RODEO — A second organization has sued to block a propane and butane recovery project at a Rodeo refinery, and a third announced it would do so as well Thursday.
Rodeo Citizens Association filed suit Thursday in Contra Costa Superior Court, Martinez against Contra Costa County and the Phillips 66 Co., contending Phillips wants to transport heavy and dirty tar sands crude by rail from outside the state to a sister refinery in San Luis Obispo County and pipe the semi-refined oil to Rodeo. The association further contends that a county-approved Environmental Impact Report fails to note that the project would increase air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
On Wednesday, Communities for a Better Environment sued the county and Phillips 66, contending the project is part of a grander plan to process heavy, dirty tar sands crude that would come to California by rail.
Phillips 66 spokesman Paul Adler said Thursday he had not seen the Rodeo Citizens Association suit and therefore could not comment on it. On Wednesday, commenting on the CBE suit, Adler had called that organization’s allegations “inaccurate and misleading.”
“Following two years of careful analysis by the Contra Costa County board (of Supervisors) and its expert staff, claims that this project is a crude by rail project were dismissed,” Adler said Wednesday.
Also on Thursday, Safe Fuel Energy Resources of California, a group representing workers at the Rodeo refinery, sued the county and Phillips 66 in Superior Court, Martinez, according to an announcement by the firm Public Good PR LLC. The group contends, among other allegations, that Phillips 66 wants to bring in tar sands crude from out-of-state and that the county improperly “piecemealed” its review of the Rodeo project from other Phillips 66 projects and neglected to analyze the cumulative levels of the various projects on air quality and human health and safety.
The timing of Safe Fuel Energy Resources’ filing was not known as of late Thursday.
UPDATE: Crude oil burning after train derails near Galena
By TH Media, March 5, 2015 4:15 pm | Updated: 5:02 pm, Thu Mar 5, 2015
View of smoke from a train derailment as seen from LeFevre Inn & Resort in Galena. Jessica Reilly
GALENA, Ill. — A firefighter near the scene of a derailed BNSF Railway train in rural Jo Daviess County said crude oil is burning after the wreck.
No injuries have been reported.
Multiple Illinois agencies have responded to the derailment, including fire departments from Galena, East Dubuque and Menominee-Dunleith. Grant County, Wis., hazardous material responders are on scene, as are firefighters from Dubuque.
The train derailed south of Galena at approximately 1:20 p.m., according to a statement from BSNF.
BNSF said the train has 105 cars, 103 of which were carrying crude oil. It’s unclear how many cars have derailed.
BNSF has not confirmed that the derailed cars are leaking. However, a firefighter responding to the scene said crude oil has caught fire. Smoke could be seen rising the scene.
Jo Daviees County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Moser says several cars have caught fire as a result of the derailment. However, the blaze hasn’t prompted any evacuations, although that may change.
BNSF officials say railroad representatives are headed to the scene of the derailment. The railroad is working with local responders and has notified the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Railroad Administration, according to the statement.
Dubuque Fire Chief Rick Steines said he has deployed firefighters with foam fire suppression equipment to a derailment staging area.
“We sent two people with our foam trailer because of a request we got form Jo Daviess County,” he said.
Steines said he didn’t know any specific details about the wreck.
Attempts to reach the Galena Fire Department have been unsuccessful. The BNSF statement said no additional details are available.
ORIGINAL STORY:
The Jo Daviess County Sheriff’s Department is responding to a reported train derailment near the ferry landing in the Galena area.
The preliminary information from authorities is that five railcars are involved.
Yet Another Oil Train Derails, Catches Fire, This Time in Illinois
Third Fiery Accident in Three Weeks Shows Need for Immediate Major Safety Upgrades for Shipments of Crude by Rail
GALENA, Ill.— An oil train transporting more than 100 cars of highly volatile crude oil derailed and caught fire today in northwest Illinois near the Mississippi River — the third explosive oil train accident in three weeks. Billowing columns of dark smoke and fireballs shooting hundreds of feet into the air were visible this afternoon as at least two tank cars caught fire. Early reports are that first responders had to pull back from the fire due to the heat and ongoing danger of more tank cars catching fire and exploding. The incident follows in close succession fiery oil train derailments in Ontario and West Virginia.
“The only thing more mind-boggling than three such accidents in three weeks is the continued lack of action by the Obama administration to protect us from these dangerous oil trains,” said Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The government has the authority to take immediate action to address this crisis — which puts homes, waters and wildlife at risk – and yet it has sat back and watched.”
The Center for Biological Diversity recently released a report on the danger of oil trains traveling tracks throughout the United States. Among the findings were that some 25 million people live within the one-mile “evacuation zone” of tracks carrying oil trains and that the trains pass through 34 wildlife refuges and critical habitat for 57 endangered species.
The Illinois accident joins a growing list of devastating oil train derailments over the past two years. There has been a more than 40-fold increase in crude oil transport by rail since 2008, but no significant upgrade in federal safety requirements. Oil transport has increased from virtually nothing in 2008 to more than 500,000 rail cars of oil in 2014. Billions of gallons of oil pass through towns and cities ill-equipped to respond to the kinds of explosions and spills that have been occurring. Millions of gallons of crude oil have been spilled into waterways.
Today’s derailment happened where the Galena River meets the Mississippi River. There are no reports of injuries or fatalities, or of drinking water intake closures, although there are communities in the area that draw water from the Mississippi. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe train included 103 tank cars transporting volatile crude oil from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota.
Loaded oil trains on this particular line first must pass through densely populated areas such as Minneapolis-St. Paul and La-Crosse. The trains also pass through the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge, about 50 miles upstream of the derailment site. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Mississippi River corridor “provides productive fish and wildlife habitat unmatched in the heart of America.”
