Tag Archives: Crude by Rail

Civil disobedience, Crude By Rail, Richmond CA, Take Action

KPIX: Protesters Against Fracked Oil Deliveries Chain Themselves At Richmond Yard

Repost from CBS SF Bay Area, 5KPIX
[Editor: See this story also on Popular Resistance, the Richmond Standard, the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the Sacramento Bee.  – RS]

Protesters Against Fracked Oil Deliveries Chain Themselves At Richmond Yard

By Christin Ayers, September 5, 2014

RICHMOND (KPIX 5) — A dramatic showdown at a rail yard in Richmond on Thursday as protesters locked themselves to a gate to disrupt operations at the facility.

The yard is the only one in California that is bringing in 100-car trains full of potentially explosive fracked crude oil. Earlier this year, KPIX 5 was the first to uncover the operation.

A group of protesters chained themselves by the neck with bicycle locks to the gates of the Kinder Morgan rail terminal in Richmond.

“We are here to stop Kinder Morgan’s illegal activity here in Richmond, said Evan Buckner.

Their goal: To block tanker trucks from carrying explosive crude oil through their communities. It’s the same kind of shale oil from North Dakota that has caused deadly explosions in derailments in Canada and across the country.

“I will do everything I can to prevent that from happening,” said Katy Polony.

KPIX 5 discovered back in March that trains a hundred cars long are delivering the volatile loads to the rail yard every month, where it’s transferred onto trucks and driven to local refineries.

But nobody knew the trains were coming in because the operation never had to go through any kind of environmental review.

“They were granted a permit to bring in oil into this facility by the air district without any public process,” said Buckner, who belongs to an environmental group called ForestEthics.

Even Richmond’s Mayor Gayle McLaughlin said she was kept in the dark. “We hadn’t been aware of it in Richmond, but I am very grateful to Channel 5 for bringing this forward,” she said.

McLaughlin came by to show her support. “This has been a big issue in Richmond. I brought a resolution to the city council stating that we need to do whatever we can to stop these trucks from rolling on our streets,” the mayor said.

Police showed up in force, but did not move to make any arrests.

For three hours, the protesters blocked tanker trucks from leaving, then finally unchained themselves and left peacefully.

Because of our reporting, the environmental group Earth Justice has filed a lawsuit against Kinder Morgan and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to try to force an environmental review. Kinder Morgan and the air district would like to see the suit dismissed. The first hearing in that case is Friday.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Degasification, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Oil stabilization, State regulation, Volatility

MUST-READ: North Dakota seizes initiative in CBR degasification

Repost from Railway Age

North Dakota seizes initiative in CBR degasification

By  David Thomas, Sept. 4, 2014
North Dakota seizes initiative in CBR degasification

The vital other shoe in crude by rail reform will drop not in Ottawa or Washington, but in Bismark, N.Dak., where, in the void created by federal inaction, officials are preparing to use state jurisdiction over natural resources to order the degasification of petroleum at the wellhead.

The initiative follows months of opaque pronouncements by federal regulators in both Canada and the U.S. with respect to the need to render volatile crude oil safe before transport by rail.

A spokesman for Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) told Railway Age that rules for the pre-loading treatment of crude oil for shipment by rail are not on its reform agenda, despite earlier, apparently overly enthusiastic, pronouncements.

While Transport Canada and the U.S. Department of Transportation have responded to the succession of oil train explosions this year and last by focusing on railroad operations, hazmat classification, and tank car design, some have been muddled on the need to treat the volatile cargo itself before its loading into railcars—this despite their own warnings that crude, fracked from the mid-continent Baaken shale formation, has the explosivity of gasoline.

Some oil producers and shippers have resisted any new regulatory requirement that they process crude for transport by rail the way they already must for delivery by pipeline.

Removal of toxic, explosive, and corrosive gases from crude for transport by pipeline has been required for years under the regulatory authority of the PHMSA. But neither PHMSA nor its DOT sibling Federal Railroad Administration have seen fit to require similar treatment—variously termed “degasification”, “conditioning”, “stabilization”, or “normalization”—for crude, destined for shipment by rail.

Crude shippers have complained since the first oil train calamity in July 2013 at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that PHMSA regulations for testing and classifying oil for transport by rail were imprecise. Such confusion is only augmented by PHSMA’s twice-stated reference to a purported “requirement” that dangerous gases be removed before crude is loaded into railcars.

The most recent such PHMSA pronouncement in a June 11, 2014 letter to the National Transportation Safety Board reiterated an earlier safety alert:

“On Jan. 2, 2014, PHMSA also issued a safety alert warning of the flammability of the crude oil extracted from the Bakken Shale region in the United States. PHMSA noted that the alert reinforces the requirement to properly test, characterize, classify, and where appropriate, sufficiently degasify hazardous materials prior to transportation.”

Railway Age asked the PHMSA media relations office to clarify the requirement to “degasify,” and to cite the underlying legislative or regulatory authority. A PHMSA spokesperson researched the inquiry and responded that there was in fact no such legal basis in existence or under formal consideration. The PHMSA spokesman referred us to North Dakota, which was contemplating the introduction of compulsory degasification.

