Ammonia, Derailment, Emergency planning, Emergency Readiness & Response, Evacuation, Fire, First responder training, Oil spill

VIDEO RECAP: Mass Casualty Drill in Roseville, CA

May 19, 2016 Roger Straw

Repost from Rocklin & Roseville Today
[Editor: Be aware that these exercises and the promo “news accounts” that follow them are not much more than rosy public relation spins on the reality of catastrophic spills, fires and explosions resulting from oil train derailments. We can hope the first responders learned something, but no one is telling them – or us – that in a real crude oil explosion and fire, the ONLY thing to be done is evacuate and let it burn. See previous announcement details here, additional coverage by the City of Roseville. and the event Goals and Objectives worksheet here. – RS]

Video Recap: Roseville Mass Casualty Drill

Placer County / Thursday, May 19, 2016

ROSEVILLE, Calif. — First responders from 35 local agencies converged on Roseville to rescue the victims of a staged but horrific accident: a collision of a train carrying volatile crude oil and a public transit bus. But the evacuation and treatment of the injured was just the beginning.

Fire fighters, police and other emergency workers then had to contend with leaking oil from one derailed train car, an ammonia gas leak from another and a fire when the crude ignited. First word of the accident reached them at around 8:15 a.m. By 11:30 a.m., exercise players had evacuated 57 injured bus riders to area hospitals (several by helicopter), built a temporary dam to contain the oil spill, extinguished the fire and coordinated the (pretend) evacuation of 8,000 area residents. Thank goodness it was just a drill.

“If such a large disaster ever did happen here, we’d need everyone to be on the same page and working together as effectively as possible, because lives depend on it,” said John McEldowney, program manager for Placer County’s Office of Emergency Services. “We definitely learned some lessons today, but overall I couldn’t have been more impressed with the professionalism and skill of our first responders. If the worst happens, I’m confident we’ll be in the best of hands.”

The exercise took place at the Roseville Fire Department Training Center in Roseville, near the Union Pacific switchyards, with medical evacuations staged in the parking lot of Denio’s Market up the road.

Placer County’s Office of Emergency Services held the exercise to give first responders from various agencies the opportunity to practice working together and test how well they can come together in a crisis. It was also a great chance to test the county’s recently finalized oil-by-rail response guide, which was developed to aid our first responder fire and law enforcement community and specialized response teams in the unlikely event an oil train disaster were to occur here.

The Red Cross coordinated for the participation of nearly 60 volunteers, most of them serving as mock accident victims.

For the quickest warning and information in a real crisis, Placer residents are encouraged to sign up for the Placer Alert emergency notification system at placer-alert.org.

Crude By Rail

WASHINGTON STATE: Safety Rules for Trains Hauling Oil

May 19, 2016 Roger Straw

Repost from RegBlog

Washington State Adds Safety Rules for Trains Hauling Oil

Katie Cramer | May 19, 2016

Increased oil production in the United States in recent years has resulted in a concomitant climb in the number of trains carrying crude across the country. Eight years ago, railroads freighted fewer than 10,000 cars worth of oil, but by 2014 that volume of crude transported by rail approached half a million carloads, according to the Association of American Railroads.

Increased traffic has led to some high-profile accidents. For example, in 2013 a train carrying crude from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota derailed in Quebec, Canada. The crash leaked over one million of barrels of oil and sparked a fire that killed 47 people in the small town of Lac-Mégantic.

ThinkstockPhotos-498791427 The Pacific Northwest is one U.S. region experiencing an uptick in crude-by-rail shipments to its many refineries along the West Coast. Although nothing close to the tragic crash Quebec has occurred in the Pacific Northwest, Washington State did experience a scare of its own when another train hauling Bakken crude derailed in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood during the summer of 2014. Nobody was hurt and no oil leaked, but the event heightened concern among the state’s citizens and elected officials.

After the Seattle derailment, Washington State’s legislature acted to strengthen protective measures within its purview by passing the Oil Safety Transportation Act. Although federal authorities principally oversee railway regulation in the United States, each state retains control over emergency response protocols, permitting programs, and a number of other railroad regulatory issues. States also shoulder responsibility for enforcing federal rail safety rules.

One part of Washington State’s legislation called on the state Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) to develop regulations covering financial accountability for derailments, train inspection permissions, and safety sign rules at private crossings. New state rules on these three topics entered into force this spring.

