Tag Archives: Crude by Rail

Crude By Rail, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail traffic

California’s central valley: we need to double the tracks for all these trains

Repost from The Turlock Journal

Time to double what’s coming down the tracks

By Dennis Wyatt, October 10, 2014

Get ready for more trains.

Kern County has approved the expansion of two of its three existing or proposed oil terminals that would increase the amount of oil moving by train by 620 percent.

This has the potential to be both a good and a bad thing.

First the good. California due to its location and its need for specialized refineries to meet air quality standards is not benefitting from lower gas prices triggered by America’s shale oil boom While the fracking revolution has reduced the nation’s oil imports from Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other countries by 30 percent since 2004 for the rest of the United States, California imports have jumped 33 percent during the same time frame.

Oil costs $15 more per barrel from overseas and the North Slope in Alaska than it does from domestic sources in the Lower 48 states.

There is no pipeline that crosses the Rockies into the West to carry crude oil. At the same time, just 1 percent of California’s monthly oil needs — 500,000 barrels — is now moved by rail. Eight planned oil terminals throughout the state could push that amount to 15 million gallons a month or a third of California’s oil use.

It costs $12 a barrel to move oil by train from the Bakken oil fields to California.

That translates into $3 less per barrel. By tapping into North Dakota crude, California drivers could benefit at the pump.

Currently Kern County terminals have the capacity to handle 57 tank cars of oil a day. If all of the proposed expansion is completed, the oil terminals could handle 357 tank cars a day. Each tanker holds an average of 700 barrels of crude oil.

The most direct route from the Bakken oil fields to Kern County is via Donner Pass using the Union Pacific. That would bring significantly more oil tanks cars through Lathrop, Manteca, Ripon, Modesto, Ceres, and Turlock.

Santa Fe serves Kern County from the southeast.

Should all plans go forward in Kern County and Union Pacific moves the crude, it creates the potential for three 100-car oil trains a day.

That would be on top of intermodal train traffic where truck trailers are carried on flat cars that is expected to increase as UP expands their Lathrop terminal.

Up until the surge in shale oil production a strong argument could be made that shipping crude and dangerous chemicals by rail is substantially safer than by truck for miles covered.

But recent crude oil train derailments and explosions have upset that premise. Shale oil crude has turned out to be more volatile than regular crude. There has been a push to retrofit existing tank cars or deploy new ones that are less susceptible to exploding in a train derailment.

An oil train derailment in Quebec last year killed 47 people.

That’s why increased oil movement by rail makes many people nervous for obvious reasons.

That said a lot of potential explosive and toxic materials move daily through the Valley by rail.

And 26 years ago Manteca had a train derailment involving several tankers carrying toxic chemicals in the early morning fog that forced the evacuation of over 2,000 people.

Moving goods whether it is oil or a truckload of potato chips is never without risk.

Union Pacific’s has a fairly impressive safety record and routinely monitors and upgrades their main line through the San Joaquin Valley.

Also, surrounding fire agencies do joint drills in case the unthinkable happens.

Even so local elected officials need to start thinking about a couple of things. Increased train traffic — whether it is oil trains, regular freight trains or intermodal trains — means more waiting at crossings. More waiting usually means more impatient motorists — a primary ingredient for train disasters.

At the same time Altamont Corridor Express is pushing to extend passenger train service to Modesto, Turlock and eventually Merced. The original 2018 timetable now looks a tad ambitious. But sometime in the relatively near future it can happen.

And because of that, Manteca’s elected leaders need to lobby hard to make sure ACE goes with a plan to double tracks between Modesto and Lathrop.

It reduces scheduling conflicts for freight, oil and passenger movements. And it also will somewhat reduce waiting times at crossings. Currently, it isn’t uncommon for twice a day for trains to block the Austin Road and Industrial Park Road crossings for 15 to 20 minutes while waiting for a train to pass.

Given the potential for eight passenger trains a day between Modesto and Lathrop once the ACE extension is up and running and even more when it connects with high speed rail at Merced to ferry passengers between there and Sacramento, double tracking becomes essential.

