly important for officials to figure out a way to make service reliable on Amtrak’s northwest line because it travels through several smaller states that have sparse air service.
“Amtrak’s Empire Builder carried 536,400 passengers in fiscal year 2013 along a 2,256 mile corridor that has little in the way of transportation alternatives, and regularly experiences extreme winter weather conditions that close down airports and road networks,” he said. “Without a fully functioning rail service, many of these Americans will be effectively stranded.”
Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari told The Hill that the company is dealing with the oil train-induced delays by shipping stations in Grand Forks, Devil Lake, Rugby, N.D. to make up time on its overnight cross country trip.
Magliari said Amtrak was negotiating with BNSF Railway for an equitable solution.
“We met two weeks ago with BNSF,” he said. “This dates back well before current winter weather blast. They told us they are making capacity improvements, but we should not expect to see an improvement in how our trains managed with their tracks until later this year.”
Magliari said the detours around trains that are carrying crude oil “requires passengers to disembark in Fargo, N.D. at 3:35 a.m. to get on chartered buses to take them to the three missing stops.
“We’re going to keep working with BNSF to try to mitigate these delays and inform our passengers what’s going on, but we’re concerned about this for our passengers and for our business,” he said. “This is our most popular, by ridership, overnight route in the country. It’s going to celebrate 85th anniversary later this month.”
Amtrak acquired the Empire Builder route from a private rail company when it was created by Congress in 1971.
A BNSF spokeswoman told the Grand Forks Herald newspaper that it was “working” with Amtrak to find a solution to the delays.
The company blamed the train backup on winter weather in the midwest U.S.
“BNSF service is being impacted by extreme cold and winter weather conditions across the Midwest,” BNSF spokeswoman Amy McBeth told the North Dakota paper.
“The extreme cold and snow are presenting significant operating challenges for our operations,” McBeth continued. “To recover, we are operating our westbound trains on our route through New Rockford and eastbound traffic through our Devils Lake route. We will continue working with Amtrak as our network recovers.”
Repost from The Benicia Herald
MANY THANKS TO THE BENICIA HERALD for its detailed coverage of Valero’s presentation earlier this week on its Crude-by-Rail Project. Donna Beth Weilenman’s lengthy report presented the very best in understanding Valero’s message.
I was somewhat disappointed, however. A small but growing segment of Benicia residents and business owners attended Valero’s meeting, offering a peaceful presence and an alternative view on crude by rail. Other news sources, including a nearby newspaper, two TV stations, two radio stations and a couple of blogs included references to the strong public opposition to Valero’s proposal at that meeting. Ms. Weilenman’s report virtually ignored the public’s input on that night.
Benicians need to hear Valero’s point of view, but a variety of voices made “news” at the actual event, and folks need to know about that as well.
The residents and businesses of Benicia have been waiting since last July for Valero to present its facts and to sell its proposal to bring North American crude oil by railroad tank car into our community. We can expect highly financed and professional messaging to promote their plan. Thanks to a recent paid ad in a local magazine and this week’s community meeting, we now know how Valero will focus our attention — and in some cases, misdirect our legitimate concerns.
We learned at this meeting, finally, that Valero clearly does not rule out importing train cars full of highly volatile Bakken crude oil and the world’s dirtiest crude from the tar sands of Canada.
After its presentation, when Valero opened the meeting for questions and answers, I must admit that I was surprised by the preponderance of questions expressing deep concern for the health and safety of Benicia. Well over 80 percent of the questions asked were cautiously skeptical and highly concerned about safety and the environment. I took notes on each of the approximately 24 questions asked, with the following results: Nine were about emergency spills and explosions, four were about the source and crude oil content of Valero’s rail shipments, two were about failure-prone DOT-111 tank cars, and one each concerned train routing, traffic in the Industrial Park and permitting of the proposed project.
Following each question, a panel member or representative of Valero or Union Pacific gave a brief answer. Many in attendance, including myself, felt that some of the answers were almost glib, and all were calculated to smooth over every public concern.
We were assured over and over again that Valero’s excellent safety record, thorough planning, and yet-to-be passed new federal and state regulations would protect us from a catastrophic spill or explosion. This in the face of recent news reports on the massive increase in crude-by-rail shipments and the inevitable skyrocketing numbers of horrific explosions and spills over the last year.
We were assured over and over again that no additional or adverse pollution would result, supposedly because trains give off fewer emissions than ships. This totally ignores easily available background on the environmentally destructive methods of crude oil extraction in the Bakken region of North Dakota and tar sands mining in Canada, and the excessive corrosive effects and additional toxic emissions when refining extreme crudes. No one asked Valero at this meeting to address the 100 connect-disconnect operations every day on tank cars as opposed to a single connect-disconnect of a docked ship once a week. How will these repetitive operations add to what are known as “fugitive emissions,” not to mention a massive increase in risk for spills and accidents?
I usually call myself a liberal. In this instance, I am a deeply conserving skeptic. Please, Valero — I know that you work for Texas executives who guide your actions here, but as you mentioned at your meeting this week, 50 percent of your management and more than 100 Valero employees live here in Benicia. You are our neighbors. Please help us protect our lives and our city, and stand with us on behalf of communities uprail and downwind of Benicia. Ask Valero’s Texas executives to rethink their strategies for the future of energy production. Valero could lead the way in the oil industry. Everyone knows that refining of crude oil is a dying enterprise. In the next 50 years Valero will need to retool to produce energy in cleaner and safer ways. There is no need to grasp at the last, most dirty and dangerous barrels of crude to make a quick buck.
Listen to concerned Benicians and folks from communities uprail and downwind of here — stop the Crude-by-Rail Project.
More information is available at SafeBenicia.org and BeniciaIndependent.com.
Roger Straw is a Benicia resident [and editor of The Benicia Independent].