Tag Archives: Crude by Rail

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Earthjustice, ForestEthics, Sierra Club, Tank car design, US Department of Transportation

U.S. Sued Over Refusal to Ban Older Rail Cars for Crude

Repost from Bloomberg News
[Editor: See also the Earthjustice press release, “Groups Bring New Legal Action for Federal Ban of Dangerous Oil Tank Rail Cars”.  Here is the December 2 Petition.   Here is the original July 15 Petition.  – RS]

U.S. Sued Over Refusal to Ban Older Rail Cars for Crude

By Andrew Zajac, Dec 2, 2014
Crude by Rail California
A train with DOT-111 tanker cars. Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice

Earthjustice and other environmental groups asked a federal court to force the U.S. Transportation Department to reconsider its rejection of an immediate ban on the use of rail tank cars lacking updated safety features for shipping Bakken crude oil.

The tank cars’ safety was questioned after a July 2013 explosion that killed 47 people when an unattended, runaway train hauling 72 carloads of Bakken crude derailed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.

The transportation department is managing tank car safety issues through a series of directives, short of a ban, and rules are being drafted to phase out the older rolling stock, the agency said in November, declining the groups’ request for an emergency ban.

That response fails to consider the risks posed by the cars, including “past findings that the surge in crude-by-rail shipments of Bakken crude in dangerous tank cars poses imminent hazards and emergency unsafe conditions,” according to the complaint, filed today in federal appeals court in San Francisco.

The rail vessels in question are older models, collectively referred to as DOT-111 tank cars, that lack safeguards needed to improve crashworthiness, according the environmentalists’ original request for a ban, filed in July.

Oil from the Bakken shale region of North Dakota tends to be more volatile and flammable than other crude, according to a Transportation Department study released in July.

Production of Bakken crude is soaring beyond the capacity of pipelines, leading to an increased use of trains.

The Sierra Club and ForestEthics joined Earthjustice in the lawsuit.

The case is Sierra Club v. U.S. Department of Transportation, 14-73682, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, (San Francisco).

Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail inspection, State regulation

NY Gov. Cuomo accuses federal officials of moving “unacceptably slow” on proposed rules

Repost from RecordOnline, Middletown, NY

Cuomo: Feds need to address crude-oil shipments by rail

By Leonard Sparks, Dec. 1, 2014

ALBANY – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called on the federal government to tighten rules governing crude-oil shipments by rail as the state released a report Monday documenting actions to protect Hudson River communities from derailment-related spills and explosions.

State rail inspectors uncovered more than 700 track and equipment defects and 12 hazardous material violations during seven inspection “blitzes” this year, according to the report, which documents New York’s progress in implementing 12 recommendations to improve safety.

Cuomo’s administration accuses federal officials of moving “unacceptably slow” on proposed rules to make crude shipments safer, including a proposal to phase-out the DOT-111 rail cars that many consider unfit for shipping oil.

“Over the past six months, our administration has taken swift and decisive action to increase the state’s preparedness and better protect New Yorkers from the possibility of a crude oil disaster,” Cuomo said. “Now it is time for our federal partners to do the same.”

Hydraulic fracturing has fueled a surge in U.S. oil production and the use of trains to carry highly flammable crude from the Bakken shale fields in North Dakota to Albany’s port. From there it is shipped by rail and water down the Hudson River valley.

On July 6, 2013, a train derailed at Lac-Megantic, a town in Quebec, Canada. Oil leaked from the train’s DOT-111 cars and ignited, causing explosions and the deaths of 47 people.

In February, a freight train pulling empty oil cars derailed in the Town of Ulster. Supervisor Jim Quigley said he has been vocal about upgrading the tank cars.

New York added five safety inspectors, began training local emergency responders and started the process of updating spill-response plans as part of a multipronged strategy to protect communities along shipment routes.

Last month, the state urged the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to “expeditiously” remove DOT-111 cars from service or require they be retrofitted to carry oil.

Sen. Charles Schumer described the cars as “ticking time bombs.”

“I am pushing DOT to commit to the strongest of these regulations as soon as possible,” he said. “We can’t afford any delay.”

Crude By Rail, Rail inspection, Schools

Map shows 100 schools along crude oil train tracks

Repost from WestfairOnline, White Plains, NY

Map shows 100 schools along crude oil train tracks

By: Mark Lungariello, December 01, 2014

On July 6, 2013, a train hauling more than 70 cars filled with volatile crude oil derailed in Quebec, Canada, after its engine caught fire and power to its air brakes was cut. Several DOT-111 oil tankers filled with crude mined from South Dakota’s Bakken Shale ignited, spilling oil and sending a fireball into the sky of the town of Lac-Mégantic that destroyed 30 buildings, according to reports.

Forty-seven people died. Several thousand more were evacuated while oil seeped into the soil and local waterways. The Quebec derailment and several other disasters have brought increased scrutiny on the transportation of crude oil by rail as the amount of oil mined domestically continues to multiply.

A map of schools in the Hudson Valley within a mile of crude oil train lines. (Click to go to interactive map page.)
A map of schools in the Hudson Valley within a mile of crude oil train lines. (Click to go to interactive map page.)

New maps from state environmental groups show there are more than 100 public and private K-12 schools within a mile of train lines used to transport crude oil through the region. Albany-based Healthy School Networks released the maps last month in partnership with a coalition of environmental and education activists.

