Tag Archives: DOT-111

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Lac-Mégantic, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail accidents

BOOM: North America’s Explosive Oil-By-Rail Problem (Weather Channel video)

Repost from Weather Films
[Editor: Perhaps the best short video presentation I’ve seen on the dangers of crude by rail.  Excellent for groups and public forums.  Caution: graphic scenes of anguish and destruction.  See also the lengthier original text-based report, notable for its expose on bridge safety.  – RS]

Boom: North America’s Explosive Oil-By-Rail Problem

Weather Films, 12/7/14

On July 6, 2013, a train hauling two million gallons of crude oil exploded in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people. It took two days to put out the fire and devastated the small community.

That catastrophe had its origin in America. For five years, a boom in oil production has been taking place in the Bakkan Shale region of North Dakota. Oil from the Bakkan is transported across the U.S. and Canada by rail to refineries on the coasts – it was one of these trains that derailed in Lac-Megantic.

The sharp increase in domestic oil production has created jobs, decreased economic vulnerability to turmoil in the Middle East, and lowered prices of gasoline and home heating oil.

But there’s another side to this story.

In “Boom,” a joint investigation by The Weather Channel and InsideClimate News, we explore how the boom in oil has resulted in highly volatile crude oil being sent over aging, often defective rails in vulnerable railcars.

Rail accidents involving oil trains have been on the rise. But industry and regulators have been slow react. Will it take another Lac-Megantic to make America’s towns and cities safer?

Read the full report here: stories.weather.com/boom

“Boom” was produced by Weather Films, the award-winning documentary unit of weather.com.
Produced by Greg Gilderman
Edited by Brandon Kieffer
Associate Producer: Katie Wiggin
Consulting Producer: Joe Halderman
Director of Photography: Jason Rudge
Executive Producers: Neil Katz, Greg Gilderman, Shawn Efran
Additional Reporting by Andy Blatchford
Additional Editing by Jason Rudge
Special Thanks: Karine Blanchette, Yannick Gagne, Bernard Boulet, Adrien Aubert, Rachel Rawson, Trip Jennings, Samuel Ezerzeer
Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Evacuation, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, Marine transport, Oil stabilization, State regulation, Tank car retirement, Tank car retrofit, Volatile gases

Albany NY Area officials say crude-oil transport is getting safer

Repost from The Press Republican, Plattsburgh, NY
[Editor: the safety improvements showcased here are far from adequate, nevertheless, it’s a good update on conditions in New York.  Sen. Schumer is absolutely right – the DOT-111 tank cars should be taken out of service immediately… and not just in New York.  And Bakken crude should be stabilized before it is transported (not just conditioned) … just as it is in Texas.  – RS]

Area officials say crude-oil transport is getting safer

Lohr McKinstry, December 6, 2014
A DOT-111 oil tank car sits on a siding in the Midwest. New York state is adopting tougher rules on use of the tank cars, which pass through Essex and Clinton counties enroute to Albany,

LEWIS — New state regulations on crude-oil trains should help make them safer, Emergency Services officials from Essex and Clinton counties said recently.

State agencies have implemented 66 actions designed to strengthen standards, regulations and procedures to make the transport of crude oil by rail and water in New York safer and to improve spill preparedness and response.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo received a status report outlining the progress made by multiple state agencies after they were directed to evaluate the state’s capacity to prevent and address crude-oil accidents.

Local leaders have been concerned about the 100-car-plus oil trains moving through Clinton and Essex counties as the crude oil extracted in North Dakota arrives via Canadian Pacific Railway trains.

The oil is on its way to the Port of Albany, where it is stored for transport to various refineries.

IMPROVEMENTS

Essex County Emergency Services Director Donald Jaquish said he sees the new procedures as a safety benefit to the North Country.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” he told the Press-Republican. “We’re in a better position than we were a year ago.”

There’s been concern the trains could derail, and the oil burn or explode, as it has in other regions, and Jaquish praised Canadian Pacific for trying to make the tracks and tank cars safer.

“Upgrading the DOT-111 tank cars, rail replacement and maintenance, and specialized training are all beneficial to safety.

“Canadian Pacific has been helping us with training, hands-on-experience, that first responders need for these situations.”

EVACUATION PRACTICE

The tank cars are not owned by Canadian Pacific but by oil companies and vendors, and as a federal common carrier, the railroad is required to transport them.

