Tag Archives: DOT-111

Bakken Crude, California Regulation, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal pre-emption, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Local Regulation, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Positive Train Control, Rail routing, Rail Safety, Tank car design, Train braking systems, Train speed, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Western Cities Magazine: A Growing Risk – Oil Trains Raise Safety and Environmental Concerns

March 17, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from Western City Magazine

A Growing Risk: Oil Trains Raise Safety and Environmental Concerns

By Cory Golden, in the February 2015 issue of Western City

More and more often, trains snake down through California from its northern borders, with locomotives leading long lines of tank cars brimming with volatile crude oil.

Rail remains among the safest modes of transport, but the growing volume of crude being hauled to California refineries — coupled with televised images of fiery oil train accidents elsewhere — have ratcheted up the safety and environmental concerns of city officials and the residents they serve.

Local and state lawmakers have found that their hands are largely tied by federal laws and court rulings pre-empting new state and local regulation of rail traffic.

Growing Volume and an Increasing Number of Accidents

Until recently, California’s refineries were served almost entirely through ports. An oil boom in North Dakota and Canada from the Bakken shale formation and a lack of pipeline infrastructure have led to a dramatic increase in oil-by-rail shipments nationwide.

Oil imports to California by rail shot up 506 percent to 6.3 million barrels in 2013 (one barrel equals 42 gallons). That number will climb to 150 million barrels by 2016, according to the California Energy Commission.

The surge represents an “unanticipated, unacceptable risk posed to California,” said Paul King, deputy director for the California Public Utilities Commission’s Office of Oil Rail Safety, during a Senate hearing last year.

As the volume of oil being transported by rail has swelled, derailments in the United States and Canada have also increased. Despite $5 billion in industry spending on infrastructure and safety measures — with half of that for maintenance — railroads spilled more crude in the United States during 2013 than in the previous four decades combined, according to an analysis of federal data by McClatchy DC News.

Railroads continue to boast a better than 99 percent safety record, and most spills have been small, but with each tank car holding more than 25,000 gallons of oil, the exceptions — including eight mishaps in 2013 and early 2014 — have been dramatic and devastating, none more so than an accident in July 2013. That’s when 63 cars from a runaway train exploded, leveling much of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, and killing 47 people.

So far, California has been spared a major crude oil accident, but the number of spills here is climbing: from 98 in 2010 to 182 in 2013, according to the California Office of Emergency Services (OES).

Trains carrying Bakken crude travel south through Northern California, turning from the western slope of the Sierra Nevada and rumbling through the hearts of cities large and small. The trains pass within blocks of the state Capitol, hospitals and schools and through sensitive ecological areas such as the Feather River Canyon and Suisun Marsh.

Lethal Accidents Spur a Push for Increased Safety Measures

The Lac-Mégantic accident and others that have followed have led to a push for change at the federal level. Two agencies of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the Federal Railroad Administration and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, shoulder responsibility for writing and enforcing railroad safety regulations.

In early 2014, the DOT and railroad industry announced a series of voluntary steps to increase safety. The DOT released a comprehensive rule-making proposal in July 2014, calling for structurally stronger tank cars, new operating requirements, speed restrictions, enhanced braking controls and route risk assessments, and a classification and testing program for mined gases and liquids.

The DOT proposal calls for phasing out within two years older model tank cars, called DOT-111s, long known to be vulnerable to rupturing in a crash. The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates accidents, first urged replacing or retrofitting them in 1991.

In September 2014, the American Petroleum Institute and Association of American Railroads jointly asked the DOT for more time — up to seven years to retrofit tank cars.

Another safety measure, called positive train control (PTC), makes use of global positioning systems. It is intended to prevent collisions, derailments due to high speeds and other movements that could cause accidents, like a train using track where maintenance is under way. PTC can alert train crews to danger and even stop a train remotely.

Following a 2008 Metrolink crash in Los Angeles that killed 25 people — caused when an engineer missed a stop signal and collided with a Union Pacific freight train — Congress mandated PTC implementation on 60,000 miles of track nationwide. Large railroads have spent $4.5 billion to implement the technology, but the industry says it cannot meet its 2015 deadline.

Among the members of California’s congressional delegation demanding stricter regulations are Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who have called for more information to be released to first responders on train movements.

