[Editor: Liability is a huge – and lingering – issue when it comes to oil train derailments and catastrophic firey explosions. There have been daily updates this past week on an announced settlement in the massive Lac-Mégantic disaster of July, 2013. We watch and wait for potentially precedent-setting decisions. See below. – RS]
(Reuters) — A Quebec judge reserved his decision on Wednesday on whether to grant a motion that would clear the way for a settlement between victims of the 2013 Lac-Megantic oil train disaster and dozens of companies and individuals linked to the crash that killed 47 people. Read More >
In this July 6, 2013 file photo, smoke rises from railway cars carrying crude oil after derailing in downtown Lac Megantic, Que. Paul Chiasson / THE CANADIAN PRESS
(Calgary Herald) — SHERBROOKE, Que. – Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.’s lawyers asked a Quebec judge not to approve a proposed $430-million settlement fund for victims of the Lac-Megantic train derailment because they say its terms are unfair to the company. Read More >
(Globalnews.ca) – WATCH: A settlement to compensate victims of the Lac-Megantic train disaster may be in danger. Lawyers for Canadian Pacific are questioning the legitimacy of the entire process, just two days before a judge was set to approve the deal. As Mike Armstrong explains, the last minute hiccup could mean a delay of months or even years. Read More >
(Montreal Gazette) – A lawyer for the defunct railroad at the centre of the Lac-Mégantic train derailment said Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. is acting deplorably and offensively by attempting to shut down proceedings to distribute more than $430 million to victims and creditors of the 2013 tragedy. Read More >
Repost from the Sarnia Observer [Editor: reading highlighted text for references to the Mayors’ efforts to stop crude oil train derailments, and the importance of local communities banding together on such matters. – RS]
Sarnia convention brings together mayors from Great Lakes region, St. Lawrence River
By Chris O’Gorman, June 18, 2015 8:11:34 EDT AM
Deputy mayor of Quebec City, Michelle Morin-Doyle, speaks about the need for oil transportation regulations at the kick off to a three day conference in Sarnia. The conference will produce a list of resolutions backed by 110 mayors and municipal leaders asking governments and industries to curb harmful environmental practices. (CHRIS O’GORMAN, Sarnia Observer)
The mayors of cities and towns dotting the coast of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence are in Sarnia for a three-day environmental conference where they announced “aggressive targets” for reducing phosphorus in Lake Erie.
A Lake Erie algae bloom last summer made city water unsafe for residents of Toledo, Ohio to unable to use city water for several days.
The event served as a “wake-up call” for all municipalities on the lake to pressure governments and industries to reduce phosphorus run-off, David Ullrich, the executive director of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, said Wednesday
“In the minds of the mayors, this was really a game changer for us. We couldn’t be complacent anymore about algae blooms,” he said.
Phosphorus is a naturally occurring element is the byproduct of some industries and is found in fertilizers. When it makes it way from farm fields into bodies of water, it feeds toxic algae, sometimes creating blooms.
The city representatives from eight states and two provinces are hoping to introduce a harmonized system for dealing with algae blooms, similar to the one Toledo adopted after the toxic water disaster. They’re calling for a 40% reduction in phosphorus by 2025 in Lake Erie.
There are a number of items on the conference agenda on Thursday, including making oil transportation safer through the Great Lakes region , eliminating micro beads from consumer products, and discussing the future of energy generation and distribution.
“Our collective voice has never been more important. We’re facing a number of challenging issues that we will be discussing at our conference,” said Mitch Twolan, the mayor of Huron-Kinloss.
While it may seem as if initiatives like these involve a lot of policy documents and occasional finger pointing—one mayor said “we do send a lot of letters,” receiving a few chuckles—the collective of mayors has achieved much in just the last year.
At the last conference, the group decided to take action against “micro beads,” small plastic beads found in body washes, toothpastes, and other products. The beads accumulate in waterways and the bodies of animals.
Today, the city initiative has successfully lobbied six companies to stop using the beads in their products. Most recently, Loblaws said it would be phasing out micro bead products from its stores.
The Lac Mégantic disaster will also be a major agenda item. In July 2013, a train carrying crude oil derailed near the rural Quebec town of Lac Méganic and exploded killing 47 people. Deputy mayor of Quebec City, Michelle Morin-Doyle said the group is committed to improving oil transportation safety through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence regions. While the initiatives work may be slow sometimes and alone a city may be able to move faster, working with a larger collective means changes are permanent and far-reaching.
“Because what it all comes down to is we want to make sure our citizens are safe,” she said. “The objective must be zero derailments. We cannot afford another accident like the one in Lac Mégantic.”
From Wisconsin, mayor John Dickert of Racine said the environmental group prefers to speak with, encourage, and sometimes demand industries that create these contaminants stop, rather than dealing with aftermaths like Lac Mégantic.
“The reason these are not small issues is… because businesses deal with these disasters on the day it happens. If their train derails, they’ve lost a financial commodity. Our people have lost their lives,” he said.
“We are going to be very aggressive on these issues so that we don’t have to deal with it after the fact or deal with a parent who’s saying they just lost a loved one.”
A railcar tumbled from an overpass onto a Houston street Thursday, the latest in a rising number of derailments in Harris County, which is home to a network of rail corridors carrying an increasing volume of freight, including millions of gallons of hazardous cargo.