Indeed, the oil and gas division of the North Dakota Industrial Commission has announced a public hearing for Sept. 23, on the “oil conditioning practices” in the state’s three light-oil pools: Bakken, Three Forks, and Sanich. Oil producers are invited to propose “methods to effectively reduce the light hydrocarbons in crude oil.”

Division spokesperson Alison Ritter told Railway Age, “The hearing is a first step in conditioning the oil to make it as safe as possible for transport.” She said that gas/liquid separators are already required at all North Dakota wellheads. At issue is whether they are being effectively used to render so-called “hot crude” safe for rail transport.

Separators boil off light hydrocarbons such as ethane, butane, and propane from crude oil, reducing its vapor pressure and propensity to explode. Heavy and corrosive hydrogen sulfide is also removed for pipeline transport. None of this is compulsory for shipment by rail.

North Dakota had been an uncritical booster of CBR even after Lac-Mégantic, until the fourth of the conflagrations occurred Dec. 30, 2013, on the outskirts of Casselton, when a westbound BNSF grain train derailed in the path of an eastbound BNSF oil train.

North Dakota is also proceeding with the training and deployment of its own rail inspectors, who will enforce FRA and PHSMA regulations within the state.

Civil disobedience, Crude By Rail, Richmond CA, Take Action

Richmond, California: Activists form human barricade to protest crude-by-rail facility

Repost from San Francisco Bay Guardian
[Editor: See this story also on Popular Resistance, the Richmond Standard. and the Sacramento Bee.  – RS]

Activists form human barricade to protest crude-by-rail facility

09.04.14 | Rebecca Bowe
PHOTO BY MATTHEW GERRING

This morning [Thu/4], at 7am in Richmond, Calif., four environmental activists used U-locks to fasten themselves by the neck to the fence of an oil shipping facility operated by Kinder Morgan.

They were interlocked with another four activists, who had their arms secured with handmade lock-boxes. “I’m locked to a lock box connected to my partner, Ann, who is locked with a U-lock to the fence,” Andre Soto, of Richmond-based Communities for a Better Environment, explained by phone a little after 8am.

At that time, Soto said several Richmond police officers had been dispatched to the scene and were calmly surveying the human barricade. He wondered out loud if they would be arrested.

The environmentalists risked arrest to prevent trucks from leaving the Kinder Morgan facility for area refineries with offloaded oil shipped in by train.

Crude-by-rail transport at Kinder Morgan’s bulk rail terminal, located in the Burlington Northern / Santa Fe railyard in Richmond, is the subject of a lawsuit filed in March by Earthjustice on behalf of the Sierra Club, Communities for a Better Environment, the National Resources Defense Council, and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network.

The suit, targeting Kinder Morgan as well as the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), charges that Kinder Morgan was illegally awarded a permit for crude-by-rail operations without going through a formal environmental review process, which would have necessitated public hearings and community feedback. The case asks for operations to be halted while the project undergoes review under the California Environmental Quality Act. A hearing will be held in San Francisco Superior Court at 1:30pm tomorrow.

Ethan Buckner of Forest Ethics, who was also locked to the fence, said activists were especially concerned that the crude oil being shipped into Richmond, much of which originates in North Dakota, was volatile, presenting safety concerns.

“The oil trains are … very old tank cars that are subject to puncture, and have been known to fail over and over again while carrying oil,” Buckner said. Much of the oil shipped into the Richmond transfer point by rail originates from the Bakken shale region, which has been dramatically transformed by the controversial extraction method known as fracking.

“Nobody was notified that these oil trains were going to be rolling in,” Buckner said. That morning’s protest, he added, was meant to “send a clear message to Kinder Morgan and the Air District that if we can’t count on our public agencies to protect our communities, we’re going to do it ourselves.”

In the end, none of the activists were arrested. They voluntarily unlocked themselves from the fence and left the railyard around 10am. “After three hours we decided thsat we had made our point,” Eddie Scher of Forest Ethics said afterward, speaking by phone.

Along with a group of around ten others participating in the civil disobedience action, the activists who locked themselves to the fence were affiliated with Bay Area environmental organizations including 350 Bay Area, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, the Sunflower Alliance, the Martinez Environmental Group, and Crocket Rodeo United to Defend the Environment.

Reached by phone, Ralph Borrmann, a spokesperson for BAAQMD, said, “We have no comment on the current litigation, or any actions relating to it.” He added that more information would come out during the Sept. 5 hearing.

When the Bay Guardian asked Kinder Morgan for a comment on the matter, spokesperson Richard Wheatley responded, “You’re not going to get one. We’re not going to comment on it.” Asked for a comment on the lawsuit, Wheatley said, “We’re not going to comment ahead of that hearing. And we’re not going to comment on the protesters.”

