Tag Archives: Crude by Rail

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Rail inspection, State regulation

Rail safety program stripped from North Dakota budget

Repost from InForum, Fargo ND
[Editor:  See also AP coverage in The Bismarck  Tribune.  – RS]

ND Democrats slam Republicans for stripping rail safety program from budget

By Mike Nowatzki, Apr 8, 2015 at 7:09 p.m.
A plume of smoke rises from scene of a derailed train near Casselton, North Dakota December 30, 2013. REUTERS / Michael Vosburg / Forum News Service

BISMARCK — Democrats slammed House Republican budget writers Wednesday for stripping a proposed state-run rail safety program from the Public Service Commission budget, calling it a broken promise that leaves residents at risk of more accidents like the fiery oil train derailment near Casselton in 2013.

The House Appropriations Committee voted 16-5 late Tuesday to approve a PSC budget that cuts about $970,000 for two rail safety inspectors and a rail safety manager to complement efforts by the Federal Railroad Administration in the next biennium.

The Senate approved the funding when it passed Senate Bill 2008 by a 46-0 vote in February.

Rep. Ron Guggisberg, D-Fargo, stressed the importance of the positions given the skyrocketing increase in crude-by-rail traffic in North Dakota and across the country.

Nationwide, crude-by-rail shipments increased from an average of 55,000 barrels per day in 2010 to more than 1 million barrels per day in 2014, with Bakken crude making up 70 percent of last year’s volume, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“This is where it’s coming from, so we need to set an example and make sure it’s safe,” Guggisberg said.

Rep. Roscoe Streyle, R-Minot, said a state rail safety program is unnecessary. He said the FRA has increased its presence in North Dakota in recent years, and BNSF Railway announced additional safety measures on March 27, including increased track inspections, better electronic monitoring of railcars and reduced speeds and other new operating procedures for trains carrying crude oil.

“I just don’t think having a couple of state inspectors running around out there is going to make a hill-of-beans difference,” he said.

The committee’s chairman, Rep. Jeff Delzer, R-Underwood, indicated he feels a state program would be duplicative.

“The feds are already doing it. We’re just expanding government,” he said.

Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak, a Republican who touted the proposal during her successful election campaign last summer against Democratic state Sen. Tyler Axness of Fargo after he had advocated for a state-run inspection program, said she was disappointed the funding was stripped from Senate Bill 2008 but is hopeful it’ll be restored.

“I will continue to push for this,” she said.

Fedorchak said that while the FRA has 10 staffers in North Dakota, only two are rail inspectors, and they cover parts of South Dakota and Montana in addition to all of North Dakota — about 5,000 miles of track in total. A mechanical inspector also covers parts of Montana and Wyoming.

“The federal inspection program is spread too thin,” she said, adding the volume of hazardous materials moving on North Dakota rail lines demands the state step in and help the feds “on behalf of the citizens living next to this infrastructure.”

Streyle said some committee members also worried about a state-run program making the state liable in rail accidents, a concern Fedorchak said is unfounded and hasn’t been a problem in the 30 states that have their own rail inspection programs.

The committee rejected Guggisberg’s amendment to restore the rail safety positions. He said he now plans to bring a minority report when the bill reaches the full House, which if approved would fund the rail safety positions and three hazardous liquid inspector positions cut by the Senate. Those inspectors would oversee intrastate oil pipelines.

House Majority Leader Al Carlson, R-Fargo, said the issue will be sorted out in a House-Senate conference committee.

“That’s just a long way from over,” he said.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail routing

Swinomish tribe sues to permanently ban Bakken oil trains

Repost from The Seattle Times

Swinomish tribe sues to block Bakken oil trains

A federal lawsuit filed by the Swinomish Indian tribe seeks to ban BNSF Railway from transporting Bakken crude oil across tribal lands. The line in question carries oil trains to the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes.

By Hal Bernton, April 7, 2015 at 8:37 pm, Updated April 8, 2015 at 12:10 pm
A view of the Tesoro refinery, as seen from Cap Sante lookout in Anacortes. Photographed on July 16, 2012. (John Lok / The Seattle Times)
A view of the Tesoro refinery, as seen from Cap Sante lookout in Anacortes. Photographed on July 16, 2012. (John Lok / The Seattle Times)

The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community on Tuesday went to federal court to block BNSF Railway from sending 100-car oil trains through reservation lands, claiming the company is violating an easement that sharply restricts rail traffic.

The easement signed by the railway’s predecessor company in 1991 permits only two trains a day of 25 cars or less from transiting the reservation. It also calls for the railroad company to get permission from the tribe to increase traffic.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle asks the court to permanently ban the railroad from shipping Bakken shale crude oil across tribal land, asserting that the railroad never sought permission for the oil trains.

“A deal is a deal,” said Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby in a statement released Tuesday. “Our signatures were on the agreement with BNSF, so were theirs. So was the United States. But despite all that, BNSF began running its Bakken oil trains across the reservation without asking, and without even telling us.”