Sen. Feinstein also wrote a letter that urged the DOT to include pneumatic brakes, which can greatly reduce stopping distances, in its planned review of tank car design, and to extend the PTC requirement to any route used by trains carrying flammable liquids near population centers or sensitive habitat.

Meanwhile, Industry Continues to Grow

The growth in domestic crude oil is reflected in projects that include seven proposed, completed or under-construction expansions that together would have a maximum oil-by-rail capacity of 561,000 barrels per day at Bakersfield, Benicia, Pittsburg, Santa Maria, Stockton and Desert Hot Springs (see “Increasing Refinery Capacity” below).

As of December 2014, the Kinder Morgan Inc. facility in Richmond was the only refinery that could receive unit trains, which are trains with 100 or more tank cars carrying a single commodity and bound for the same destination.

InterState Oil Co. had its permit to offload crude at McClellan Park, in Sacramento County, revoked in November 2014 by the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District. The district said it had issued the permit in error and that it required a full review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Refineries in Bakersfield, Vernon, Carson and Long Beach were receiving crude deliveries from manifest trains, which carry a mix of cargo.

Safety Efforts Focus on Planning, Preparedness and Response

The Federal Rail Safety Act of 1970 authorized the U.S. secretary of transportation to create uniform national safety regulations. States are allowed to adopt additional, compatible rules if they do not hinder interstate commerce and address a local safety hazard. Courts have consistently ruled against almost all attempts by states to use the local safety hazard exception, however.

Thus, unable to regulate train movements, California lawmakers and agencies have pursued three main courses of action: planning, preparedness and response.

In the Golden State, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) shares authority with the federal government to enforce federal safety requirements, and OES and local agencies lead emergency response. In 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown expanded the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response to include inland areas.

The Legislature approved a Senate Joint Resolution, SJR 27 (Padilla), urging the DOT to safeguard communities and habitat, strengthen the tank car fleet, mandate the earlier voluntary safety agreement with railroads and prioritize safety over cost effectiveness.

Recent legislation includes AB 380 (Dickinson, Chapter 533, Statutes of 2014), which calls for increased spill-response planning for state and local agencies and requires carriers to submit commodity flow data to OES, and SB 1064 (Hill, Chapter 557, Statutes of 2014), which seeks to improve accountability and transparency regarding CPUC’s responses to federal safety recommendations.

The FY 2014–15 state budget also allocated $10 million to the CPUC, which planned to add seven more track inspectors, and authorized the state oil spill prevention fund to be used for spills in inland areas. In addition, the budget expanded the 6.5 cent per-barrel fee to include all crude oil entering the state.

The 10 state agencies that have some hand in rail safety and accident response have formed the Interagency Rail Safety Working Group. It issued a report last June that called for, among other things, older tank cars to be removed from service, stronger cars, improved braking, PTC and better markings on cars so that firefighters know how to proceed in an accident.

Speaking to Richmond residents in December 2014, Gordon Schremp, senior fuels specialist for the California Energy Commission, welcomed the moves to increase safety at the federal level. All indications were that railroads were complying with new measures like lower speed limits, he said.

“Does it mean there will be zero derailments? No, but the goal is to get there,” said Schremp.

Local government officials face a daunting challenge when it comes to disaster response.

The Interagency Rail Safety Working Group also found that, as of June 2014, there were no hazardous materials response teams in rural areas of Northern California and units in other areas of the state lacked the training and equipment needed to take a lead role. Forty percent of the state’s firefighters are volunteers.

“Training is of the utmost importance,” said Deputy Chief Thomas Campbell, who oversees the Cal OES Hazardous Materials Programs. “We understand that local governments are limited in finances and that it’s difficult to get firefighters out of rural communities to train because they are volunteers.”

Some Local Communities Oppose Expansion

At the local level the proposed expansion of California refineries sometimes has run into heated opposition.

After news reports revealed that Bakken crude was being transported into the City of Richmond, City Manager Bill Lindsay wrote a letter to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in November 2014 calling for it to revoke energy company Kinder Morgan’s permit to offload the crude there. That followed a lawsuit filed by environmental groups to revoke the permit — a suit tossed out by the judge because it was filed too late.