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Lake Champlain, Massive increase in crude-by-rail

Lake Champlain activists host oil train forum, feds in attendance

Repost from VTDigger.org

Oil train forum attendees want state, federal regulators to ban leaky tankers and assess new risks

News Release — Lake Champlain Committee, Sep. 2, 2014

 PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. – More than 120 concerned residents attended a public forum to discuss the risks of crude oil train traffic through the Adirondack Park and Champlain Valley here Thursday night, with many saying they would urge state officials to fully assess the risks to communities and the environment, and urge federal regulators to ban the older, leak-prone rail tanker cars involved in recent spills, fires and explosions.

Currently, more than three million gallons per day of Bakken crude oil is transported through the region on rail lines that had rarely carried crude oil or hazardous materials before.

“We were very pleased with the number of people who came out to discuss the risks of oil train traffic through the Adirondack Park and Champlain Valley,” said Diane Fish, Deputy Director of the Adirondack Council. “But even if you couldn’t attend, we urge anyone who is concerned about oil train traffic to contact state and federal officials and let them know. If you aren’t sure how to do that, contact one of the sponsor organizations and we will help you.”

The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) will be accepting comments through September 30 on its environmental assessment of the plan by Global Partners to expand its oil-transfer facilities at the Port of Albany. Federal officials are currently updating their risk assessments for the rail tanker car traffic.

“If the Global Partners’ expansion is approved, it could lead to a major increase in oil train traffic through the Champlain Valley,” said Lori Fisher, Executive Director of the Lake Champlain Committee. “The new traffic would be carrying tar sands oil from Canada, in addition to the Bakken crude oil already coming from North Dakota, and put our communities and waterways at even greater risk.”

“Tar sands oil is not as explosive as Bakken crude, but it is very heavy and sinks in water so it is very difficult to clean up once it is spilled,” said Adirondack Mountain Club Executive Director Neil Woodworth. “If it gets into Lake Champlain, it is likely we will never get it out again.”

“We know the Adirondack Park is home to some of New York’s rarest and most sensitive wildlife, fish and plant life; and, we know trains derail,” said Mollie Matteson, a biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Immediate action is needed to protect this fragile, irreplaceable environment.”

The organizations said NYS DEC should take into consideration potential for damage to Lake Champlain, the Adirondack Park, the communities through which the tracks pass and local farms when assessing the environmental risks of expanded oil traffic.

The groups also urged those who care about the Adirondack Park and Lake Champlain to tell their Congressional representatives to seek a ban on the model DOT-111 rail cars that have been blamed for most of the recent spills and fires.

The risks of Bakken crude oil rail shipments have been highlighted by a series of recent derailments in the U.S. and Canada resulting in water and soil contamination, deadly explosions and raging fires. A 2013 derailment involving nearly 80 tankers in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killed 47 people and devastated the town. A derailment in May in Lynchburg, Va., set the James River on fire.

Federal officials have said they would require the replacement of the leak-prone rail tanker cars (model DOT-111) involved in recent spills, fires and explosions. However, it will take years to carry out the current plan.

Appearing at the event were U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Emergency & Remedial Response division representatives Carl Pellegrino and Doug Kodama; Essex County Emergency Management Director Don Jaquish; Clinton County Emergency Management Director Eric Day; Claire Barnett of the Healthy Schools Network; and, Mark Malchoff of Lake Champlain Sea Grant.

The event was hosted by the Lake Champlain Committee, Adirondack Council, Adirondack Mountain Club, and the Center for Biological Diversity.

On average, 3.4 million gallons of explosive crude oil per day are shipped through the Champlain Valley on trains coming from the oil fields of North Dakota, through Canada, to Albany. Between five and nine trains per week use the Canadian Pacific Railroad line between Montreal and the Port of Albany on the Hudson River. Each train can haul up to 100 oil tankers. Each tank car carries about 34,000 gallons of oil.

Bakken crude is light and contains large amounts of volatile chemicals, making it highly flammable. Tar sands oil is less explosive, but much heavier. It sinks rather than floating on water, making it impossible to remove via conventional boom-and-suction methods.

Every crude oil spill causes lasting environmental damage, the organizations noted, pointing to continuing problems in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico from the Exxon Valdez and British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon disasters. Closer to home, attempts to clean up oil spills on the St. Lawrence River (1976) and at a long-closed steel mill in southern St. Lawrence County continue to cost taxpayers millions of dollars, decades after they occurred.

The Canadian Pacific Railroad tracks run alongside Lake Champlain for more than 130 miles, including 100 miles inside the Adirondack Park. The tracks also cross the Saranac, Ausable and Bouquet rivers. For many miles, the tracks are just a few feet from the water’s edge.

Lake Champlain is ecologically rich, the drinking water source for nearly 200,000 Champlain Valley residents, and a key driver for the regional economy. The tracks also run through the center of more than a dozen small communities and the City of Plattsburgh, within a short distance of schools, homes, businesses, farmlands, tourist accommodations, campgrounds, beaches and municipal offices.

For more information:
Lori Fisher, Lake Champlain Committee, 802-658-1421
John Sheehan, Adirondack Council, 518-441-1340