Although rail companies operating in Washington State must already make annual financial disclosures to the UTC, the new rules require that each company shipping oil by rail demonstrate an ability to cover the costs of a “reasonable worst case spill.” The UTC attempted to craft a clear rule despite the state legislature’s “ambiguous” phrasing, according to Jason Lewis, a policy advisor who worked on the regulations.

The rule calculates a reasonable worst case scenario would cost $400 per gallon to clean up and mandates railways share data on their average and maximum oil carrying capacity. The UTC then inserts these numbers into a formula to determine the price tag of a hypothetical reasonable worst case spill. Cross-checking the resulting figure against a given railroad’s insurance coverage level and financial backing allows the UTC to ensure the company could cover cleanup costs.

In addition to financial disclosure changes, the new regulations boost state-level support for train safety inspectors in some of Washington’s larger cities. The UTC’s rail crossing inspection program previously excluded cities of 10,000 or more; under the new regulations, these cities could elect to participate and make use of UTC’s employees and expertise rather than funding local rail crossing inspections from community coffers.

A final gap filled by the UTC regulations concerns posting signs at rail crossings on private roads along routes taken by trains transporting crude. Federal and state laws already mandate alerts of upcoming rail crossings to drivers on public roads – either the familiar flashing lights or the simple cross-hatch signs depending upon level of vehicle traffic at the crossing. Until the new UTC rules took effect, Washington’s 350 private crossings on common oil train routes were not required to post signs. Now, railroads must post crossing signs for vehicle drivers at each private crossing by July of this year.

Federal officials also have taken steps to increase rail safety in recent years, from mandating new specifications for train cars that carry oil to requiring railroads to install positive train control technology. But recent agreements toextend compliance deadlines for several measures – by three years in the case of positive train control – helped prompt Washington State lawmakers to act in the meantime.

Washington’s Governor, Jay Inslee, welcomed the UTC’s rules as a step in the right direction, but noted “there is still work to do to safeguard the people and environment” from risks associated with oil trains.

California Assembly, Crude By Rail, Electoral politics, Environmental review, Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), Valero Crude By Rail, Yolo County

ENDORSEMENT: Don Saylor for California Assembly (with appreciation for Dan Wolk)

May 19, 2016 Roger Straw

Editor: The Benicia Independent endorses Don Saylor of Davis for Assembly District 4 this November (Don Saylor.org). Lynne Nittler’s letter speaks for me – see below. Another good candidate, Davis Mayor Dan Wolk, has expressed strong concerns about oil train safety and joined with the Davis City Council in opposing crude by rail, but has not risen to the level of diligence, outreach and follow-through that Mr. Saylor has shown on Valero’s proposal (DanWolk.org). Many thanks to both for their efforts. – RS

Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor for California Assembly, District 4

By Lynne Nittler, in her email of May 15, 2016

Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor stands out as an uprail public official committed from early on to stopping the dangerous transport of crude oil through our natural habitat and populated areas. He wasted no time in directing his staff to research and compose a letter insisting that uprail concerns had to be addressed in the EIR. On the draft EIR, Yolo County wrote a second letter detailing the impacts of the unsafe oil trains, and when the response was inadequate, added a third letter response to the revised draft EIR.

Meanwhile, as President of Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), Don Saylor also led the 22 cities and 6 counties of SACOG to respond to the regional threat of oil trains with a series of hard-hitting letters during the EIR process.

His deep concerns even took him to Washington DC where he conferred with our local Congressman John Garamendi on stabilizing crude at the loading site as perhaps the only acceptable method of making the Bakken crude safe to transport by rail.

Don continues to monitor the volatile issue closely, as 500,000 of the 2.4 million SACOG residents live at risk in the blast zone. Most recently, he took time to testify before the Benicia City Council in hopes of convincing them of the enormous impacts to uprail communities and to our state.

We are fortunate to have such a diligent public official. While an independent PAC of outside oil corporations including Valero as well as other PACS have intruded with huge campaign contributions to one candidate for the District 4 Assembly race (including Lake and Napa Counties, most of Yolo County, and part of Colusa, Solano, and Sonoma Counties ), Don Saylor has not been chosen for such outside support.

If elected, we can count on Don to work and vote as he always has for programs that benefit our region. Don Saylor will continue to keep a watchful eye on oil trains if he is elected to the CA Assembly.