The Swinomish rail line that traverses tribal land on Fidalgo Island enables trains to reach a Tesoro refinery in nearby Anacortes.

A BNSF spokesman, in a statement released Tuesday said, “We have received the complaint and are reviewing it.”

The tribal lawsuit is part of an intensifying backlash in Washington and elsewhere in North America against shipping Bakken shale crude from North Dakota and Montana. Production from those fields has surged with the development of new fracking techniques.

Since 2013, a series of train derailments resulted in fiery explosions of Bakken crude, with four of those accidents occurring since early February. Bakken crude has a higher volatility than many other crudes, due to elevated levels of gases such as ethane, propane and butane

At Seattle’s Emergency Operations Center on Tuesday, Mayor Ed Murray, King County Executive Dow Constantine and other officials joined U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to discuss threats posed by these accidents.

“In Canada nearly two years ago, a mile-long train derailed and the ensuing explosion cost 47 people their lives,” Cantwell said. “That blast leveled a half-mile radius. If that happened in Seattle, the effects would be catastrophic.”

“In Seattle, an incident of this type could impact tens of thousands of residents.”

Cantwell introduced legislation last month that would require the federal Transportation Department to regulate the volatility of crude oil shipped by trains.

The bill also would increase funding for first responders and require more disclosures from railroads about train routes. The railroads would also have to plan for worst-case derailment scenarios.

In Washington last year, up to 19 trains a week crossed parts of the state with crude oil that ends up at state or California refineries.

Some of those trains now cross Swinomish lands on the way to the Tesoro refinery. The number of those trains could rise if Shell gets approval for a rail facility at its refinery in Anacortes.

As the trains move through tribal lands, they pass close by a casino, a lodge and other development.

“Based on the demonstrated hazards” of Bakken shale crude, the tribe is “justifiably and gravely concerned” with the oil shipments, the lawsuit asserts.

The railroad’s 1991 easement across the reservation lands resulted from the settlement of an earlier tribal lawsuit that alleged that BNSF’s predecessor company was trespassing on their lands with its trains during most of the past century.

The settlement called for periodic railroad disclosures “as different products, or commodities, are added or deleted.” It also called on the tribe not to “arbitrarily withhold permission to increase the number of trains or cars when necessary to meet shipper needs.”

The crude-oil shipments across tribal lands began in late 2011, but tribal officials said they were never informed in advance, and have never authorized that train traffic.

“We told BNSF to stop, again and again,” Cladoosby said. “It’s unacceptable for BNSF to put our people and our way of life at risk without regard to the agreement we established in good faith.”

Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Reid vapor pressure levels, Volatility

Rep. Garamendi and area leaders call for safer crude-by-rail transport

Repost from The Benicia Herald
[Editor:  Significant quote: “Garamendi has introduced House Bill 1679 that would prohibit the transport of North Dakota Bakken crude by train unless it has a maximum Reid vapor pressure (RVP) of 9.5 psi.”  – RS]

Rep. Garamendi to call for safer crude-by-rail transport

By Donna Beth Weilenman, April 7, 2015

U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Fairfield, will join industry leaders in Davis on Wednesday in calling for the U.S. Department of Transportation to make rail delivery of crude oil safer.

“Crude oil is or has until very recently been transported by rail through several cities in Congressman Garamendi’s 3rd Congressional District, including Davis, Dixon, Fairfield, Suisun City and Marysville,” said his media specialists, Donald Lathbury and Matthew Kravitz, in a joint statement on the news conference.

“These routes are very close to residential communities, schools, parks, and businesses.”

Among those joining Garamendi will be Sarah Feinberg, acting administrator for the Federal Railroad Administration, and Paul W. King, deputy director of the Office of Rail Safety at the Safety and Enforcement Division of the California Public Utilities Commission.

Municipal and other leaders also are expected to attend, including Davis Mayor Dan Wolk, Marysville Mayor Ricky Samayoa, Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor and Solano County Supervisor Skip Thomson.

Also expected to attend are Terry Bassett, Yolo County Transportation District executive director; Dana Carey, Yolo County office of Emergency Services manager; and Terry Schmidtbauer, assistant director of Resource Management in the Solano County Office of Emergency Services.

Garamendi has introduced House Bill 1679 that would prohibit the transport of North Dakota Bakken crude by train unless it has a maximum Reid vapor pressure (RVP) of 9.5 psi.

He said this is the maximum volatility permitted by the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) for crude oil futures contracts.

By comparison, he said, a recent literature review by Sandia Labs indicates that the North Dakota Petroleum Council’s study of 152 Bakken crude samples found an average RVP of 11.7 psi and a max of 14.4 psi. A rule going into effect in North Dakota this month sets the limit at 13.7 psi.

Garamendi and Congresswoman Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, sent a letter March 3 to the Department of Transportation in which they suggested strengthening safety improvements and asked DOT to drop any plans for weakening regulations.

