Investigators are examining tracks, equipment and human performance factors to determine why two Union PacificCorp.UNP in Your ValueYour ChangeShort position trains collided head-on collided head-on in Arkansas early Sunday morning after it appears signals were functioning correctly, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The crash, which occurred at about 2:30 a.m. in Hoxie, killed two train crew members and injured two others, according to authorities. One tank car, containing unrefined alcohol, caught fire and burned for hours.
The two trains collided at a location where two main tracks converge into one main track, said Mike Hiller, the NTSB’s investigator in charge of the probe. The plan was for the southbound train, which was on the double track, to stop and wait for the northbound train to take the other track.
“We know that this did not happen and a collision occurred right at that point,” said Mr. Hiller. “We are still trying to gather data to find out why that southbound train did not stop.”
In addition to examining equipment such as the brakes, investigators have requested medical documents and are scheduling interviews to look at the human performance factors. They’ve also shipped the trains’ black boxes to Washington, D.C., for examination.
Liquid natural gas and sulfuric acid were among the hazardous materials on board, Mr. Hiller said. Neither train contained any crude oil tank cars, and all hazardous material was loaded properly into the correct type of tank cars, he added.
The northbound train carried 92 cars, 11 of which contained flammable liquid class hazardous materials including the car with the alcohol, Mr. Hiller said. It originated in North Little Rock, Ark. The southbound train originated in St. Louis, Mo., with 86 cars, 20 of which were carrying hazardous materials.
About 500 residents were evacuated as a precaution in an approximately 1.5 mile area Sunday.
SACOG – representing 6 counties and 22 cities – to file objections by Sept 15 deadline
August 21, 2014
[Editor: This is an edited version of an email by Lynne Nittler of Davis, CA, who attended the meeting. – RS]
The 28-member Board of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) met on August 21, 2014, and listened to 15 community member comments from Davis, Sacramento, Dixon and Benicia who thanked them for their thorough and well-documented letter on uprail concerns not adequately addressed in the Benicia Valero Crude-by-Rail Project DEIR. All urged the Board to submit the letter.
In addition, SACOG counsel Kirk Trost, who researched and wrote the letter, explained his efforts to execute their directions and stood by his letter. A spokesperson from Valero claimed that many of the requests in the letter should be directed to the federal government due to federal preemption. Union Pacific offered to serve as an information resource as they are not technically involved; however their letter to SACOG (also submitted to the DEIR) stresses federal preemption and states outright, with citations of similar cases, that ”neither SACOG nor its member agencies has authority to impose the mitigation measures or conditions proposed in the draft Comment Letter on Valero Crude by Rail Project Environmental Impact Report.”
The SACOG Board held to their original plan to submit the letter which they commended and believed stated the truth of the inadequacies of the DEIR. With just one substitute Director attempting to dismiss or weaken the letter unsuccessfully, the rest of the Board voted to submit the letter.
In the next item on their agenda, the SACOG Board agreed to look at the comments developed by Mr. Trost on the federal DOT Rule-making document presently open for public comment through the end of September. (For information on how to send your comment to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, see Two-month comment period starts for new federal oil train rules.)
It remains to be seen how this all plays out legally, as Valero and UP are powerful players who are used to winning.
The Sacramento Air Quality Management District will shortly send their letter, another strong one, but more narrowly focused on air quality issues. Also, watch for letters from the cities of Davis (city council on Sept. 2), Sacramento, Roseville, and Colfax.
Repost from Capital Playbook, Albany, NY [Editor: Significant quote: “The county has placed Mintz Levin on retainer…. The firm will help with a potential legal battle with Global Partners, which has threatened to sue after the county placed a moratorium on expanding crude-handling facilities at the Port of Albany.” (emphasis added) – RS]
Albany County enlists top legal firm for oil train fight
By Scott Waldman | Aug. 22, 2014
First responders are familiarized with tank cars on the CSX Safety Train next to the Hudson River in the Port of Albany. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)
ALBANY—Albany County has hired a high-powered Boston environmental law firm to help with its battle against a Fortune 500 company that’s bringing in millions of gallons of crude oil every day.
The county has placed Mintz Levin on retainer, county attorney Tom Marcelle said. The firm will help with a potential legal battle with Global Partners, which has threatened to sue after the county placed a moratorium on expanding crude-handling facilities at the Port of Albany. Marcelle said Albany County has subpeona power and Mintz Levin could be used to enforce the county’s right to question top Global officials if they withhold information the county is seeking.
