Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Oil Industry, Oil stabilization, Rail industry, Tank car design, Tar sands crude, Valero Benicia Refinery

EDITORIAL: Four explosive derailments in a month – how much longer?

By Roger Straw, Benicia Independent Editor, March 6, 2015

Yesterday afternoon, a multitude of news flashes broke out telling of yet another oil train derailment with fiery explosions, this time right alongside the Mississippi River outside Galena, Illinois.  The oil and rail industries escaped with another close call – no one was injured or killed this time and – so far – no reports of crude oil in the waters of the mighty Mississip.

The Galena accident is the fourth major derailment with hazmat fire in recent weeks!  (Dubuque, Iowa [2/4]; Gogama, Ontario [2/14]; Mount Carbon, West Virginia [2/16]; and Galena, Illinois [3/5]).  (LATER: now there have been five: a second derailment and explosion in  Gogama Ontario, [on 3/7], just 23 miles from the 2/14 fire.  – Editor)

There WILL be more.  The question everyone is asking: whose lives are at risk right now in schools and hospitals, commercial centers, apartment complexes and homes in the mile-wide evacuation zones along the rails that crisscross the country?  If Valero’s Benicia refinery is granted a permit and hires Union Pacific to run oil trains over the Sierra and across the state of California to Benicia, whose cozy little town uprail from here will be host to the next “Big One?”  Or if we’re “lucky,” what California wilderness will be the next to endure the foul spills and the consuming fires of an explosive oil train crash?

And who will pay for lives and property lost, for infrastructure repairs and the massive cleanup?

Oddly perhaps, my thoughts turned gently this morning to those refinery executives who have invested so much time and energy in planning for and implementing the rail transport of North American oil – Bakken crude and tar-sands (diluted bitumen).  I’m trying to imagine what it must be like for these decent career employees to eagerly wake up to a good cup of coffee and the morning news … only to be jolted once again as their tv shows video of yet another horrific oil train explosion.  It must be disheartening.  How, with every news outlet all across the U.S. paying attention to the need for safer tank cars with stabilized contents (and more) – how difficult for oil industry execs to begin to realize the folly of their plans.  It must be like learning there’s no Santa Claus.  Or like a nation having to decide to back out of a Vietnam war.  It can’t be easy.  But I dare to hope that some executive somewhere is going to make a decision soon: this has to stop.  He or she can swallow that cup of coffee, take a deep breath, and lead the way.  No more.  Not here.  Not me.  Not our company.

I wonder, too, about those who govern.  Why should our officials continue to allow the use of those old failing rails, aging bridges and dangerous tank cars to carry volatile chemicals today?  How much longer until our local, state and federal leaders call an end to this dangerous and polluting practice?  When will they stop trying to fix the system with minor safety upgrades and call a moratorium until the whole thing is worked out to protect the public’s health and safety?

What started out here in Benicia in early 2013 as a small, alert group of us who were concerned for the earth; an effort to take no part locally in the stripping of lands and environments in Alberta Canada and Montana and the Dakotas; and an understanding of the facts indicating the certain increase in toxic emissions affecting our air and water if Valero would move to crude by rail … these early concerns of ours were “blown away” (as it were), by the explosions, by the frightening and repeated demonstrations of the incredible risks of transporting volatile North American crude oil by rail and by the lack of adequate safeguards of a rail industry that cannot be controlled locally or regionally.

Our federal regulators MUST stand up to the industries and put an immediate stop to these bomb trains.  Until new regulations are in place to stabilize the oil before it is loaded, and until a totally new design for safer tank cars is approved and manufactured, and until the infrastructure that carries those new cars is upgraded, we should not have to live with the deadly risk.

Our resources would be better spent during a moratorium on crude by rail funding a massive increase in investment in clean energy.  Someone needs to put serious effort into planning a 5 or 10 year phase-out of fossil fuels.  Ok, 20.  It would be cataclysmic to just STOP the flow of oil and gasoline.  Even so, I think we’d survive it.  Someone should think it through carefully, and lay it out in steps that lead surely and safely away from crude oil … by rail or by any other means.