Elsewhere, a proposal by Valero Energy Corp. would bring 1.4 million gallons of crude daily to its Benicia refinery. The proposal has been met with letters questioning the city’s environmental and safety analysis from senders that have included the CPUC, Office of Spill Prevention and Response, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority and cities along the rail line, including Davis and Sacramento. The Union Pacific Railroad has responded by stressing federal pre-emption of rail traffic.

Even as those proposals played out, a pair of derailments in Northern California underscored the importance of the debate. While neither spill involved crude oil or hazardous materials, both served as a warning of the need for California to improve its emergency response capability. Eleven cars carrying freight derailed and spilled into the Feather River Canyon near Belden on Nov. 25, 2014. Three days later, one car tumbled off the tracks near Richmond. The cars were loaded with corn in the first instance and refrigerated pork in the second.

What’s Ahead

The League continues to closely monitor developments in oil by rail. In September 2014 the League made recommendations to the DOT on the federal rule-making governing rail safety. The recommendations included providing more information and training to first responders, mandating speed limits and stronger tank cars, and using all available data to assess the risks and consequences of crude oil transport. Two months later, the National League of Cities passed a resolution stressing many of the same safety measures.

League of California Cities staff conducted a series of webinars during fall 2014 to better acquaint members with the oil-by-rail issue, and its Public Safety and Transportation policy committees took up the subject in January 2015 meetings.

Increasing Refinery Capacity

The California Energy Commission is tracking the following projects, which would dramatically increase the oil-by-rail capacity of refineries:

Plains All American Pipeline LP in Bakersfield, which took its first delivery in November 2014, has a capacity of 65,000 barrels per day (bpd);
Alon USA Energy Inc. in Bakersfield, under construction, will be able to receive 150,000 bpd;
Valero Energy Corp. in Benicia, which is presently undergoing permit review, would have a 70,000 bpd capacity;
WesPac Energy-Pittsburg LLC in Pittsburg, undergoing permit review, could receive up 50,000 bpd by rail and 192,000 bpd through its marine terminal; and
Phillips 66 in Santa Maria, undergoing permit review, could accept 41,000 bpd.

In addition, Targa Resources Corp. at the Port of Stockton is planning an expansion that would enable it to receive 65,000 bpd. And Questar Gas Corp. is planning a project that could see it offload 120,000 bpd near Desert Hot Springs, then send it through a repurposed 96-mile pipeline to Los Angeles.

Photo credits: Ksb/Shutterstock.com; Steven Frame/Shutterstock.com.

This article appears in the February 2015 issue of Western City

Bakken Crude, Canadian regulation, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Fire, Rail infrastructure, Tank car design, Tar sands crude, Track maintenance, Train speed

Canada’s Transportation Safety Board points to track issues in derailments

March 17, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from insideHALTON.com

TSB points to track issues in derailments

By Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press, March 17, 2015

Canada’s transportation investigator says track infrastructure failures may have played a role in three recent derailments involving oil-laden trains in northern Ontario.

The Transportation Safety Board says it wants Transport Canada to review the risk assessments for a stretch of track known as the CN Ruel subdivision following the fiery derailments in Gogama and Minnipuka.

It says trains have already been ordered to travel slowly on the Class 4 welded rail track due to “various infrastructure and track maintenance issues,” but that heavily loaded tank cars often exert “higher than usual forces” on the track.

The board says that exposes weaknesses in the track and makes it more susceptible to failure.

The agency says its preliminary observations on the March 7 Gogama derailment also found the tank cars performed similarly to those involved in the deadly derailment in Lac-Megantic, Que., despite meeting upgraded safety standards for Class 111 tank cars.

Similar observations were made about a Feb. 14 derailment near the same community, which is about 80 kilometres south of Timmins.

The derailments have fuelled the debate over transporting oil by rail and prompted the transportation ministers of Ontario and Quebec to express concern to their federal counterpart.

Last week, Ottawa proposed tough new standards for rail tank cars used to transport crude oil that would phase out the much-criticized Class 111 tank cars by 2025.

The proposal would require the new tank cars to have outer “jackets,” a layer of thermal protection, and thicker steel walls.

The Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday the proposed standards “look promising,” but must be implemented more quickly than suggested “given initial observations of the performance” of the upgraded Class 111 in recent derailments.

