All posts by Roger Straw

Editor, owner, publisher of The Benicia Independent

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Federal investigation, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Moratorium on oil trains, Volatility

‘MOSIER’ Act demands derailment investigations and more

July 20, 2016 Roger Straw

Repost from the Hood River News

‘MOSIER’ Act demands derailment investigations

July 19, 2016

DAMAGED Union Pacific oil train car is trucked away from town on June 8 during an anti-oil train rally at exit 69 in Mosier. Photo by Kirby Neumann-Rea

Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden introduced a bill last Wednesday that would compel federal regulators to investigate every major oil train derailment.

The bill came in response to the June 3 fiery derailment in Mosier.

The Mandate Oil Spill Inspections and Emergency Rules (MOSIER) Act calls on the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to clarify the Federal Rail Administration’s authority to place moratoriums on oil train traffic after major wrecks, and would require the Department of Transportation to reduce the amount of volatile gases in the crude oil those trains have been hauling.

“As Oregon has seen firsthand, these oil trains are rolling explosion hazards,” Merkley said in a statement. “That’s unacceptable. We need long-term solutions that will keep communities safe. Every accident needs to be fully and independently investigated.”

The NTSB declined to launch a formal investigation into the Mosier derailment because there were no injuries or fatalities, and they deemed the wreck didn’t bring to light any new significant safety issues.

In a July 15 letter, the board replied that the agency “decided not to launch on the Mosier derailment due to limited resources and the current investigative workload in the Office of Railroad, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Investigations (RPH). This information indicated that the circumstances of this accident did not pose any new significant safety issues. The tank cars were breached in a manner similar to those that we have seen in other accident investigations. In addition, the derailment resulted in no injuries or fatalities.”

Merkley argued the Federal Rail Administration should have the power to enforce moratoriums until identified problems are fully resolved, and that the more volatile type of crude known as Bakken needs to be “stabilized before it rolls through our communities.”

“Oregonians deserve the strongest possible protections from oil train derailments,” Wyden said. “This bill ensures that federal authorities can stop trains after a major derailment until a thorough investigation has been completed, and that the NTSB has ample resources to closely examine the root causes of such a crash.”

Sen. Ron Wyden | Photo by Kirby Neumann-Rea

The proposed Act would:

Require the NTSB to investigate every major oil train derailment and provide resources to hire additional investigators.
Clarify the Federal Rail Administration’s authority to put a moratorium on unit oil trains following an accident to allow for investigations to be completed and safety recommendations to be implemented.
Requires the Department of Transportation to establish and enforce a standard that reduces the amount of volatile gases in crude oil.

The MOSIER Act would supplement a 2015 rail safety bill, Hazardous Materials Rail Transportation Safety Improvement Act, which seeks to establish a fee on outdated tanker cars in order to get them off the tracks faster. Funds from the fee would pay for cleanup costs associated with railroad accidents, railroad staff cost, and training local first responders.

Merkley and Wyden were among 12 policymakers who signed that bill.

Crude By Rail, Legal action, State regulation

Appeals Court Doesn’t Stop Crude Oil Rail Shipments Through Richmond CA

July 20, 2016 Roger Straw

Repost from CBS San Francisco (5KPIX, 740AM, 106.9FM)

Appeals Court Doesn’t Stop Crude Oil Rail Shipments Through Richmond

July 19, 2016 9:22 PM

Protesters against fracked oil trains held a demonstration outside the Kinder-Morgan rail yard in Richmond on September 4, 2014. (CBS)

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — A state appeals court upheld dismissal of a lawsuit in which environmentalists sought to challenge crude oil rail shipments through Richmond.

A trial judge’s dismissal of the lawsuit was upheld in court Tuesday in San Francisco. The court said Communities for a Better Environment, known as CBE, and other groups missed a state law’s six-month deadline for challenging a lack of environmental review for the shipments.

A three-judge panel said the California Environmental Quality Act didn’t allow an exception to the deadline even though the groups said they couldn’t have discovered the project sooner.