Alberta Canada, Fort McMurray fire, Saskatchewan Canada, Tar sands crude

CBC NEWS: Fort McMurray fire spreads north and east, destroys some oilsands facilities

May 18, 2016 Roger Straw

Repost from CBC News, Edmonton
[Editor: For latest updates, see The Fort McMurray fire: What’s happening now, and what you’ve missed, the Globe and Mail. – RS]

Fort McMurray fire grows to 423,000 hectares, continues to threaten oilsands sites

Wildfire stalls near Saskatchewan border but continues spread north to oilsands facilities

May 18, 2016 9:08 AM MT Last Updated: May 18, 2016 1:20 PM MT

An aerial view of the flames roaring north of Fort McMurray on Tuesday afternoon. (Phoenix Heli-Flight)

The Fort McMurray wildfire in northern Alberta is carving a new path of destruction, destroying an oilsands camp while racing eastward toward more industry sites.

The fire, which has become known as “the beast,” has grown by a staggering 57,000 hectares [220 square miles] in the last 24 hours, consuming 423,000 [1633 square miles] hectares of boreal forest as of Wednesday morning.

Wildfire information officer Travis Fairweather attributes the “pretty significant” growth to “extreme fire conditions.”

“It’s really being burning intensely and the winds have been carrying it,” he said Wednesday.

The fire forced 8,000 non-essential workers to flee the area Monday night, and a mandatory evacuation order remains in place for all work camps north of the city.

The majority were sent by ground to work camps near Fort MacKay, about 53 kilometres [33 miles] to the north. But some were also bused, or later flown, south to Edmonton and Calgary.

By Tuesday morning, the flames had made their way to the Blacksand Executive Lodge, which provides accommodations to hundreds of workers in the area.

The building’s sprinkler system was no match for the raging inferno, and all 665 units of the building were consumed by the fire.

Workers evacuate the Noralta Buffalo Lodge, 26 kilometres northwest of Fort McMurray, late Monday afternoon. (Justin Bourke)

Within hours, the flames had spread east, threatening the Noralta Lodge Fort McMurray Village, a facility that can house more than 3,000 people, and Horizon North’s Birch Mountain, a 540-unit facility.

Noralta officials took to social media Tuesday night to say the fire had been held back, but the site was still at risk and crews would be working through the night to protect the facility.

Six kilometres [3.7 miles] away from the Blacksand Lodge, the Birch Mountain Lodge, also owned by Horizon North, remains in the path of the fire.

“We’ve got eight camps in a perimeter around Fort McMurray, out of seven which have been evacuated,” Rod Graham, president and CEO of Horizon North, told CBC News on Wednesday.

“We have not sent any of our people into harm’s way, but from unconfirmed reports we’ve had, our Birch property is still standing.”

The wind was also expected to push the fire towards the Suncor and Syncrude oilsands facilities, but the province said both are highly resilient to fire.

Each site is surrounded by wide barriers of cleared firebreak and gravel and are guarded by their own firefighting crews. However, only essential personnel remain at both plants.

Crews in the area continue to work around the clock to douse the flames and create firebreaks around critical infrastructure, but the fire has become increasingly volatile amid high winds and tinder-dry conditions.

“Over the last 48 hours it has certainly grown significantly, particularly along the eastern edge, growing toward the Saskatchewan border, but also growing north toward the oilsands facilities,” said Bruce Macnab, with the Northern Forestry Centre in Edmonton.

“In these kind of conditions, the fire crews will be doing their best to fight the sides of the fire when conditions allow, but that’s very much weather dependent.”

By noon Wednesday, the eastern front of the fire appeared to be stalled about five kilometres [3 miles] from the Saskatchewan border. The government there has established a wildfire base camp in the small community of Buffalo Narrows to use air tankers and helicopters along the eastern edge of the massive fire.

But Duane McKay, Saskatchewan’s commissioner of emergency and fire safety, said smoke is the biggest concern for residents of the nearest community, La Loche, which is about 20 kilometres [12.4 miles] from the border.

The fire itself poses no current threat to the town or any other Saskatchewan communities, McKay said.

He said the wind is expected to shift directions later today and could blow the fire back on itself.

“We don’t anticipate it crossing the border in the near future,” he said. But he cautioned that the fire “obviously has a mind of its own in terms of where it wants to go.”

fire map — A map from Natural Resources Canada shows the extent of the Fort McMurray wildfire fire as of May 17. (Natural Resources Canada)

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