“If older tank cars, including the (upgraded cars), are not phased out sooner, then the regulator and industry need to take more steps to reduce the risk of derailments or consequences following a derailment carrying flammable liquids,” it said.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Oil Industry, Rail industry

Refiners’ Association sues railroad over fee on oil loaded in older tank cars

March 16, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from McClatchy DC
[Editor: Incredible: The complaint says, “Despite BNSF’s distaste for the DOT-111 cars, (emphasis added) they are authorized bulk packaging for crude oil service.” “Distaste?” Really! Oh, and … the BNSF surcharge would suggest that $1000/car will help exactly whom if/when the next explosion occurs? Surely not those whose bodies and livelihoods are incinerated. See this story also at Bloomberg Business News and Courthouse News Service. – RS]

Refiners sue BNSF over fee on oil loaded in older tank cars

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, March 16, 2015

A trade group representing oil refiners has sued the nation’s largest hauler of crude oil in trains over a surcharge for oil loaded into older tank cars that have punctured and ruptured in numerous derailments.

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a trade association for producers of gasoline, jet fuel, home heating oil and other refined products, sought an injunction last week in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Texas to block BNSF Railway from imposing a $1,000 surcharge for every DOT-111 model tank car loaded with crude oil.

Tens of thousands of DOT-111 cars have carried a surge in domestic energy production, but their poor safety record in oil and ethanol train derailments has drawn fresh scrutiny from regulators, lawmakers and the National Transportation Safety Board.

BNSF hauls 600,000 barrels a day of crude oil, mostly from North Dakota’s Bakken region, to refineries on the east and west coasts. In October, the railroad announced it would impose a $1,000 surcharge on oil shipped in DOT-111 tank cars, effective Jan. 1.

But the trade group, which represents more than 400 companies, said in its complaint that BNSF asserted “unlawful regulatory authority” when it began imposing the surcharge.

The U.S. Department of Transportation regulates rail transportation, and until regulations require tank cars of a different design for oil shipments, the group’s complaint says that BNSF and other railroads are obligated by law to accept them in whatever cars the government currently allows.

“Despite BNSF’s distaste for the DOT-111 cars,” the complaint says, “they are authorized bulk packaging for crude oil service.”

One DOT-111 tank car holds about 30,000 gallons, or 700 barrels of oil. The complaint says the $1,000 surcharge adds $1.50 per barrel in rail transportation costs.

The trade group’s complaint says that BNSF’s surcharge causes “direct and substantial harm” to its clients and “breaches BNSF’s common carrier duty to ship hazardous materials.” By law, railroads must provide rail transportation on reasonable request.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration submitted a new design for tank cars to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review in January.

Four crude oil trains have derailed and caught fire across North America since mid-February. One of them was a BNSF train that derailed earlier this month near Galena, Ill.

In all four derailments, the tank cars were a modestly improved version of the DOT-111.

Bakken Crude, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Oil spill, Tank car retrofit

McClatchy investigative reports result in enforcement actions

March 14, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from McClatchy DC and The Bellingham Herald
[Editor: McClatchy News investigative reports have alerted Washington State and federal officials, and resulted in fines and enforcement actions. For background, see Washington state officials unaware at first of November oil spill (1/26); Officials say oil train leaked as it crossed Washington state (2/6); and Oil-loading facility sanctioned in Washington rail car spill (3/12). Don’t miss the excellent video near the end of this story. – RS]

More oil-train fixes: Feds order defective valves replaced on leaking cars

By Samantha Wohlfeil and Curtis Tate, March 13, 2015

APTOPIX Train Derailment — Derailed oil tanker train cars burn near Mount Carbon, W.Va., Monday, Feb. 16, 2015. A CSX train carrying more than 100 tankers of crude oil derailed in a snowstorm, sending a fireball into the sky and threatening the water supply of nearby residents, authorities and residents said Tuesday. MARCUS CONSTANTINO — AP

WASHINGTON — The Federal Railroad Administration on Friday ordered rail tank car owners to replace defective valves never approved for installation on thousands of tank cars, causing oil to spill from moving trains.

The directive applies to a 3-inch valve installed on roughly 6,000 tank cars, and their owners have 60 days to replace them. Within 90 days, tank car owners must also replace 37,000 1-inch and 2-inch valves manufactured by the same company. While the smaller valves were not found to be defective like the larger ones, they were not approved for the tank cars.