“They are crossing from Buffalo through Rochester and from the upper reaches of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks to the Port of Albany, then down along the Hudson River,” Claire Barnett, executive director of Healthy Schools Network, said. “A catastrophic event, should it happen near an occupied school, could devastate a community for a generation or more.”

From 15 to 30 trains carrying crude out of South Dakota travel through the Hudson Valley region each week. Each train can haul dozens or as many as 100 oil cars, each that carry tens of thousands of gallons of the Bakken crude, which experts say is more volatile and unstable than other forms of oil. Oil is also transported by barge on waterways through the region and plans are in the gestation phase to begin transporting other types of crude through the area by rail as well.

The maps also included BOCES schools. Statewide, the maps identified 351 schools within one mile of train lines. In Monroe County alone, in the Rochester area, 63 schools were within the one-mile zone.

Environmental group Riverkeeper prepared an additional several maps depicting the potential impact area of local crude oil accidents based on the 300-yard blast radius and 1,100-yard evacuation zone from the Quebec derailment and a Casselton, N.D., derailment that spilled more than 400,000 gallons of crude.

“Based on the human consequences of these two accidents, it is clear that communities on both sides of the Hudson River could be impacted by a crude oil rail disaster,” said Kate Hudson, Riverkeeper’s Watershed Program director.

A CSX Corp. rail line runs from Albany to the state’s border with New Jersey. Land trust organization Scenic Hudson said that 47.7 miles of that track are within yards of the Hudson River. The group estimates the risk area in the event of a derailment would be more than 200,000 acres and include 100,000 households and six drinking water intakes.

The U.S. Department of Transportation Emergency Response Guidebook recommends a half-mile evacuation zone for accidents involving rail cars with flammable liquids and a mile zone around any rail car filled with those materials if they are on fire.

Environmental groups are calling for state and federal government reforms. These include asking government officials to provide emergency planning aid to schools, reduce speed limits for crude oil trains and impose stricter regulations and inspections for deteriorating DOT-111 tankers. The U.S. Department of Transportation is considering stricter regulations of the cars, but environmental groups have said the proposed laws don’t go far enough.

The state has increased its inspection of cars in response to recent derailments, but oil industry experts look to continue to expand their processing capacities as the amount of crude mined through hydraulic fracturing surges. The amount of Bakken moving through the U.S. has risen from 9,500 rail carloads in 2008 to 415,000 rail carloads in 2013, according to the Department of Transportation.

Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Feather River Canyon, Hazmat notification, Union Pacific Railroad

Chico editorial: Train derailment in canyon a cautionary tale

Repost from Chico Enterprise-Record

Editorial: Train derailment in canyon a cautionary tale

11/29/14

When a train derailed in the Feather River Canyon above Belden on Tuesday and dropped tons of corn in the river, it was natural to chuckle uneasily that it was only corn.

Nobody was injured, no animals died, the river’s ecosystem will recover and Union Pacific, while on the hook for a difficult cleanup operation in a steep area, talked largely about how the company was fortunate — because it knows it could have been a whole lot worse.

What should be worrisome to the rest of us is that only Union Pacific seems to know how bad things could get — and Union Pacific isn’t sharing, apparently not even with government officials.

With a surge in crude oil pumped from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and Montana and not enough pipelines to move it across the United States, oil companies have taken to moving the explosive type of oil on railroads. Union Pacific is undoubtedly being compensated handsomely to do so. But moving it from east to west means coming through the picturesque Feather River Canyon, along Highway 70 above Lake Oroville.

Oroville residents have noticed an alarming increase in the number of oil trains, with their black tanker cars, coming through town, headed south. But nobody knows how many trains. The railroad keeps that information close to the vest. Still, the Butte and Plumas county offices of emergency services should know, just in case it has to respond to a derailment, which likely would be accompanied by an explosion. One would think …

But Plumas County’s director of emergency services, Jerry Sipe, says Union Pacific hasn’t advised the county of when or how often the trains come through. Sipe said he’d like the rail companies to provide training and equipment needed to respond to oil train derailments.

Union Pacific spokesman Aaron Hunt, when asked by a reporter about the frequency of oil trains, answered in an email.

“For safety and commercial-competitive reasons,” he wrote, “Union Pacific provides specific commodity route information for its trains only to appropriate response agencies. We cannot address what commodities may travel on other railroads. This route is one where oil may be transported based upon the needs of our customers.”

Well, we think those who live along the route and those who might be asked to respond to a disaster deserve better answers. Local lawmakers from Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, to Assemblyman Brian Dahle, R-Bieber, and state Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, should intervene to demand more transparency.

Nobody should wait until after the first explosion of an oil train to say, “We need to do something about this.” The best time to act is now.

Though Union Pacific’s Hunt points out repeatedly that UP has reduced derailments by 23 percent in the past 10 years, the fact is that trains still derail, and all it takes is one. An explosion would be disastrous. An oil spill in the river system would be as well.

The Feather River Canyon is a treacherous stretch of track, with curves, rock slides and erosion all factors that can contribute to derailments. The fact that UP says it doesn’t know what caused last week’s derailment means, so far anyway, it will be less likely to prevent them in the immediate future.

Let’s get out in front of this problem. As other states have learned, explosions are an increasing possibility. We like first responders to be prepared, not left in the dark.