Tag Archives: Bakken crude

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, Hazmat notification, International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), Tank car retirement, Tank car retrofit

Firefighter battalion chief: Russian roulette on the railways

Repost from Chico News & Review
[Editor:  This article is well-written and documents gutsy analyses by a regional firefighter and County officials who understand that local safety is at the mercy of federal regulators.  Three years of Russian roulette – and more.  A “must read.”  – RS]

Russian roulette on the railways

Butte County train tracks are Bakken-free for now, but emergency responders fear a return of the volatile fuel
By Evan Tuchinsky, 05.21.15
Cal Fire Battalion Chief Russ Fowler says the Department of Transportation’s new rules regarding traincar safety are insufficient. PHOTO COURTESY OF CAL FIRE

What is ‘Bakken’?

The light crude oil known as Bakken comes from fracking a geologic formation of that name under North Dakota, Montana and Canada. Less dense and with less carbon, light crudes yield more gasoline than heavier crudes, but also are more volatile.

Trains crash. That fact hit home last week when a passenger train derailed in Philadelphia and also last year, on Nov. 26, when a cargo train derailed in the Feather River Canyon.

The risk of devastation multiplies when the derailed train carries volatile crude oil. A recent spate of those accidents has garnered national attention, too, prompting the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) to release new regulations governing the conveyance of flammable liquids. The measures have drawn near-unanimous opposition, though, and done little to assuage lingering local fears.

“My constituents have raised concerns and the Board [of Supervisors] is concerned,” said Butte County Supervisor Maureen Kirk, who represents Chico. “We’re hoping that some of the legislation and some of the discussion that comes forward will make even stiffer requirements on the transport of this Bakken oil.”

The DoT regulations came out May 1. Five days later, another oil train crashed, in North Dakota. By last Friday (May 15), both the petroleum industry and environmentalists had filed legal challenges to the DoT’s so-called “final rule.”

The International Association of Fire Fighters also has voiced objections. Representing more than 300,000 firefighters in North America, the IAFF protested a provision that allows railroads to keep the contents of their trains confidential—under the banner of national security.

Russ Fowler, battalion chief with Cal Fire Butte County and coordinator of the local Interagency Hazardous Materials Team, has additional concerns. DoT regulations phase out tank cars that are not up to the current safety standard, rather than pull them off the rails for retrofitting or retirement. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has argued that the alternative would result in increased oil-tanker traffic on highways.

Fowler says one particular railcar commonly used to carry volatile Bakken crude oil, the DOT-111, “just [wasn’t] designed for that product.” Since railroads have until 2018 to get those cars up to standard, “we have three years of potential Russian roulette on our hands if light crude oil is transported down the Feather River Canyon like it was done last fall.”

Cal Fire has communicated with BNSF Railway, Fowler said, and has been told no crude oil deliveries have come through Butte County this year. “I have no reason not to believe them,” he added, though he’s seen DOT-111s riding on Chico tracks.

Lena Kent, BNSF’s spokeswoman for California, confirmed by email that “we are not currently transporting Bakken crude in your county.” She also wrote: “We do provide information to the Office of Emergency Services in California.”

That’s in contrast with last year, when train cars carrying millions of gallons of the explosive oil, reportedly around one shipment per week, did make their way way along the Feather River Canyon. Experts tie the reduction of imports to a reduced demand for the fuel, a lighter type that’s similar to gasoline and thus extremely volatile.

While Cal Fire dreads the prospect of an urban crash, the Feather River Canyon presents a distinct set of frets.

Train tracks head into remote areas that are difficult for emergency responders to reach. Access roads don’t always run adjacent to the rail route—not even parallel in certain spots. Depending on where a crash occurred, spilled oil could contaminate the Feather River and Lake Oroville—a major source of water for California—or could start a forest fire should it ignite.

Even without a blaze or river release, “it would make an ugly, oily mess in the canyon,” Fowler said. “It would be a terrible environmental disaster.”