– Benicia Independent Editor, Roger Straw

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Evacuation, Explosion, Fire, Let it burn

RACHEL MADDOW: Fiery explosion as another oil train derails

Repost from MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show
[Editor:  Extraordinary coverage.  Fast forward to minute 7:30 to see the report with video of the Galena, Illinois derailment and explosion along with an interview with an on-the-scene investigative reporter.  – RS]

Fiery explosion as another oil train derails

3/5/15

Mark Stevens, KWQC-TV investigative reporter, talks with Rachel Maddow about a still-burning oil train explosion in Illinois, on a day that included miles of cars stranded in the snow in Kentucky and a plane sliding off the runway in New York City.  Duration: 13:27

Bakken Crude, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Evacuation, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Tank car design

Oil train tank cars derail in Illinois; involved “safer” models

Repost from the Delaware County Daily Times, Primos PA
[Editor: A variation on this AP story appeared in our local Vallejo Times Herald on 3/7/15, with this significant quote regarding the need for existing and proposed new tank car safety standards: “‘…those standards failed to prevent leakage and explosions that threaten human safety and environmental contamination,’ said Steve Barg, director of the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation, which owns a nature preserve several hundred yards from the derailment site.”  – RS]

Oil train tank cars derail in Illinois; involved safer models

Staff, 3/6/15 1:10PM EST
Smoke and flames erupt from the scene of a train derailment Thursday, March 5, 2015, near Galena, Ill. A BNSF Railway freight train loaded with crude oil derailed around 1:20 p.m. in a rural area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi, said Jo Daviess County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Moser. (AP Photo/Telegraph Herald, Mike Burley)

GALENA, Ill. (AP) — The rail cars that split open and burst into flames during a western Illinois oil train derailment this week were retrofitted with protective shields to meet a higher safety standard than federal law requires, railroad officials said.

The fire continued to burn Friday, a day after 21 of the train’s 105 cars derailed in a rural area south of the city of Galena. No injuries were reported, but the accident was the latest in a series of failures for the safer tank-car model that has led some people calling for even tougher requirements.

BNSF Railway said in a news release that the train’s tank cars were a newer model known as the 1232, which was designed during safety upgrades voluntarily adopted by the industry four years ago in hopes of keeping cars from rupturing during derailments. But 1232 standard cars involved in three other accidents have split open in the past year.

Those other accidents included one last month in West Virginia in which a train carrying 3 million gallons of North Dakota crude derailed, shooting fireballs into the sky, leaking oil into a waterway and burning down a house. The home’s owner was treated for smoke inhalation, but no one else was injured.

Thursday’s accident in Illinois led local officials to announce a voluntary evacuation of an area within 1 mile because of the presence of a propane tank near the derailment. Only a family of two agreed to leave their home, Galena City Administrator Mark Moran said Thursday.

A railway spokesman initially said six cars derailed. But in an update Friday, BNSF said it found 21 cars had derailed in an area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi. The company said a resulting fire is believed to have spread to five rail cars, and emergency personnel were trying to contain the blaze.

The train had 103 cars loaded with crude oil from the Northern Plains’ Bakken region, along with two buffer cars loaded with sand, according to company spokesman Andy Williams. The cause of the derailment hasn’t been determined.

The accident occurred 3 miles south of Galena in a wooded and hilly area that is a major tourist attraction and the home of former President Ulysses S. Grant.

As of June of last year, BNSF was hauling 32 Bakken oil trains per week through the surrounding Jo Daviess County, according to information disclosed to Illinois emergency officials.

Firefighters could only access the derailment site by a bike path, said Galena Assistant Fire Chief Bob Conley. They had to pull back initially for safety reasons, but by midday Friday officials described the area as “stable.”

The Federal Railroad Administration said its investigators expected to have access to the site around noon, and it has not yet been able to determine if any crude oil spilled into nearby waterways.

BNSF said it was taking steps to prevent contamination.

Recent derailments have increased public concern about the safety of shipping crude by train. According to the Association of American Railroads, oil shipments by rail jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 500,000 in 2014, driven by a boom in the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and Montana, where pipeline limitations force 70 percent of the crude to move by rail.

Since 2008, oil train derailments in the U.S. and Canada have caused 70,000-gallon tank cars to break open and ignite on multiple occasions, resulting in huge fires.

The wrecks have intensified pressure on the administration of President Barack Obama to approve tougher standards for railroads and tank cars, despite industry complaints that it could cost billions and slow freight deliveries.

Oil industry officials had been opposed to further upgrading the 1232 cars because of costs. But late last year they changed their position and joined with the railway industry to support some upgrades, although they asked for time to make the improvements.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Evacuation, Explosion, Fire

Overnight Video: Illinois Oil Train Derailment

Repost from CQ Roll Call

Video: Illinois Oil Train Derailment

By Roll Call Staff, March 6, 2015 12:13 p.m.

 

A BNSF unit train carrying oil derailed Thursday in Illinois.

One family evacuated, the Associated Press reported.

The derailment occurred 3 miles south of Galena in a wooded and hilly area that is a major tourist attraction and the home of former President Ulysses S. Grant. The Jo Daviess County Sheriff’s Department confirmed the train was transporting oil from the Northern Plains’ Bakken region.

For safe and healthy communities…