“The county executive wanted to ensure the people of Albany County had the best to represent their health and safety,” he said.
The county will probably spend up to $100,000 with the firm, Marcelle said.
The firm, Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, can also help the county submit comments to the federal Department of Transportation over its proposed new regulations for oil trains. Those federal regulations call for a phasing out of rail cars that transport a certain type of crude. Those cars are more likely to rupture and leak if they derail.
County officials are not happy with the federal proposal because it would still allow those older cars to transport the type of heavy crude Global Partners wants to bring to Albany. That crude from the oil sands of western Canada, also known as tar sands, is nearly impossible to clean up from waterways like the Hudson River because it sinks to the bottom.
The Boston law firm specializes in environmental law and employees about 500 attorneys. It has offices in London, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and elsewhere. Attorneys at Mintz Levin helped draft the state’s Brownfield pollution mitigation legislation and has defended enforcement actions in federal and state court, according to its website.
Global, which is based in Waltham, Massachusetts and is a Fortune 500 company, threatened legal action against the county shortly after the moratorium was issued, but has yet to file suit.
Albany County Executive Dan McCoy has taken a more aggressive approach to oil train enforcement than city and state officials and has also proposed a law that would fine oil train operators who fail to quickly report spills. McCoy has appointed a health and safety panel that is examining Global’s crude-handling facilities.
Global wants to build a series of boilers at the port that would allow it to bring in heavy crude oil, like from the oil sands of western Canada.
Albany has become one of the nation’s largest hubs from crude oil from the Bakken formation of North Dakota. The proposed boiler facility would effectively turn New York into a major oil-by-rail pipeline for another type of crude and has generated strong opposition.
Repost from Poughkeepsie Journal [Editor: Significant quote: “The U.S. Department of Transportation acknowledged in its proposed rule that an another accident isn’t a question of if, but when. “Absent this proposed rule, we predict about 15 mainline derailments for 2015, falling to a prediction of about 5 mainline derailments annually by 2034,” the department’s proposal stated. Reviews and lawsuits mean it could be years before the rule is implemented.” – RS]
Oil train risks push communities to prepare for worst
Khurram Saeed | August 21, 2014
The home of Doris Quinones is less than 100 feet away from the CSX railroad track, on which as many as 4 oil trains pass by every day, not to mention freight trains carrying other hazardous chemicals. An oil train is seen passing from the yard of Doris Quinones, July 31, 2014 in Haverstraw.(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)
Little black bullets.
That’s what Doris Quinones calls the dozens of outdated tank cars filled with crude oil that rumble yards away from her Haverstraw home every day.
One train hauling oil can have up to 100 cars, and as many as 30 oil trains pass through Rockland each week on the way to refineries. That’s twice the number from just six months ago as demand continues to grow for the volatile crude oil drawn from the Bakken region in North Dakota.
Those trains also pass through Ulster County.
In Highland, the trains roll past a restaurant and a Hudson River waterfront park that is being outfitted with a new deep-water dock for tour boats.
Ulster County’s vulnerable infrastructure includes drinking water intakes for Port Ewen and the Town of Lloyd.
A 100-car oil train can carry 3 million gallons of crude oil, and because so many more are on the rails, the number of derailments and accidents is rising.
The oil trains, which do not travel on a set schedule, roll through four of Rockland’s five towns on CSX Railroad’s River Line. Fully loaded trains run north to south, less than a mile from Helen Hayes Hospital in West Haverstraw, Lake DeForest reservoir in Clarkstown, the Palisades Center in West Nyack and Dominican College in Blauvelt, not to mention dozens of neighborhoods, scores of schools and day care centers and right past key highways like the Thruway.
Given her proximity to the tracks, Quinones said a derailed train would “land in my living room.”
“We’re all realists,” Quinones said recently in her backyard, where she sometimes lounges in her swimming pool and tends to her cucumbers. “They got to get something somewhere. It’s got to go on the freight train but they got to take extra measures even if it costs them more money.”
The oil trains are hard to miss, and the safety issues surrounding them, particularly their tank cars, have become harder to ignore. There have been a number of fiery explosions and accidents since 2013 that have caused officials at all levels to look closer at the dangers of shipping oil by rail.
Just over a year ago, 47 people died when an unattended oil train derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Rockland had a close call in December when an oil train transporting 99 empty tank cars from Philadelphia to North Dakota hit a truck stuck on the crossing in West Nyack, sending the truck’s driver to the hospital.