Instead, they called for stronger safety standards for crude-by-rail transportation.

“Families living near oil-by-rail shipping lines are rightfully concerned about the safety of the trains that pass through their communities,” Garamendi said. “For that reason, I have repeatedly called on the Department of Transportation to use all the tools at their disposal to ensure that these shipments are as safe and secure as possible.

“Every day that strong and effective rules are delayed is another day that millions of Americans, including many in my district, are put at greater risk.”

Garamendi’s announcement will be made at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday next to the Davis Train Depot, near the corner of Second and H streets, Davis.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Environmental review, Marine transport, Oil Industry, Oil storage, Pipeline transport, Pittsburg WesPac, WesPac Midstream LLC

Pittsburg CA: Critics blast proposed oil terminal, even without Bakken crude trains

Repost from The Contra Costa Times
[Editor:  Significant quote: “WesPac officials said they dropped inbound crude oil shipments by rail from their plans for several reasons, including public sentiment against it, an unstable regulatory environment surrounding those shipments, and drops in crude oil prices that have made such shipments less economically viable.”  – RS]

Pittsburg: Critics blast proposed oil terminal, even without Bakken crude trains

By Sam Richards, 04/07/2015 12:31:04 PM PDT

PITTSBURG — Train loads of Bakken crude oil are no longer in the plans for a proposed oil storage terminal near the waterfront, but that does not mean the project is being welcomed to town with open arms.

The City Council voted 5-0 Monday night to approve amending the environmental report for WesPac Midstream LLC’s proposed Pittsburg Terminal Project, which would renovate and modernize a long-dormant PG&E tank farm between West 10th Street and the Sacramento River waterfront.

The key change is that the five previously planned 104-car trains of domestic oil, mostly the volatile Bakken crude, are no longer part of the project. The new EIR will reflect that.

Councilman Sal Evola stressed that the vote reflected the council’s desire for “the process” to play out and fully vet the proposal.

“Every project at least deserves its fair process,” Evola said. “I’m all for preserving our industrial base, but we have to do it safely, and fair process is needed.”

Others were less interested in process, saying the WesPac proposal to bring an average of 242,000 barrels of crude or partially refined crude oil to be unloaded daily from ships and from pipelines, and stored in 16 tanks on 125 acres, is a problem for various reasons.

Speakers told the council that vapors from the storage tanks, the possibility of spills into the Sacramento Delta and the danger of the tanks exploding — all near hundreds of downtown homes — are potential issues, and that the project should simply be rejected.

“The only way you can mitigate this project is not do it,” said Willie Mims, representing the NAACP and the Black Political Association.

And though some at the meeting Monday night are grateful that WesPac that no longer plans to bring crude oil to the terminal by rail, others told the council that leaving out rail shipments doesn’t come close to salvaging the project. Some 30 people holding up “No WesPac” signs or wearing similar T-shirts crowded the council meeting.

Without the trains, the Pittsburg Terminal Project would now take oil from ships and a pipeline from the Central Valley and store it for later processing by refineries in Martinez, Benicia, Rodeo and Richmond.

Pamela Aranz of Antioch, representing the group Global Community Monitor, was one of several speakers who criticized the WesPac proposal as a dinosaur — old-fashioned, with increasingly outmoded technology. Others said the oil terminal would be at cross purposes with a nicely developing downtown area. Developing wind and/or solar power on that land, Aranz and others said, would make better sense.

Plans for the Pittsburg Terminal Project, first proposed in 2011, had been dormant for the past year, after local groups like Pittsburg Defense Council had protested the prospect of trains carrying volatile Bakken crude oil rolling in to the city. Communities across the United States — including Pittsburg, Richmond and Berkeley — have come out in opposed to crude by rail shipments through their cities after several high-profile derailments, including one in Lac Mégantic, Quebec, in 2013 killed 47 people and destroyed part of that city.

The new environmental report, to be paid for by WesPac, will replace an earlier one that was criticized in 2014 by the state Attorney General’s office because it did not suitably analyze air pollution impacts, address the risks of accidents involving storing and moving oil, consider the project’s climate change impacts, and consider a “reasonable range of alternatives” that could reduce impacts. WesPac officials said they dropped inbound crude oil shipments by rail from their plans for several reasons, including public sentiment against it, an unstable regulatory environment surrounding those shipments, and drops in crude oil prices that have made such shipments less economically viable.

If the needed approvals come at a typical pace, renovation work at the old PG&E tanks could begin in early 2016, and likely would take between 18 and 24 months.

Representatives from several area labor union locals supported moving ahead with the environmental study. Some said Monday night they wanted the jobs, both to rebuild the terminal and to operate it. Others said they favored the environmental process determining whether the terminal would be a safe place for union workers to be.

That, Evola said, is one benefit of continuing the process. “We want to be overly transparent,” he said.

That is fine with Lisa Graham and other members of Pittsburg Defense Council.

“We’ll be shining a bright spotlight on the project in the coming months,” she said.