“There are simply no excuses left for the Obama administration. The fact that these trains are still moving on the rails is a national travesty,” said Matteson. “The next explosive wreck — and there will be more, so long as nothing changes — may take lives, burn up a town or level a city business district, and pollute the drinking water of thousands of people. Enough is enough.”
A series of fiery oil-train derailments in the United States and Canada has resulted in life-threatening explosions and destructive oil spills. The worst was a derailment in Quebec in July 2013 that killed 47 people, forced the evacuation of 2,000 people, and incinerated portions of a popular tourist town.
Ethanol shipments by rail have also raised safety concerns. On Feb. 4, a train transporting ethanol derailed along the Mississippi River in Iowa, catching fire and sending an unknown amount of ethanol into the river.
In February the U.S. Department of Transportation sent new rules governing oil train safety to the White House for review, prior to public release. However, the proposed rules fail to require appropriate speed limitations, and it will be at least another two and a half years before the most dangerous tank cars are phased out of use for the most hazardous cargos. The oil and railroad industries have lobbied for weaker rules on tank car safety and brake requirements. The industries also want more time to comply with the new rules.
Yet, without regulations that will effectively prevent derailments and rupture of tank cars, oil trains will continue to threaten people, drinking water supplies and wildlife, including endangered species.
The Center has also petitioned for oil trains that include far fewer tank cars and for comprehensive oil spill response plans for railroads as well as other important federal reforms, and is also pushing to stop the expansion of projects that will facilitate further increases in crude by rail.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 825,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Exclusive: White House mulled, then balked at curbing explosive gas on oil trains
By Patrick Rucker, Mar 5, 2015 5:59pm EST
An aerial image shows a train entering a depot along the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) rail line outside of Williston, North Dakota March 12, 2013. Credit: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
(Reuters) – The Obama administration weighed national standards to control explosive gas in oil trains last year but rejected the move, deciding instead to leave new rules to North Dakota, where much of the fuel originates.
Current and former administration officials told Reuters they were unsure if they had the power to force the energy industry to drain volatile gas from crude oil originating in North Dakota’s fields.
Instead, they opted to back North Dakota’s effort to remove the cocktail of explosive gas – known in the industry as ‘light ends’ – and rely on the state to contain the risk.
North Dakota’s regulations come into force next month.
The administration’s internal debate shows that concern about the risks associated with oil trains reached the upper level of the White House. But the administration balked at addressing the problem in new regulations governing crude oil trains that it is preparing to introduce this spring.
When Transportation Department and White House officials convened on this issue last summer, the administration decided to back North Dakota’s plan to limit vapor pressure – a measure that was just taking shape at the time.
“The Department of Transportation supported North Dakota on treatment of crude oil in the field,” a White House official told Reuters.
But a growing number of safety advocates say relying on North Dakota is not insufficient to regulate a product that is hauled thousands of miles of track and across many state lines.
“These trains are going all across the country so it absolutely has to be the feds who are in charge,” said Karen Darch, mayor of Barrington, Illinois, where several oil and ethanol trains pass through her town weekly.
On Thursday afternoon, a BNSF oil train delivery including more than 100 tanker cars derailed in Illinois, according to local media.
Last summer, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx took his concerns about Bakken fuel to the White House and sought advice on what to do about the danger of light ends, according to sources familiar with the meeting who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
By then, Foxx had spent more than 12 months weighing safety measures that would prevent oil train derailments from becoming fiery disasters like the 2013 Lac Megantic tragedy in Canada in which 47 people were killed by a runaway Bakken train delivery.
The Transportation Department was warning that Bakken fuel was uncommonly volatile and explosion-prone. Foxx’s agency conceived an oil train safety plan in July with an array of measures that aimed to make sure oil train cargo moved safely on the tracks.
Tankers would have toughened shells. Oil train deliveries would slow down. Advanced braking systems would be adopted.
But the rule would do nothing to limit volatile gas.
Foxx brought his concerns about the unresolved issue of dangerous gas, commonly measured as vapor pressure, and his agency’s limited power to curtail the problem to President Barack Obama‘s chief of staff, Denis McDonough. The administration decided to just let the existing oil train safety plan take root.
“Before the meeting, the department had already identified issues with the characteristics of the crude oil, including vapor pressure, and had developed potential strategies related to the overall improvement and safety of the transport of the product and how the industry could treat it,” the White House official said.
Suzanne Emmerling, spokeswoman for the Transportation Department, said on Thursday “neither the White House or anyone in any department has ever balked at improving the safety of this product in any way.”
“The Department looked closely at every aspect of the transportation of flammable products by rail, including vapor pressure, tank cars, and rail operations, and ultimately submitted a rule that we believe will raise the bar on the safe transport of this product.”
Emmerling declined to comment on why the Transportation Department did not include vapor pressure controls in its oil train proposal last year.
Officials may not comment on pending rules, she said, noting that the final rule may contain elements not included in the draft.
That approach is not good enough for many critics.
New York Senator Charles Schumer warned this week that oil train “disasters” could continue “until the stability of the crude being loaded into the tank cars themselves is improved.”
Of the roughly 1.2 million barrels of crude oil produced in North Dakota daily, more than 60 percent of that fuel reaches refineries by rail, typically in 100-tanker unit trains that can stretch a mile long.
A large share of that fuel moves through New York on the way to refineries in the mid-Atlantic.
In a letter to Secretary Foxx and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Schumer encouraged the officials “to work together to develop new regulations that would require the stabilization of crude oil prior to shipment.”
An Energy Department official said the agency is in the early stages of developing a report on Bakken crude dangers that “may be of use to the Department of Transportation, which has regulatory authority over the transport of crude oil.”
(Reporting by Patrick Rucker; Additional reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Richard Chang)