The two cars that plunged from a bridge spanning Old Katy Road near Washington Avenue around 8:30 a.m – one of which landed on the street – were carrying soybeans and plastic pellets and caused no injuries.
But between 2 million and 6 million gallons of crude oil and other hazardous chemicals travel through the county by rail each week, some of it on the same line, according to the Department of Public Safety.
And, although rail shipments of crude have declined along with the price recently, the practice still is drawing intense scrutiny after devastating derailments elsewhere and because, in Texas, crude rides the rails with little oversight.
Officials of Kansas City Southern Railway Company, which operated the 84-car train, said the train involved in Thursday’s derailment was en route from Beaumont to Kendleton with two crew members aboard when the cars derailed.
Company spokesman C. Doniele Carlson said nine to 11 cars jumped the tracks. The other derailed cars included automobile haulers as well as boxcars loaded with freight.
Traffic on Old Katy Road was detoured while authorities investigated the accident and brought in crews and equipment to lift the railcars back onto the tracks. Trains also had to avoid the area, forcing more freight to move along the eastern and western ends of Houston on other rail lines.
Although news images showing two locomotives led some to believe two trains had collided, only one was involved in the incident, said Jeff DeGraff, a spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad, which owns the tracks. No other trains were in the vicinity.
Investigators are trying to determine what led to the accident, DeGraff said.
Along with rail traffic – which has increased since 2009 but lately dipped because of a slowdown in oil exploration – collisions and derailments are increasing. Through March 31, the latest information available, railroads reported six collisions and six derailments in Harris County, according to Federal Railroad Administration data. In the first three months of 2014, only two collisions and two derailments were reported.
Many factors can lead to rail accidents, and federal data includes some incidents that would have virtually no effect outside day-to-day railroad operations, such as minor derailments in sorting yards where railcars are transferred.
According to federal reports, of the 26 rail incidents that did not involve a highway crossing in Harris County last year, 14 were caused by equipment factors such as flaws in the tracks, signal malfunctions and faulty railcar and locomotive parts. A dozen were caused by human error.
Prior maintenance and inspection of the 1,500-foot area of track where officials believe the derailment occurred did not indicate any flaws, DeGraff said. Tracks ties – the beams on which the track lies – were replaced two years ago.
Trains are expected to carry a growing amount of cargo to and from the Houston area. Based on a 2013 report by the Houston-Galveston Area Council, tonnage of rail shipments is predicted to climb from the 2007 level of 152 million tons to 218 million tons by 2035.
Much of that growth, slowed by the economic downturn from 2008 to 2011, has resumed. More frequent and longer trains are an increasingly common sight at some crossings.
Despite the increase, researchers and local officials said they were not concerned that more trains would lead to disastrous results. Railroads are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in projects meant to move the freight and improve track conditions.
“UP is making lots of money right now, and they are investing money in their track,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, chairman of the Texas Freight Advisory Committee.
Last month, Union Pacific said it had projects totaling $383 million planned to start in 2015 in Texas alone. Among them is replacement of 178,000 railroad ties in Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery and Walker counties and new rail on three routes, including from Loop 610 and Hardy Street to near the University of Houston campus.
BNSF, based in Fort Worth, plans $223 million worth of upgrades across Texas this year.
The investment is good business, said Allan Rutter, a division head of the Texas A&M University Transportation Institute’s freight mobility program.
“Track that isn’t carrying railcars isn’t very good,” Rutter said.
Unlike highways and public transit, which many argue are strained to handle the growth in population, jobs and goods movement, railroad tracks are owned and operated by private companies.
“They are not dependent on waiting for someone to give them money,” Rutter said, referring to the political process at the federal, state and local levels that must precede highway and transit expansion.
Oil companies pay into compensation fund for Quebec train crash
By Timothy Cama – 06/11/15 08:35 AM EDT
This July 16, 2013, file photo shows firefighters and workers at the crash site of a train derailment that killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. A watchdog from the Justice Department is looking for transparency on dollar amounts that oil companies are paying into a fund for victims of the crash. —Ryan Remiorz/Associated Press
Oil companies have contributed tens of millions of dollars toward a fund to compensate victims of a major 2013 oil train disaster in Quebec, Canada, that killed 47.
Companies like Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Marathon Oil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co. and Irving Oil Ltd. have paid into the $345 million fund, though they deny responsibility for the events on the train transporting their products, The Wall Street Journalreports.
If courts in the United States and Canada approve the oil companies’ role in the fund, the companies will be shielded from liability for any negligence they had involving the disaster in Lac-Megantic, including for failing to test the oil’s vulnerability.
The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., which ran the train that derailed and exploded, filed for bankruptcy shortly after the incident.
But its court-appointed trustee said the oil companies knew that the oil was volatile and dangerous.
The oil companies have responded that their responsibility ended when they extracted the oil.
Most of the companies that contributed to the fund declined to comment to The Wall Street Journal. Marathon Oil told the newspaper that its contribution is not an acknowledgment of liability.
The Quebec disaster led officials in both Canada and the United States to pay new attention to the use of oil trains, which has increased dramatically in recent years along with oil production in places like the Bakken shale region.
It has resulted in rules in both countries that will ban the use of the oldest tank cars for oil in the coming years, as well as speed restrictions and other operational regulations.
Some Democratic lawmakers, led by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), have pushed for regulations limiting oil volatility in rail transport.
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