The affected cars can be used in the interim, but none can be loaded with hazardous materials if they are still equipped with those valves after the deadlines.

The enforcement action comes after a story last month in McClatchy’s Bellingham Herald about 14 tank cars that were discovered leaking en route from North Dakota’s Bakken region to the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes, Wash.

Friday’s enforcement action is the second to follow an investigation launched after McClatchy reported on leaking cars in Washington.

On Thursday, the agency said it had sanctioned the operator of a North Dakota loading facility for not properly closing a valve on another oil car after McClatchy reported in January that the car arrived at the BP Cherry Point refinery in northwest Washington state with 1,600 gallons missing.

That spill was discovered in early November but wasn’t reported to state officials until early December. Local emergency officials were never notified, according to a report sent by BNSF Railway to the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Washington state Utilities and Transportation Commission.

The 1-inch, 2-inch and 3-inch valves were all manufactured and sold by McKenzie Valve and Machining, a company in Tennessee. The Bellingham Herald could not immediately reach anyone at McKenzie, but left messages with the company Friday.

The Federal Railroad Administration also announced Friday that it was launching a full audit of the approval process for tank car components to determine why the unapproved valves were installed.

Under federal regulations, tank car valve designs must be approved by the Association of American Railroads Tank Car Committee.

The Federal Railroad Administration said it would begin working immediately with the association, which is the rail industry’s principal trade group in the nation’s capital.

Sarah Feinberg, the FRA’s acting chief, said Friday that removal of the valves will help reduce the number of non-derailment releases of hazardous materials.

“Any type of hazardous materials release, no matter how small, is completely unacceptable,” she said in a statement.

Ed Greenberg, a spokesman for the railroad association, said Friday that it supported the order. Railroads don’t own most of the tank cars used to transport oil.

“Officials from our association will be working closely with the administration in reviewing the tank car valve approval process to ensure the agency is fully satisfied with the current approval requirements that are in place,” he said in a statement.

The Federal Railroad Administration’s order came about a month after crews discovered tank cars leaking oil from their top fittings on a handful of trains hauling different types of crude oil through Washington state.

In mid-January, a train loaded with Bakken crude needed to have more than a dozen leaking cars removed at three separate stops as it traveled through Idaho and crossed Washington state.

The train was headed from Tioga, N.D., to the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes.

In a report to the U.S. Department of Transportation, BNSF reported a total of 26 gallons of oil leaking from 14 cars. Tesoro reported two more leaking cars. The oil was found only on the tops and sides of tank cars, and no oil was found on the ground.

Crews had first noticed oil on the side of a tank car while the train was in northern Idaho, and after checking the rest of the train, removed that car, which had leaked about two gallons, according to BNSF spokeswoman Courtney Wallace.

After the train had crossed through the state, following the Columbia River to Vancouver, Wash., crews found that crude oil had leaked onto the top of seven more cars, which were removed from the train on Jan. 12. BNSF reported the incident to the state Department of Ecology on Jan. 23.

BNSF also reported that about 10 gallons total had leaked from six more cars removed in Auburn on Jan. 13.

Wallace said the railroad would work with customers and shippers to take the required actions.

“Although BNSF does not own the tank cars, nothing is more important to us than safely operating through the communities that we serve,” she said in a statement.

The state Utilities and Transportation Commission and the FRA investigated the cars that were pulled from the train in Vancouver, which led to the discovery that closure plugs on the valves caused damage to the valve’s seal, and when tightened, would press down on and damage the ball.

The cars involved were CPC-1232 model cars built after 2011, which some oil companies have started using after several fiery derailments caused concerns about older DOT-111 rail cars, which have been found more likely to puncture or burst.

However, newer CPC-1232-standard cars that lack features that reduce damage from punctures and fire exposure have performed no better in four recent oil train derailments in West Virginia, Illinois and Ontario.

The White House Office of Management and budget is reviewing a new tank car standard proposed by the Department of Transportation. It is scheduled for publication on May 12.

Wohlfeil, of The Bellingham Herald, reported from Washington state. Tate reported from Washington, D.C.

The Benicia Independent ~ Eyes on the Environment / Benicia news & views