Both the railroad and federal regulators have pushed for upgrades to the DOT-111 single-shell cars or a switch to the stronger DOT-109 or 112 cars.

“In almost any situation we get, we will be doing evacuations,” Jaquish said. “We’ve been working with Clinton County on planning and implementation.”

Clinton County Emergency Services Director Eric Day said any improvements to the transport of oil cars are welcome.

“At the end of the day, what they’ve done is good, no question,” Day told the Press-Republican. “Any regulatory move to make the DOT-111 cars safer is a plus. It’s a long time coming.”

One problem is that there are thousands of DOT-111 tank cars still in service, he said.

“There are so many of them (DOT-111 cars) out there on the tracks. They’re not going to stop moving the oil before they fix the cars. The oil is not going to stop coming any time soon.”

STATE GUIDANCE

Day said enhanced state regulations on oil shipments will be helpful.

“If there are changes that are pushed upon them (shippers), it can only make it safer. We’ve seen some of the benefits of the state’s work with regard to planning,” he said.

“We have guidance now on firefighting potential on dealing with these things. There are so many variables. Multiple cars of this crude oil on fire are a different animal.”

He said that, thanks to a donation, they now have the foam needed for such fires. The expensive product costs $30,000 for 1,000 gallons of foam but puts out crude-oil-based fires.

VOLATILE GAS

The North Dakota Industrial Commission has proposed draft regulations to remove the volatile gases from the oil before it is shipped, and Day said that provision is a good one.

“One of the things that makes the Bakken crude so volatile are the gases in the oil. The gas works its way out and is stuck in the head space of the car. If they breech, there’s flammable gas; cars that aren’t breeched and heat up, the gas could expand and be a problem.

“Removing that gas is a possibility before they put in the cars and ship it. If they could do that, it’s a big win.”

FEDERAL ROLE

Cuomo called for the federal government to mandate tank-car upgrades or replacement.

“The federal government plays a vital role in regulating this industry, and Washington must step up in order to expedite the implementation of safer policies and rules for crude-oil transport,” he said in the release.

The governor said the oil-production industry has resisted stronger tank-car standards and regulations requiring companies to reduce the volatility of crude before shipment.

A new report from the Brattle Group for the Railroad Supply Institute, a trade group, showed that a proposed federal rule to upgrade rail-tank cars could cost $60 billion.

According to the report, the high price tag is largely due to the costs associated with potential modifications to tank cars, early retirement of existing tank cars, temporarily using trucks instead of rails for transport and lost service time for tank cars under modification or awaiting modification.

‘TIME BOMBS’

U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) has also come out against use of DOT-111 cars.

“These outmoded DOT-111 tank cars … are ticking time bombs that need to be upgraded ASAP,” the senator said in a news release.

“That is why for two years, since the tragedy at Lac-Megantic, I have pushed federal regulators to phase out and retrofit these cars.

“As a result of our efforts, the federal Department of Transportation has put a proposal on the table that could start taking these cars off the tracks within two years, as well as restrict the speeds at which these trains operate.”

On July 6, 2013, a 74-tank-car train carrying Bakken light crude derailed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, and the tank cars exploded, killing 47 people, destroying 30 buildings and spilling 1.5 million gallons of heavy crude oil.

That disaster was followed by oil-train-explosion derailments in Alabama, North Dakota, Illinois and New Brunswick, Canada.

Crude By Rail, Decommissioning, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Tank car retirement, Tank car retrofit, Train speed

Canada Bans Thousands of Old Crude Rail Tank Cars

Repost from Natural Gas Intel’s Shale Daily

Canada Bans Thousands of Old Crude Rail Tank Cars

Richard Nemec, December 5, 2014

While it has a phase-out process running into 2017 for old (DOT-111) rail tank cars that carry crude oil, Canada’s Transport Department (CTD) has accelerated the process by banning nearly 3,000 of the older model cars from carrying “dangerous goods” throughout the nation.

The transportation agency, the equivalent to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), has ruled that 2,879 of the tank cars are not safe enough to continue carrying shipments of oil, chemicals or other explosive materials.

CTD issued a 30-day deadline to rail operators last April to stop using certain types of DOT-111 tank cars that were deemed to be least resistant to crashes, saying the cars needed to be refitted with thicker steel and stronger reinforcement over the next three years or face being decommissioned for crude shipments.