Planning for worst
Peter Miller, chief of the Highland Fire District, said firefighters took part in a drill in Kingston on May 30, along with other fire departments. The drill was sponsored by the Ulster County Emergency Services Department and CSX.
He said the district’s response plans are constantly being updated, particularly now that the Bakken crude is rolling through.
“We upgrade our training and our response plans to cover what we would do, depending on where the incident is,” he said.
Even as federal transportation officials are proposing more stringent requirements for tank cars to make them safer, Rockland’s first responders are planning for nightmare scenarios and how to evacuate thousands of people quickly in a catastrophe or have them stay where they are.
“Our job is to really plan for the worst,” said Chris Jensen, Rockland County’s hazardous materials coordinator.
Rockland emergency officials are finishing the evacuation map for residents and businesses within a mile of the River Line.
It covers a mile on either side of the rail line, broken into half-mile sections, from Bear Mountain to the New Jersey border.
Gordon Wren Jr., director of Rockland’s Office of Fire and Emergency Services, said the map “allows us to make the decisions quicker, faster.”
“Do you evacuate or not? If so, how far?” Wren said.
The map identifies schools, day care centers, nursing homes and senior housing, among other landmarks.
“(A police officer) can look at that and say, ‘Let’s get the people out of here,’ ” said Dan Greeley, assistant director of the county Office of Fire and Emergency Services. “It happens instantaneously.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation acknowledged in its proposed rule that an another accident isn’t a question of if, but when.
“Absent this proposed rule, we predict about 15 mainline derailments for 2015, falling to a prediction of about 5 mainline derailments annually by 2034,” the department’s proposal stated. Reviews and lawsuits mean it could be years before the rule is implemented.
In 2008, just 9,500 carloads of crude oil moved by rail. Last year, the figure exceeded 400,000, the Association of American Railroads said.
Rail industry officials note that 99.9 percent of all hazardous rail shipments reach their destinations safely and that only rail has afforded the nation the flexibility to move large volumes of oil so quickly and freely, letting the United States wean itself off foreign oil.
Susan Christopherson, chair of Cornell University’s city and regional planning department, said though pipelines are safer, oil shippers from western Canada and the Bakken shale region prefer trains because they provide flexibility from different points of origin to refineries nationwide.
The problem, she said, is the Federal Railroad Administration has “little capacity” to regulate the rail industry or monitor rail infrastructure safety.
“Costs for emergency preparedness have to be absorbed by state and local government,” Christopherson wrote in an email. “There is little or no compensation for these costs, which can be significant.”
Under Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the state has become increasingly proactive, carrying out inspection blitzes of rail yards and leveling fines.
‘Witches’ brew’
The River Line, part of CSX’s rail network, runs from outside Albany. In February, the railroad told The Journal News that two oil trains used the line daily, or 14 a week. By June, the railroad fixed the number of trains hauling 1 million gallons or more of Bakken crude at 15 to 30, or up to four each day, according to documents it had to file with the state.
CSX spokesman Gary Sease said there have been incremental increases in crude oil volume over the past several weeks with likely more to come. The railroad recently completed double-tracking work in north Rockland to increase capacity on the track.
“It is a result of market conditions and can fluctuate,” Sease wrote in an email.
“We see customers investing in additional crude oil terminals over the next couple of years.”
Bakken crude oil is just the latest dangerous substance to travel the line, Jensen said. Toxic substances such as chlorine, ethanol, propane and vinyl chloride have moved on the former West Shore line for decades.
“It’s a witches’ brew of stuff,” Jensen said.
But one big difference is the amount of Bakken crude that passes through Ulster, Rockland and, for that matter, 15 other counties in New York.
Aside from CSX, Canadian Pacific Railway hauls Bakken crude from the Midwest to Albany, with an average of one train a day with a million-plus gallons.
In May, CSX began a first responders training program by bringing equipment and experts to communities to teach them about incidents involving crude oil. More than 1,000 people have been trained, he said.
That’s a good start but more needs to be done, said Jerry DeLuca, executive director and CEO of the New York State Association of Fire Chiefs.
“You don’t fight an oil fire with water. We need to have foam and a lot of it,” said DeLuca, whose group represents more than 11,000 professional and volunteer fire chiefs. “It’s not something we utilize every day, so you have to be trained.”
Poughkeepsie Journal staff writer John Ferro contributed to this report.