Butte County supervisors articulated such concerns to the California Public Utility Commission and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, before the DoT released its regulations. OES responded by saying the state is investing in “purchasing new Type II hazardous material emergency response units” and in “local training specific to … rail safety incidents.”

For Supervisor Doug Teeter, the board chair who represents the Ridge, that’s little assurance. He has a powerless feeling—believing “it’s just a matter of time” before an accident happens locally, yet knowing “as a county we have no control” over the rails.

“We’re at the mercy of the federal regulators,” he continued. “All we’re really getting is a little response on improved training and equipment. That is not nearly enough to handle a 100-car spill.”

Either in populated or unpopulated areas.

“We as a hazmat team plan for worst-case scenarios,” Fowler said. “Just because you plan for a worst-case scenario doesn’t mean you can mitigate the worst-case scenario, because there are things that can happen that are so catastrophic that it would overwhelm local resources until more regional or statewide resources could come in to help.”

Should legal challenges fail, and in the absence of local authority, a remedy to the DoT regulations remains: Congress. Teeter recently met with a representative of Sen. Barbara Boxer. Meanwhile, North State Congressman John Garamendi has introduced legislation to make light crude safer for rail transport.

Teeter encourages constituents to write congressional representatives and senators. He finds encouragement even in the controversial DoT regulations, which arose amid an uproar.

“Maybe now we’ll have a voice,” Teeter said. “Maybe something can happen.”

 

AMTRAK, Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Evacuation, Rail Safety

Amtrak Derailment Could Have Lead to Evacuation of Almost 20,000

Repost from The Spirit of the River Wards, Philadelphia, PA

Amtrak Derailment Could Have Lead to Evacuation of Almost 20,000

This image appears on a legal complaint by law firm Kline & Specter, filed yesterday on behalf of several passengers injured in the Amtrak 188 derailment: USDC Eastern District 15-CV- 2744-LDD.
By Austin Nolen, May 20, 2015

The recent Amtrak derailment, which has already led to eight deaths, could have been far worse. As many already know, Amtrak 188 derailed near another train, which could have been carrying crude oil. As PhillyMag points out in a piece they ran on these so-called “bomb trains,” “a large-scale oil train fire in Philadelphia would be a fiasco. Federal officials recommend evacuating all people within a half-mile of an oil train fire—that’s how destructive they can be.”

The oil trains, carried by a company called Conrail, transport the oil, from a North Dakota shale formation, through Chicago to Philadelphia, according to a Conrail spokesperson and industry documents reviewed by The Spirit. The oil trains initially enter the Riverwards in Kensington along a line owned by Amtrak before branching off through Port Richmond near Bridesburg to cross the Delaware River. The freight then travels from Philadelphia across the Delaware River to South Jersey refineries.

Conrail is a wholly owned subsidiary of CSX and Norfolk Southern, “two larger rail lines”. Though, according to a CSX spokesperson, the company operates independently. The federal government created Conrail in the 1970s to help bail out bankrupt rail companies. Though Conrail was privatized in the 1980s, it continues to receive federal funding today.

The company has since been involved with several notable environmental issues. A federal court convicted Conrail of multiple felony counts of environmental crime in 1995. The firm currently faces multiple lawsuits over a 2012 incident in Paulsboro, NJ, where a Conrail freight train derailed over a bridge in November of that year and released about 24,000 gallons of vinyl chloride, according to a National Transportation Safety Board accident report.

While a Conrail official has confirmed that the tankers near the Amtrak 188 derailment did not contain crude oil, and were in fact empty, what if they hadn’t been?

The Spirit’s analysis of the derailment suggest that had the passenger train hit nearby oil tankers, around 15,696 people from the area, including parts of Port Richmond, may have fallen within the evacuation zone: a half-mile radius around the crash site. This figure represents the total population in 12 Census block groups surrounding the crash site. The Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management did not respond to a request for comment.

However, as City Paper has reported, the office’s director during a public meeting speculated that if an incident involving crude oil did occur, the evacuation zone would be a half-mile radius. Furthermore, a recent report from PennEnvironment indicated that the same radius was put into place in other crude oil disasters. A Conrail representative did not respond to a request for comment about their safety operations.