DOT-111 railcars were carrying crude in July 2013 when a train derailed causing an explosion that killed 47 people in the small Quebec town of Lac-Megantic (see Shale Daily, July 9, 2013). It was subsequently determined that more than 5,000 of the rail tank cars without reinforced bottoms were still operating in North America, nearly 3,000 of them in Canada.

Since then, CTD has taken further measures, including

  • Removing the least crash-resistant DOT-111 tank cars from dangerous goods service;
  • Introducing new safety standards for DOT-111 tank cars, and requiring those that do not meet the new standards to be phased out by May 1, 2017;
  • Requiring railway companies to slow trains transporting dangerous goods and introduce other key operating procedures;
  • Requiring emergency response plans for even a single tank car carrying crude oil, gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, and ethanol; and
  • Creating a task force that brings municipalities, first responders, railways, and shippers together to strengthen emergency response capacity across the country.

“The department has moved to enhance inspections, documentation, and follow-up for rail safety and transport of dangerous goods,” the agency said on its website. “This includes more frequent inspections at sites where petroleum products are transferred from one mode of transport to another, for example from truck to rail.”

Early this year, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued a series of recommendations calling for tougher standards for rail shipments of crude oil on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border (see Shale Daily, Jan. 23). NTSB and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada issued the recommendations jointly in recognition that the same companies operate crude rail trains in both nations, frequently crossing the U.S.-Canada border.

NTSB called the joint move unprecedented and said it came in response to growing concerns about “major loss of life, property damage and environmental consequences” from the increasingly large volumes of crude oil being carried by railroads in North America.

DOT’s Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration earlier this year issued new rules dealing with the design of new rail tank cars, maintenance of the rail infrastructure, content of the crude supplies being shipped and notification and training of local emergency response organizations (see Shale Daily, July 24).

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Feather River Canyon, Union Pacific Railroad

Senator calls on Jerry Brown to halt crude oil trains in ‘treacherous’ California mountain passes

Repost from the Sacramento Bee
[Editor: See also KQED News: Call for Suspension of Crude-by-Rail Shipments After Feather River Derailment (including an embedded copy of Senator Hill’s letter).  – RS]

Senator calls on Jerry Brown to halt crude oil trains in ‘treacherous’ California mountain passes

By Tony Bizjak, 12/02/2014
A crude oil train operated by BNSF snakes its way west through James, Ca., just outside of the Feather River Canyon in the foothills into the Sacramento Valley on June 5, 2014.
A crude oil train operated by BNSF snakes its way west through James, Ca., just outside of the Feather River Canyon in the foothills into the Sacramento Valley on June 5, 2014. JAKE MIILLE SPECIAL TO THE BEE

Sen. Jerry Hill on Tuesday called on Gov. Jerry Brown to halt the transport of crude oil on trains and other hazardous materials “through our most treacherous passes.”

The request by Hill, D-San Mateo, comes in reaction to a corn train derailment last week in the Feather River Canyon that sent train cars and corn spilling down an embankment into the river. The cause of the derailment is under investigation.

The Feather River route through Plumas and Butte counties is used by at least one train a week carrying up to 2.9 million gallons of highly flammable Bakken crude oil from North Dakota. More crude oil trains are expected to be coming into the state in the next few years, most of them traversing mountains passes deemed “high-risk” for derailments by the state Public Utilities Commission. State officials have said they do not believe California is ready to deal with the consequences of a major oil spill and fire.

“This incident serves as a warning alarm to the state of California,” Hill wrote in a letter to the governor. “Had Tuesday’s derailment resulted in a spill of oil, the spill could have caused serious contamination” in Lake Oroville, the state’s second largest reservoir, a source of drinking water for millions in the state.

Other “high-risk” derailment sections in Northern California include UP lines outside of Dunsmuir and Colfax.

Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said the state cannot stop interstate commerce, but said the state needs to continue to work with the railroads to assure safer shipments. “These trains are going to come through,” he said. “We need to work together with the industry to put every safety precaution possible in place.”

Several environmental groups filed a petition Tuesday in San Francisco federal court seeking to force the federal government to ban older railroad cars – DOT-111s built before 2011 – from transporting crude oil. The U.S. Department of Transportation last month rejected the groups’ demand. DOT says it’s developing new guidelines that will phase out the older cars.