“Ultimately, CBE’s arguments about the proper balance between the interests of public participation and of timely litigation are better directed to the Legislature, not this court,” Court of Appeal Justice Jim Humes wrote for the court.

The panel unanimously upheld a similar ruling in which San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter Busch dismissed the lawsuit in 2014.

The crude oil is carried by the Texas-based Kinder Morgan energy company in railroad tanker cars from North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation to Kinder Morgan’s Richmond terminal, where it is transferred to tanker trucks.

The shale oil is extracted through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and horizontal drilling.

The environmental groups contend that shale crude oil, which is lighter than other types of crude oil, is dangerous because it is more explosive in the event of a derailment. They also say fumes emitted during the oil transfers harm human health.

The groups sued the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in March 2014 after discovering that the agency had quietly issued a permit for the project in July 2013 without requiring an environmental impact report.

The permit allowed Kinder Morgan to change its previous ethanol facility to the crude oil facility.

In addition to CBE, the plaintiffs were the Natural Resources Defense Council, Asian Pacific Environmental Network and Sierra Club. They were represented by the Earthjustice law firm.

They argued that a report should have been required under the CEQA law, while the air district and Kinder Morgan contended no report was needed because granting the permit was a ministerial rather than discretionary decision.

But the issue of whether there should have been an environmental report was never reached in court because Busch ruled, and the appeals court agreed, that the lawsuit was filed too late.

The appeals court said, “We acknowledge that if there were any situation in which it would be warranted to delay the triggering of a limitations period in the manner CBE urges, it would be one in which no public notice of the project was given and the project’s commencement was not readily apparent to the public.”

But the panel said that case law set by the California Supreme Court and other courts established that the Legislature made a “clear determination” that CEQA challenges must be filed within the deadline.

Derailment, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs), Rail routing

LATEST DERAILMENT: Edmonton area needs new rail line for dangerous goods, councillor says

July 18, 2016 Roger Straw

Repost from CBC News, Edmonton

Edmonton area needs new rail line for dangerous goods, councillor says

By Travis McEwan, CBC News, Posted: Jul 18, 2016 6:04 PM MT

A CN train derailed just before 5 a.m. on Sunday on the overpass above 97 street. (CBC)

A weekend derailment has a city councillor calling for a plan to move dangerous goods shipments to a new rail line that would circumvent Edmonton.

No one was injured Sunday when eight empty cars from a Canadian National Railway freight train derailed on an overpass near 97th Street and Yellowhead Trail.

Ward 4 Coun. Ed Gibbons said it’s fortunate that nothing was inside the cars. He worries the outcome could have been potentially worse had they been tankers carrying dangerous goods.

“It just takes one tanker,” Gibbons said Monday. “You’ve got propane, gas and fuel, and you do fear them exploding.”

Gibbons is pushing for a new rail line that would divert dangerous goods and other rail freight around the city rather than through it.

“We need to build something outside city corridors that rail could move on and move quicker,” Gibbons said.

The line, similar in style to a ring road, would be built in the counties of Sturgeon, Strathcona, Leduc and Parkland. It would be north of Redwater, south of Leduc, west of Duffield and east of Bruderheim.

Gibbons has pitched the plan to provincial politicians, federal and to CN Rail, but it’s currently just a proposal by the Capital Region Board, which includes Edmonton and 23 surrounding municipalities.

Gibbons believes it’s time to give the plan another look.

“We’re always envisioning what could go wrong and making sure we’re ahead of it for the next 30 years,” he said.

Edmonton rail alignment — Possible future rail alignment shown in light green. (Ed Gibbons)

Ken Smuda was sleeping on Sunday morning when he was woken by a loud crash that was followed by the sounds of emergency vehicles near his home close to Yellowhead Trail & 97th Street.

Like Gibbons, he also worries about what could have happened if one of the rail cars had the potential to explode.

“I have my daughter and my granddaughter living with me and that concerns me”, said Smuda.”I don’t want them getting hurt by anything that could happen here. We were fortunate that it was just several cars that went off the track.”

Ken Smuda plays with his grand aughter on the lawn of their home across from a line of trains. (CBC)

Smuda supports the councillor’s proposed dangerous goods route around the city.

