The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is taking charge of the investigation of an oil train on April 30 that was hauling crude oil through Lynchburg, Virginia (VA). However, it will be many months before any conclusions are reached and recommendations issued.
According to Investigator Jim Southworth, these incidents happen fast but they take a long time to go through. At this point, the NTSB is gathering facts before moving into analysis. Depending upon how complex the oil accident was, it could take 6-18 months before the report is completed.
Personnel from the Federal Railroad Administration, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Lynchburg’s fire and police departments, labor unions, and CSX Transportation are helping with the investigation, he said.
Several working groups will look at train operations, communications, mechanics, the track and several other areas. These groups then will meet each day to share the information they glean. The preliminary investigation has shown that the train had 105 cars of crude oil and was traveling under the 25 MPH speed limit when the train derailed. Three cars were dumped into the James River.
A total of 13 cars on the CSX train derailed on April 30 at 2:30 PM as it rolled through Lynchburg. Three tankers broke out in flames and nearby residences and businesses had to be evacuated.
CSX removed all of the cars that did not derail, in coordination with local first responders. The railroad also is now doing an environmental assessment that includes air, water and land-based assessments of potential environmental effects.
Repost from Forest Ethics [Editor: This excellent Forest Ethics article also posts 3 succinct summaries: The Issue – Crude by rail puts our communities and environment at risk (read more…), The Facts – There are facts about the increase of crude by rail in North America that cannot be argued with (read more…), and The Solutions – We’re taking action to stop dangerous crude by rail projects in North America (read more…). – RS]
Crude by Rail Isn’t the Way Forward
We’re mobilizing to oppose new crude by rail proposals that threaten our communities, our watersheds, and our climate. To put it simply, it is unacceptable that unsafe, outdated tank cars would be carrying extremely explosive oil through towns and cities across North America.
We look to the town of Lac Megantic, Quebec, where an oil by rail disaster killed 47 people, and we say never again. We will stop a similar tragedy before it starts by speaking up against crude by rail and demanding that it ends.
How did crude by rail become such a dangerous issue in the first place? Well, tar sands pipelines like Keystone XL, or Enbridge and Kinder Morgan in Canada, are hotly debated issues in today’s political arena. To stop the toxic oil, we’re talking to each other, organizing town hall meetings, and attending rallies. We’re building a wave of resistance to dirty energy. The outcry over pipelines and tankers has left big oil companies scrambling to find new ways of moving oil.
In enters oil by rail, the ugly kid brother of pipelines, that’s sprouting like a teenage weed and hoping that no one will notice. In North America oil by rail has grown a whopping 4,100% since 2008. There’s been enormous growth but little public debate, or even awareness.
Most citizens and elected officials haven’t even had a chance to talk about oil by rail. Not to sound like a teenager, but that’s totally unfair.
We’re willing to bet that a small-town, salt-of-the-earth family is much more likely to be impacted by a rail catastrophe than an oil executive. With communities on the front lines, communities need to have their voices heard.
So we’re leading the charge to halt new crude-by-rail terminals, as proposals spring up all along the West, Gulf, and Atlantic coasts of North America. But we won’t be able to do this without help and input from people like you.
Repost from Mother Jones [Editor: The Casselton ND video has a nearly inaudible audio track. The Lynchburg VA video at end of this article is an amazing drone flyover of the derailment and spill in Lynchburg, with no audio, and with an annoying advertisement at the beginning. Ignore the ad and it will disappear. – RS]
Why Do These Tank Cars Carrying Oil Keep Blowing Up?
Millions of gallons of crude oil are being shipped across the country in “the Ford Pinto of rail cars.”
—Michael W. Robbins on Tue. May 27, 2014
Above: DOT-111 tank cars carrying crude oil exploding in Casselton, North Dakota, in December 2013 [Note: this video seems to have no sound, but it does have audio, only turned extremely low.]
Early on the morning of July 6, 2013, a runaway freight train derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, setting off a series of massive explosions and inundating the town in flaming oil. The inferno destroyed the downtown area; 47 people died.
The 72-car train had been carrying nearly 2 million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken fields. While the recent surge in domestic oil production has raised concerns about fracking, less attention has been paid to the billions of gallons of petroleum crisscrossing the country in “virtual pipelines” running through neighborhoods and alongside waterways. Most of this oil is being shipped in what’s been called “the Ford Pinto of rail cars”—a tank car whose safety flaws have been known for more than two decades.
Holey Roller: The DOT-111 The original DOT-111 tank car was designed in the 1960s. Its safety flaws were pointed out in the early ’90s, but more than 200,000 are still in service, with about 78,000 carrying crude oil and other flammable liquids. The DOT-111 tank car’s design flaws “create an unacceptable public risk,” Deborah Hersman, then chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, testified at a Senate hearing in April. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has compared the car to “a ticking time bomb.” While the rail industry has voluntarily rolled out about 14,000 stronger tank cars, about 78,000 of the older DOT-111s remain in service. Retrofitting them would cost an estimated $1 billion.
Chris Philpot
The Bakken Factor The sudden flood of Bakken crude (currently 1 million barrels a day), which is potentially more flammable, volatile, and corrosive than traditional crude, also poses a new hazard. The violence of the Lac-Mégantic blast and other recent wrecks involving this variety of crude stunned railroads and regulators. In May, the Department of Transportation issued an emergency order requiring state crisis managers to be notified about large shipments of Bakken oil. The agency also advised railroads to stop carrying the oil in older DOT-111s, citing the increased propensity for accidents. Meanwhile, as US officials decide what to do next, Canada has ordereditsrailways to stop all crude shipments in the cars by 2017.