This is not one of those “we can wait to see what happens” things. The coming of more oil trains is a clear signal Manteca needs to start pursuing those in charge of planning the ACE extension to make sure the route through Manteca is double tracked not just for safety’s sake but also to make taking rail a viable commuting alternative.

BNSF Railway, California Regulation, Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Union Pacific Railroad, Valero Benicia Refinery

Vallejo Times-Herald: Railroads sue California over oil train safety rules

Repost from The Vallejo Times-Herald

Railroads sue California over oil train safety rules

Union Pacific, BNSF Railway argue federal law pre-empts state regulations
By Tony Burchyns, October 9, 2014

California’s two major railroad companies filed a lawsuit this week to argue that the state lacks authority to impose its own safety requirements on federally regulated crude oil train traffic.

The lawsuit follows a new state law imposing regulations on the transportation of crude oil by rail in California. Union Pacific and BNSF Railway filed the case Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento to argue that federal law pre-empts California and other states from enforcing such regulatory regimes.

“The new state law requires railroads to take a broad range of steps to prevent and respond to oil spills, on top of their myriad federal obligations concerning precisely the same subject matter,” the railroads argue. “UP, BNSF and other members of (the American Association of Railroads) will be barred from operating within California unless a California regulator approves oil spill prevention and response plans that they will have to create, pursuant to a panoply of California-specific requirements.”

The railroads also will be required to obtain a “certificate of financial responsibility” from the state, indicating they are able to cover damages resulting from an oil spill. Failure to comply with the new state rules will expose railroad employees to jail time and fines, according to the lawsuit.

The California Office of Spill Prevention and Response, which was named as a defendant in the lawsuit, has declined to comment on the pending litigation.

The state law was passed in June following a sharp rise in crude-by-rail shipments in California from 2012 to 2013 and several high-profile oil train derailments in other states as well as Canada. In the Bay Area, crude-by-rail projects in Benicia, Richmond, Pittsburg, Martinez and Stockton have drawn local attention to the prospect of mile-long oil trains snaking through neighborhoods, mountain passes and sensitive habitats such as the Suisun Marsh.

Last week, California Attorney General Kamala Harris sent a letter to Benicia challenging plans to ship 70,000 barrels of crude daily by train to the city’s Valero refinery. Valero is seeking city approval to build a rail terminal to receive two 50-car oil trains daily from Roseville. The train shipments would originate in North Dakota or possibly Canada.

Harris, the state’s top law enforcement officer, criticized the city for underestimating the project’s safety and environmental risks. The letter was among hundreds received by the city in response to its initial environmental impact report. City officials say they are in the process of responding to all of the comments, and plan to do so before the project’s next, yet-to-be-scheduled public hearing is held.

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Crude By Rail, Environmental Impacts

Residents and environmental groups sue to stop Kern County crude oil project

Repost from The Sacramento Bee
[Editor: For details and contacts, see the press release by The Center for Biological Diversity.  Here is a link to the full complaint.  – RS]

Environmentalists sue to stop Kern County crude oil project

By Tony Bizjak, Oct. 9, 2014

A coalition of residents and environmental groups has filed a lawsuit challenging Kern County’s approval last month of what would be the largest crude-by-rail project in the state.

Kern officials unanimously gave the OK in September to the Alon USA refining company to transform a mothballed Bakersfield refinery into a combination refinery and receiving station for trains transporting crude oil from out of state.

It would be the largest crude-by-rail transfer station in California, twice the size of a similar facility being planned in the Bay Area city of Benicia by the Valero Refining Co. Potentially, the Bakersfield station could receive trains carrying flammable Bakken oil from North Dakota through Central Valley cities, including Sacramento.

The lawsuit, filed by Earthjustice, contends the county did not fully assess the project’s health risks to state residents. Those risks, Earthjustice says, include the possibility of explosions if trains derail enroute to the refinery. The lawsuit argues that the project will further degrade air quality in the San Joaquin Valley and cited the region’s high levels of pediatric asthma.