“We have a moratorium in place for dangerous goods transported by truck,” Smuda said. “There’s routes that they can’t travel because of residential concerns. Why not the rail line?”

But Gregg Marko, who also lives near the same rail line, doesn’t worry about trains and the dangerous goods they move.

“It’s the cost of doing business,” Marko said. “Along the highway tanker trucks are hauling gasoline. I think it’s ridiculous if you can’t haul dangerous goods on a train.”

The cause of the derailment on Sunday is still under investigation.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Property values, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Benicia City Council member speaks out on Valero Crude by Rail

July 16, 2016 Roger Straw

Repost from The Pioneer, Cal State East Bay

Benicia Council member Tom Campbell interviewed by Cal State University newspaper: “Transportation plan in ‘uncharted territory’”

By Kali Persall, Managing Editor, July 13, 2016

Benicia residents will have to wait a few more months for a final decision on the Valero refinery’s controversial proposal to transport more than two million gallons of crude oil by train into the city, daily.

The three-year-long Crude by Rail initiative is currently awaiting review by the Surface Transportation Board, an offshoot of the U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates railroad activity across the country.

The Benicia City Council, which voted 3-2 in March to allow the project to progress to the STB for a second opinion, will reconvene on September 20 to review the case again, according to Benicia City Council member Tom Campbell.

According to the proposal, which was created in 2013, approximately 70,000 barrels of Canadian tar sand and bakken crude oil from North Dakota would be brought into Benicia by 100 railroad cars on the Union Pacific Railroad every day. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that one barrel of crude oil contains 42 gallons, which can be converted to 12 gallons of diesel and 19 gallons of gasoline.

The project also includes the construction of a service road and an offloading facility, the implementation of 4,000 feet of underground pipeline and the replacement of underground infrastructure at the refinery.

Cities, counties and states are currently preempted from controlling what is transported by railroad, meaning the city of Benicia cannot look into any of the potential dangers that could occur during transportation of the crude oil. Until the oil reaches the city limits, the city has no say in that aspect of the project, explained Campbell.

According to Campbell, Valero is trying to extend the railroad’s preemption to itself by arguing that a rejection of the project — and thus the rejection of the offloading facility that would need to be built — would impede indirectly on the railroad’s economic success by directly affecting Valero’s.

This preemption clause contributed largely to the Benicia Planning Commission’s rejection of the project in February.

Dozens of community members have spoken out against the project and the potential safety hazards that a derailment or malfunction could cause. Residents are also concerned about the possibility of their property values decreasing, which happened in Richmond when a fire erupted in the Chevron Refinery in 2012.

Conversely, the project has the potential to create an estimated 120 temporary and 20 permanent jobs, according to a final Environmental Impact Report for the project. Campbell estimates that property taxes could also increase to between $150,000 and $200,000 annually.

The STB will issue a declarative statement about what is considered off-limits for the city, either in favor of Valero’s petition or against, according to Campbell.

If the board votes “yes,” to the refinery qualifying for preemption, it would take away all of the rights of the city to have any say in the project. The city would be preempted from looking at whether the plan follows zoning or building codes, explained Campbell. In theory, the railroad could build the offloading facility wherever it wanted, even in a residential neighborhood.

According to Campbell, the issue is unprecedented, far-reaching and transcends anything the city council has handled in the past.

A declaration in favor of Valero’s petition would be “pushing the envelope further than it has ever gone before” and venturing into “uncharted territory,” stated Campbell. If this happened, the case would be escalated to the federal court system.

“I don’t think the STB is going to go anywhere near that, but there’s no telling,” said Campbell. “If they were to go down that route and decide something that extreme, which would have an effect on every city, county and state that has a railroad going through it.”

If the board issues a “no” declaration, Campbell said the city council’s vote depends solely on the aspects of the project that directly concern the city, such as the construction of the offloading dock.

Campbell believes the board will not reach a decision before September.

Valero Public Affairs Manager Sue Fisher Jones was unable to provide any additional details on the refinery’s next plan of action at the time of publication.