The Spirit’s investigation of Conrail’s operations began before the recent Amtrak derailment, and relied upon industry documents provided to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency under a federal Department of Transportation order. The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records then mandated their public release. Subsequent changes to the laws have rendered these records once again inaccessible.

There have been several other documented instances of close calls regarding oil tankers in Philadelphia. A derailment left train cars dangling over the Schuylkill River in January 2014, and another train ran off its tracks in South Philadelphia a year later.

An April 2014 story in The Inquirer details a third incident, which involved Conrail tankers in Port Richmond on the train tracks crossing Aramingo Avenue near Castor Avenue, close to where Amtrak 188 derailed last week. Conrail spokesman John Enright told the Inquirer that three tanker cars of the nine-car train derailed in the 2014 Port Richmond incident. The cause of that derailment wasn’t known at the time. According to Conrail, the tankers were carrying acetone. The Philadelphia Fire Department found no leaks in the crash and no injuries were reported.

These scenarios aren’t unique to Philadelphia either. Two years ago, a runaway oil train in Lac-Mégantic, a town in Quebec, hit a nightclub and killed 47 people. Other instances in West Virginia, North Dakota, and Illinois had oil tankers catching fire in more rural area.

Philadelphia’s oil lines run through highly residential areas: University City, Southwest Philadelphia, and North Philadelphia. As maps show, if an emergency involving an oil spill were to occur, evacuating the area would be a huge undertaking and potentially result in mass casualties. The Inquirer estimates that 400,000 total Philadelphians live within a half-mile of rail lines that carry crude oil.

Some in Philadelphia have called for the creation of an “Energy Hub” in the city, especially Phil Rinaldi, CEO of Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), the company that owns a South Philadelphia crude oil refinery. This plan would make a Philadelphia a pipeline center for crude oil, natural gas and other gas liquids. The creation of a Philadelphia Energy Hub would greatly benefit the city’s manufacturing industry—an industry that’s been crippled since the deindustrialization of the city in the 50s—but also brings up a host of safety concerns.

City representatives maintain that Philadelphia has a comprehensive emergency protocol in place to respond to a disaster involving crude oil or any other hazardous materials. Some of the information, such as evacuation routes, is available on the city’s website. City officials, however, have refused to disclose information regarding the specifics of this plan to clean water activists, who believe the city has no such formalized plan.

“That’s one of our challenges—striking the balance between sharing information so the public can be prepared and not sharing information because we do live in this post-9/11 world,” Samantha Phillips, the city’s director of emergency management, told The Inquirer.

Bakken Crude, Big Oil, Deep sea drilling, Oil prices, Oil producers, Tar sands crude

Oil price crash: companies shelved or delayed 26 schemes, including 9 tar sands projects

Repost from Business Green

Report: Oil price crash stalls more than $100bn of fossil fuel investment

Research on behalf of the Financial Times shows oil majors have shelved or delayed 26 schemes, including nine tar sands projects
By Jessica Shankleman | 19 May 2015
Tar sands in Canada
Tar sands in Canada

Oil majors have put more than $100bn of investment in new projects on ice in response to the plunge in oil price, new analysis by consultancy Rystad Energy revealed today.

The study, commissioned by The Financial Times, shows that 26 projects in 13 countries have been delayed or axed since oil prices started to tumble last year, including nine Canadian tar sands schemes.

The revelation follows warnings from analysts such as the Carbon Tracker Initiative that capital and carbon intensive projects such as tar sands developments and deep sea drilling operations will struggle to turn a profit if oil prices remain low.

The price of oil crashed to $45 per barrel in January from a high of $115 in June 2014 as a result of surging output of US shale oil and lower than expected demand in Asia. The downward trend in prices was further accelerated by the decision of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), led by Saudi Arabia, to resist calls for it to curb supplies in a bid to protect prices.

As a result, companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Statoil have been forced to shelve some of their costlier projects.