“Restarting a shuttered oil refinery is a huge step backwards for cleaning up some of the worst polluted air in the nation. This project will only exacerbate asthma and other respiratory illnesses that already plague Bakersfield residents and children at extraordinarily high rates,” said Gordon Nipp, vice chairman of the local Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club, which is a plaintiff in the case.

Kern County officials could not immediately be reached for comment. The county conducted what it described as a comprehensive environmental review before approving the project, and expressed confidence that the transports would be conducted safely.

Bakken Crude, Bridge safety, California Regulation, Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail inspection, Valero Benicia Refinery

California bridge inspectors getting started – will visit only 30 of 5,000 bridges in 2015

Repost from The Sacramento Bee

Editorial: California makes progress on train safety by inspecting railroad bridges

By the Editorial Board, Oct. 9, 2014
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Emergency responders learn about the different types of railroad tank cars in a safety class last week at a CSX yard in Richmond, Va. CSX uses its “safety train” to train first responders in communities where it hauls large volumes of crude oil. Curtis Tate / McClatchy-Tribune

It’s encouraging that important steps are being taken to make sure oil trains rumbling through California don’t derail, but the job isn’t nearly done yet.

For the first time, the California Public Utilities Commission plans to check behind safety inspections by private railroad companies of rail bridges across the state, focusing on those traversed by trains carrying crude oil.

The commission is deploying two new bridge inspectors – among seven new rail inspectors hired with money allocated by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature in response to rising concerns about more oil trains in California. The two inspectors will likely work as a team, visiting four bridges a week. They won’t be doing full inspections, but rather reviewing that the railroads’ safety checks are in proper order.

At that rate, it would take 50 years to check all 5,000 rail bridges, as The Sacramento Bee’s Tony Bizjak reported this week. That obviously isn’t fast enough.

So the commission is compiling a priority list of the first 30 bridges for visits in 2015. Here are two possible ones that should be strongly considered: the heavily used, 103-year-old I Street Bridge in downtown Sacramento and the Clear Creek Trestle in Feather River Canyon. Both are expected to be on primary routes for oil trains.

It’s also significant that state and local officials are pushing for a more complete risk assessment of Valero’s proposal to run oil trains through Northern California to its Benicia refinery.

Late last month, the utilities commission and the state Office of Spill Prevention and Response joined the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and the cities of Davis and Sacramento in raising concerns that the city of Benicia’s draft environmental impact report underestimated the potential of explosion and fire from two 50-car trains going daily through Roseville, Sacramento, West Sacramento, Davis and other cities. Attorney General Kamala Harris has jumped on the bandwagon, too.

For one thing, state officials say they want more detail on how Benicia officials came up with a projection that a train derailment would spill 100 gallons or more of oil only once every 111 years along the 69 miles of track between Roseville and Benicia.

At the same time, California’s two U.S. senators are pressing federal transportation officials to expand their requirements for railroads to notify first responders of oil shipments. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s emergency order, issued in May, covers only shipments of at least 1 million gallons (about 35 rail cars) of crude from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota.

Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein say that notification ought to be required for any quantity of Bakken, or any kind of crude oil or other flammable liquid, for that matter.

They’re right. If safety is the goal, there’s no logical reason that smaller shipments and other kinds of crude aren’t covered. The notification mandate is among proposed rules on oil trains that federal officials plan to impose by year’s end. They also include phasing out older rail cars, lower speed limits and more comprehensive response plans for spills.

Those federal regulations will become even more crucial if California’s two major railroad companies – BNSF and Union Pacific – win their federal lawsuit filed Tuesday that challenges a new state law requiring them to come up with oil spill prevention and response plans. The companies argue that federal law prevents states from imposing such safety rules.

This is often how important safety improvements get made – step by step, at different levels of government, with advocates having to keep pushing for stronger protections against industry resistance. Everyone involved should have one priority – putting public safety first and foremost.