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To Stop ‘Bomb Trains,’ I Honeymooned in Jail

Repost from OtherWords (in the Benicia Herald on 7/7/16)

To Stop ‘Bomb Trains,’ I Honeymooned in Jail

With one tiny loose bolt, oil trains can erupt into an inferno, scorching everything for miles.
By Daphne Wysham, July 6, 2016
Daphne Wysham
Daphne Wysham, Institute for Policy Studies associate fellow, and director of the Center for Sustainable Economy’s climate and energy program in Portland, Oregon

It was a few days after my wedding. I was supposed to be honeymooning at a nearby winery with my newly minted husband, celebrating our unlikely marriage at age 55.

Instead, I was sitting on the railroad tracks in the pouring rain. Along with 20 other brave souls, some weeping, some singing, I was facing down a locomotive in a town — Vancouver, Washington — that many fear will be forced to accept the largest oil-by-rail terminal in the country.

Why would anyone do something like that?

Because a few short days before, we’d watched in horror as a mile-long train filled with Bakken crude derailed in Mosier, Oregon and burst into towering flames.

We call these oil trains “bomb trains” because we know, with one tiny loose bolt, they can erupt into an inferno, scorching everything for miles. It happened in Lac-Megantic, Canada in 2013. Forty-seven people were killed in a matter of minutes, the town leveled when a train’s brakes failed.

mosier-train-oil-protest
Mosier oil train protest (Photo: Deva 2016)

In the aftermath of the Mosier derailment, local fire chief Jim Appleton, who was originally unwilling to condemn oil trains, was beginning to sound more and more like one of us: “I think it’s insane” to ship oil by rail, he told a reporter. “Shareholder value doesn’t outweigh the lives and happiness of our community.”

And yet shareholder value is outweighing the lives and happiness of communities all over the world. I live in the “blast zone” less than a mile from tracks that ply this dangerous cargo here in the Pacific Northwest. And millions of people, most of them on the other side of the world, are already feeling the heat.

More bomb trains, after all, mean more climate change. Rising temperatures mean dangerous weather patterns, like the floods that recently killed hundreds in Pakistan and China.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil, whose scientists knew as early as the 1960s that catastrophic climate change would ensue if they didn’t change course, has invested in climate denial in order to maximize their shareholder value, counting on us to not connect the dots.

I grew up in India. I can see the faces of friends and loved ones on Facebook enduring record heat and flooding there. So if the trains wouldn’t stop coming, I figured, I’d put my body on the line in Vancouver. If I went to jail, I hoped my husband would forgive me for skipping out on our first big date as newlyweds.

The riot police were beginning to gather, and the railroad’s private police were issuing their warnings while hundreds chanted nearby. Not wanting to lose valuables in jail, I gave my wallet, cell phone, and wedding ring to a friend.

Then they hauled us off, one by one, in plastic handcuffs like tiny angel’s wings behind each protestor’s back. They put the 13 women — as young as 21 and as old as 85 — in one cell and the eight men in the other.

Seven hours later, as we were released from our windowless cage into the beautiful summer evening, I felt an unspeakable gratitude to my cellmates and those who awaited us outside.

Should we go to trial, many of us will be arguing we did this out of necessity, in order to prevent a far greater looming evil — of being incinerated in our sleep, of doing nothing to stop this deadly fossil fuel cargo while hundreds of thousands of people die each year from floods, disease, malnutrition, and heat stress due to climate change.

Call me crazy, but we might just win this one. And in so doing, we’ll send a very strong message to the oil companies that threaten us all that they must end this madness.

 
Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Oil trains, Stop Oil Trains Week of Action #StopOilTrains, Take Action, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Protesters Rally in Sacramento Against Crude Oil Trains

Repost from Fox 40, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto

Protesters Rally in Sacramento Against Crude Oil Trains

By DOUG JOHNSON, JULY 6, 2016 UPDATED AT 11:06PM


SACRAMENTO — Three years ago Wednesday, 47 people were killed when a train carrying crude oil derailed in a small town in Quebec, Canada. On this tragic anniversary, dozens in Sacramento rallied to protest against oil trains traveling through Northern California.

A group of activists, the Sacramento Oil Trains Coalition, is concerned about the new type of oil that is now traveling the lines.

“We’re talking about bringing in this Bakken crude or the Canadian tar sands, it’s very volatile explosive crude oil, we don’t need that here in Sacramento,” said Chris Brown, the organizer of Wednesday’s event.

It’s the same type of oil that exploded during a derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people July 6, 2013. Members of the Sacramento Oil Trains Coalition read the names of the victims at Wednesday’s protest.

“I was very surprised that this was happening in my own backyard,” said protester Valerie Williams who lives in South Sacramento.

The last several years, Union Pacific said crude oil has been passing by Sacramento, heading south to a transfer station outside Bakersfield and also heading west to refineries in Richmond. And the Valero Refining company has applied to run two trains daily through Sacramento to its plant in Benicia. There the city planning commission voted down Valero’s request in February, but the refinery has appealed the decision.

“We don’t need this particular kind of crude with all of its hazards added to what we already have, we need to be figuring out how to get rid of what we have, not add more to it,” Brown said.

Despite its recent derailment in Oregon, Union Pacific said its record speaks for itself.

“Our safety and statistics specifically with crude oil has a 99.9% of the time making it from its origination to its destination without incident,” said Justin Jacobs, a spokesperson for Union Pacific.

Jacobs said his company cannot release the exact amount of crude oil it transports through Sacramento.

“As far as train schedules, and what’s on it, and those type of things, yeah, for security reasons, we don’t release specific information,” Jacobs said.

Valero has said in the past that their carbon footprint is actually larger now transporting that crude oil by tanker over sea than it would be by train over land.

Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Surface Transportation Board, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

CSX letter supports federal pre-emption of local regulation, including authority over non-rail-related permits

By Roger Straw, July 5, 2016

CSX Railroad files letter with STB in support of Valero Crude by Rail

CSX_letter3
CSX letter

On July 1, the City of Benicia received a copy of a letter from CSX` Railroad to the DOT’s Surface Transportation Board (STB).  The letter, released to the public today, supports Valero Refinery’s request for an STB declaratory order which would address the permitting authority of local and state governments over projects on non-railroad properties when a project involves transport of goods by rail.

CSX is the 3rd largest railroad in North America, after Union Pacific and BNSF.  The CSX letter exposes their vested interest in the matter:

The ICC Termination Act (“ICCTA”) was passed to “prevent a patchwork of local regulation from interfering with interstate commerce.”…But state and local governments are now testing the scope of ICCTA preemption with rules, permitting conditions, or other actions that indirectly affect railroads. While indirect, this practice still has the effect of creating a patchwork of inconsistent and disruptive regulation.

Note CSX’ clear reference to indirect regulation.  As Benicia Planning Commissioner Steve Young, environmental attorneys and others have pointed out, federal preemption of indirect regulation is an untested point of law.

Valero is not a railroad, and its proposed crude oil offloading rack is on Valero property within the City of Benicia. Valero, Union Pacific, CSX, Tesoro, along with other rail and oil industry activists and their allies want to extend their power to limit local and state authority. This is unprecedented.  The City of Benicia has every right – and responsibility – under its police and permitting powers to regulate land use on behalf of its citizens’ health and safety.

Note that in petitioning the STB, CSX, like Valero and the others, makes absolutely no reference to, nor shows any interest in the health and safety of California’s wildlands or communities.  This is all about the freedom of big business to do as it likes in pursuit of profit.

By petitioning the STB, Valero has thrust the City of Benicia squarely into what will surely become a litigated test case, perhaps rising all the way to the US Supreme Court.  Benicia’s staff and tax-supported finances will suffer years of time, effort and expense.

Benicia’s City Council can steer clear of this mess by denying the permit for Valero’s proposed project based on the many non-rail-related, local environmental impacts that have been brought to light in the last 3 years’ review.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Oil trains, Stop Oil Trains Week of Action #StopOilTrains, Take Action, Tar sands crude

2016 Stop Oil Trains Week of Action – Benicia March Sunday 7/3!

Repost from STAND.earth
[Editor:  You can observe the Stop Oil Trains Week of Action in Benicia by marching in the annual Torchlight Parade on July 3.  – RS]

Citizens Call for a Ban on Deadly Oil Trains at Events Across US and Canada

  • The 2016 Week of Action marks the third anniversary of the tragic July 6, 2013, oil train disaster in Lac Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people.
  • On Friday, June 3, 2016, an oil train derailed in Mosier, OR, forcing the emergency evacuation of a 220 children from a school 250-yards from burning oil tank cars.
  • Oil trains have proven too dangerous for the rails: 14 major oil train derailments and fires in the past three years, yet these dangerous trains still bring millions of gallons of toxic, explosive crude oil through cities and towns across the US and Canada.
  • Each year since then communities have marked the solemn anniversary with events in dozens of cities and towns during the Stop Oil Train Week of Action.
  • July 6-12, 2016, citizens will gather again at events across the US and Canada to demand an immediate ban on oil trains. We are calling on President Obama, Congress and Governors to take three urgent steps to solve this problem.
    1. Ban oil trains: There is no safe way to transport crude oil by rail.
    2. Deny all federal permits for oil train infrastructure: Stop the oil industry from expanding oil train traffic carrying the dirtiest, most dangerous crude.
    3. Protect the authority of local governments: States, cities and citizens must have the right to say no to oil trains.Uphold the authority of our cities and towns to protect the public safety, and to ensure first responders have the necessary information and resources to respond to oil train disasters.

Oil Trains are Too Dangerous for the Rails.

  • The extreme Bakken and tar sands crude that the oil industry moves on trains is more toxic, more explosive, and more carbon-intensive than conventional oil.
  • More than 25 million Americans live in the blast zone and mining and refining this extreme oil puts  millions more Americans and Canadians at risk.
  • 14 major oil train fires in three years proves that crude oil is too dangerous for the rails. In Mosier, the tracks were inspected just days before the derailment, and only luck and a windless day kept the fire from four burning oil tank cars from reaching homes and a nearby school.
  • Oil train traffic, which was practically nonexistent seven years ago, has grown by 4,000 percent and the oil industry is proposing to further increase traffic, build more oil train terminals, and build new refinery infrastructure for dirtier crude oil carried by train.
  • We don’t need any of the extreme oil that is moving by train. The explosive Bakken and tar sands crude that moves by train is a tiny percent of US oil consumption and oil companies export five to seven times more oil each day than they move by train. So stop the trains tomorrow and our energy supply is not changed at all.
  • As we move our economy to clean energy and solve climate disruption we cannot at the same time allow oil companies to bring Bakken, tar sands and other fracked oil — the dirtiest, most dangerous sources of oil — onto the market.

Environmental Justice: Our railways were built to connect population centers, not carry hazardous materials. Decades of housing discrimination means that 60 percent of the 25 million Americans who live in the blast zone are people of color.

Note on Terminology: The term ‘crude-by-rail’ is the oil industry’s neutered term (abstract and without agency) for the dangerous, deadly, explosive oil trains they send through our cities and towns. There’s no reason to use ‘crude-by-rail’ when we can talk about the absolute danger of crude oil trains and the culpability of the oil and rail industry and regulators who send them across North America.

For safe and healthy communities…