Tank cars carrying crude oil derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in July 2013, killing 47 people. AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson
More Trains, More Spills
Trains carry more than 10 percent of all US oil, particularly from areas without major pipelines, such as the Bakken. The sudden surge of oil shipments has so clogged the rails that farmers in North Dakota complain that they can’t get fertilizer shipped in or their crops shipped out.
Not waiting for a final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, oil companies arealsobuilding rail terminals in Canada’s tar sands region. The Association of American Railroads says that the vast majority of rail shipments arrive without incident. But more oil on the rails has also meant more spills. Trains leaked more crude in 2013 than all years since 1971 combined. (These figures don’t include the Lac-Mégantic disaster, in which 1.6 million gallons of oil spilled.)
Off the Rails: Recent DOT-111 Accidents
Watch a video of tank cars exploding in Casselton at the top of the page. Watch video of the aftermath of the recent derailment and spill in Lynchburg, Virginia, below.
Repost from the Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal [Editor: See quotes from Benicia’s Andrés Soto near end of this article. – RS]
Sharp rise in West Coast oil trains, fears abound
Gosia Wozniacka, Associated Press | May 26, 2014
VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Residents along the scenic Columbia River are hoping to persuade regulators to reject plans for what would be the Pacific Northwest’s largest crude oil train terminal — the proposed destination for at least four trains a day, each more than a mile long.
The increasing numbers of trains, each carrying tens of thousands of barrels of potentially volatile crude from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota, have raised concerns around the country after nine accidents in the past year, including one last month in Virginia.
In Vancouver, Washington, just across the Columbia from Portland, Oregon, the oil companies say their proposed terminal will create at least 80 permanent jobs and will bring an economic windfall to the region. But area residents and others in nearby communities are worried about the risks to people, wildlife, businesses and to their way of life.
“We depend on the Columbia for moving freight, generating power, irrigating farms, fishing,” said Eric LaBrant, president of the Fruit Valley Neighborhood Association, which represents about 2,000 residents who live next to the proposed site.
“Anywhere on the Columbia, an oil spill would cripple our economy,” he said.
The river is, in a way, the soul of the Pacific Northwest. It is cherished for its beauty, for its recreational offerings like wind surfing, and for the salmon and steelhead caught by sport fishermen, commercial fishermen and Native Americans.
The fight over the terminal underscores a new reality on the West Coast: The region is receiving unprecedented amounts of crude oil by rail shipments, mostly from the oil boom in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada.
More than a dozen oil-by-rail refining facilities and terminals have been built in California, Oregon and Washington in the past three years. As a result, long oil trains are already rolling through rural and urban areas alike — including along the iconic Columbia.
Another two dozen new projects or expansions are planned or in the works in those three states.
While traditionally most crude has moved to Gulf Coast and the East Coast terminals and refineries, experts say there’s a West Coast boom because of cheap rail transport prices and its proximity to Asian markets should Congress lift a ban on U.S. oil exports.
Oil by rail shipments through Oregon ballooned from about 1.6 million barrels of crude carried on 2,789 tank cars in 2009 to more than 11 million barrels on 19,065 tank cars in 2013, according to annual railroad company reports.
In California, the volume of crude imported by rail skyrocketed from 45,500 barrels carried on 63 tank cars in 2009 to more than 6 million barrels on 8,608 tank cars in 2013, according to data by the California Energy Commission.
The state estimates its oil-by-rail shipments will rise to 150 million barrels per year in 2016.
And in Washington state, crude oil shipments went from zero barrels in 2011 to 17 million barrels in 2013, according to the Washington State Department of Ecology, though officials said those numbers are rough estimates.
The two main rail companies, Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, say they work hard to prevent accidents by inspecting tracks and bridges, investing in trailers with fire-fighting foam and providing hazmat training to emergency responders.
Still, the spike in shipments has led to concerns among officials in the Pacific Northwest over rail safety and oil spill responsiveness — and to opponents lashing out at rail companies for not disclosing how much oil is being shipped and where. Railroad companies aren’t required to disclose such information.
In some cases, oil-by-rail transports on the West Coast started without the knowledge of local communities or emergency responders.
A terminal near Clatskanie, 62 miles northwest of Portland, was permitted to move oil two years ago by Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality without a public process. This year, the state fined the facility for moving six times more crude than allowed.
The disclosure caused public protests, but the company, Global Partners, says it’s following the law.
In the San Francisco Bay area, where the local air district in February issued a permit to operate a crude-by-rail project in Richmond without notice to the public or an environmental review, residents and environmental groups filed a lawsuit.
They are seeking a preliminary injunction and a suspension of the air permit, pending a full environmental review.
“We feel that we were deliberately deceived by the permitting authority,” said Andres Soto, the Richmond organizer for Communities for a Better Environment, an environmental justice group that’s a plaintiff in the case.
“The delivery of this product right next to schools, to neighborhoods, where literally you can throw a rock and hit these rail cars, presents a clear danger to literally thousands of residents,” Soto said.
The fears are shared by many in Vancouver, where officials received more than 33,000 public comments about the project — detailing feared impacts to air quality, wildlife, recreation, tribal treaty rights, and home values, among others.
After a review, state officials will make a recommendation to Gov. Jay Inslee, who has the final say.
Chris Philpot
Tank cars carrying crude oil derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in July 2013, killing 47 people. AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson
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