The analysis shows that at least $118bn of investment has been hit, which is likely to delay future production by as much as 1.5 million barrels per day. This in turn could lead to a substantial rebound in the price of oil, said Rystad.

The report follows a series of studies that have warned capital intensive fossil fuel projects could become stranded assets if the transition to a low carbon economy leads to tighter environmental regulations and reduced demand for fossil fuels.

The findings come after a report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) yesterday showed how coal company stock prices have collapsed in recent years, concluding that the industry now faces a “grim outlook” as a result of tightening environmental legislation and increasing stranded asset risks.

Moreover, yesterday saw the University of Oxford confirm it will not invest in coal and tar sands as part of its ethical policy to fight climate change.

Bakken Crude, Cleanup funding, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Environmental Impacts, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, Hazmat notification, High threat urban areas, Oil spill, Public Health, Rail Safety, Tank car retirement, Tank car retrofit, Tar sands crude, Train speed, Water contamination

Riverkeeper sues U.S. DOT over oil train safety rules

Repost from The Times Union, State College, PA
[Editor: Note that this is a new filing, closely following the filing of May 14 by a coalition of environmental groups.  – RS]

Riverkeeper sues U.S. DOT over oil train safety rules

By Brian Nearing, May 18, 2015

The Hudson River environmental advocacy group Riverkeeper is challenging new U.S. Department of Transportation crude-by-rail standards in federal court, saying that they fail to protect the public and the environment from proven threats, according to a statement issued Monday.

The release states: Riverkeeper filed its lawsuit in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City on May 15, a little more than a week after the DOT issued a final tank car and railroad operation rule which had been the subject of scrutiny and controversy since its proposal in 2014. The suit closely follows another filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by a coalition of conservation and citizen groups that includes Earthjustice, Waterkeeper Alliance, ForestEthics and the Sierra Club.

The Hudson River and the Greater New York/New Jersey region, a thoroughfare for up to 25 percent of all crude shipments originating in the Bakken shale oil region, faces a daily risk of spills and explosions that could devastate communities, local economies, drinking water security, and the environment.

“These seriously flawed standards all but guarantee that there will be more explosive derailments, leaving people and the environment at grave risk,” Riverkeeper President Paul Gallay said. “The shortcomings are numerous, including an inadequate speed limit, unprotective tank car design, and time line that would allow these dangerous tank cars 10 more years on the rails. The DOT completely fails to recognize that we’re in the middle of a crisis – we don’t need bureaucratic half measures that are years away from implementation, we need common-sense protections today.”

Just this month, tank cars laden with crude oil derailed and exploded in Heimdal, North Dakota. Under the new DOT standards, the same type of cars that exploded in that disaster could stay in service hauling volatile crude oil for another five to eight years, or even indefinitely if they are used for tar sands.

Over the past several years, a series of fiery derailments, toxic spills, and explosions involving volatile crude and ethanol rail transport has caused billions in damages across North America. Crude-by-rail accidents threaten irreversible damage to waterways, many of which, like the Hudson River, serve as the source of drinking water for tens of thousands of people. This year alone,six oil-by-rail shipments have caught fire and exploded in North America. In July 2013, a derailment in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killed 47 people. The total liabilities for that rail disaster could easily reach $2.7 billion over the next decade.

Here are some of the ways the new safety standards fail to protect people and the environment:

• Hazardous cars carrying volatile crude oil can remain in service for up to 10 years.

• The rule rolls back public notification requirements, leaving communities and first responders in the dark about explosive crude oil tank cars rumbling through their towns.

• While new tank cars will require thicker shells to mitigate punctures and leaks, retrofit tank cars will be allowed to stay in use with a less protective design standard.

• Speed limits have been restricted only for “high threat urban areas,” but only two areas in New York have received that designation, Buffalo and New York City.

• The “high threat” category relates to cities seen as vulnerable to terrorist attacks by the Department of Homeland Security. It is unrelated to actual risks posed by crude-by-rail.