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Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Lac-Mégantic, Public Safety, Rail routing, Take Action

Lac-Mégantic protest: crude oil trains should bypass our town

Repost from the Montreal Gazette
[Editor:  Another perspective: for a local report that completely ignores the protest in Lac-Mégantic, see In Lac-Mégantic, everyone marks the anniversary in their own way, including a brief news video of church bells and a solemn ceremony.  – RS]

Lac-Mégantic marches against crude oil returning

By Jesse Feith, July 5, 2015 9:09 AM EDT
Anti-oil demonstration in Lac-Megantic
(To play the video, click the image which takes you to the Montreal Gazette page.)

Two years after the deadly derailment in Lac-Mégantic, people are starting to feel comfortable about standing up for what they want, says Jonathan Santerre, an activist and founder of the Carré bleu Lac-Mégantic citizens’ group.

The group organized a walk against crude oil in Lac-Mégantic on Saturday afternoon, where about 150 people walked from the town’s high school down Laval St. toward the old downtown.

At first, residents were afraid to speak out after the train derailment that killed 47 people in July 2013, Santerre said.

Sending loud political messages while many continue to mourn could be seen as insensitive by some, but, Santerre said, “we have no choice.”

“Emotions and politics are tied together in this, unfortunately,” he continued. “It’s shocking that after everything that happened, people’s lives still come second to money.”

Though Saturday’s march was held to denounce crude oil, Santerre knows getting oil shipments through Lac-Mégantic banned isn’t realistic. When Central Maine and Québec Railway Canada bought the line in 2014 after Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway went bankrupt following the derailment, it was clear from the beginning that oil would return come 2016.

The town needs the railroad to survive economically, and CMQ needs to ship oil on it to be profitable.

But the goal that everyone is holding onto now is a new set of tracks that would bypass Lac-Mégantic’s residential sector, even though it could take years to get one.

“What’s important is that the conversation goes on,” Santerre said. “That the debate takes place.”

The town council and a number of vocal residents haven’t seen eye to eye on decisions taken since the disaster, but the one idea both sides agree on is the new railroad. Town officials weren’t on hand for Saturday’s protest, but it had been approved by council.

“With every passing day, residents are more determined to see it done,” said Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche earlier this week about the bypass railway. “As a municipal council, we consider it a must. Not a week goes by that it’s not brought up.”

Until then, she said, “we’re preoccupied with prevention, better security measures, well-maintained infrastructure and limited speeds.”

People dressed all in white for Saturday’s march, to contrast the colour of “dirty oil.”

“Say yes to a bypass railway,” they chanted as they descended toward downtown, “say no to another oil spill.”

Gilles Fluet, 67, said he was walking to make sure what happened never does again, in Lac-Mégantic or anywhere else.

MONTREAL, QUE.: July 04, 2015 -- Gilles Fluet, centre kneeling, stopped with other protesters by the train tracks in Lac-Megantic, 250 kilometres east of Montreal Saturday July 04, 2015 to voice their opposition to the transport of oil by rail through their community. The demonstration took place two days before the anniversary of the 2013 train derailment that levelled the centre of the town and killed 47 residents. (John Mahoney / MONTREAL GAZETTE)
MONTREAL, QUE.: July 04, 2015 — Gilles Fluet, centre kneeling, stopped with other protesters by the train tracks in Lac-Megantic, 250 kilometres east of Montreal Saturday July 04, 2015 to voice their opposition to the transport of oil by rail through their community. The demonstration took place two days before the anniversary of the 2013 train derailment that levelled the centre of the town and killed 47 residents. (John Mahoney / MONTREAL GAZETTE) John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette 

He was at the Musi-Café the night of the derailment, leaving just before the tankers crashed and ignited.

“I couldn’t be closer to it without dying, I had to run to avoid burning,” he said, holding up a sign that said “47 reasons” with a picture of residents lying across the tracks.

The post-traumatic stress symptoms have been present ever since, he said. First he avoided the sunshine because the bright light and heat reminded him of the fire he ran away from that night.

Then when the trains started coming through again in December, the sound they made was too much for him to handle.

“There are a bunch of different things that trigger it,” he said. “You don’t know when it’s going to hit you, and you don’t understand when it does.”

He fears oil returning could worsen his symptoms, or trigger some for other residents.

Nathalie Beaudet drove down from Varennes, on the south shore, to participate in the demonstration. She lost a close friend in the derailment, and recently, oil tankers have started rolling on the tracks behind her house.

“It’s scary, it terrorizes us,” she said. “I want Lac-Mégantic to get its new tracks because I know what it will do to residents once the oil starts again. They’ve been through enough, this shouldn’t be imposed on them.”

After marching through the town’s side streets, the group made its way to the railway longing the fence that cuts off the old downtown core, now a mountain of soil as decontamination work continues.

Demonstrators lined up elbow-to-elbow on the tracks, and together, symbolically crossed their arms.

Cleanup funding, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, Rail inspection, Rail routing, Spill, Train length

Senator: Using bad tank cars? Then pay a fee

Repost from The Columbus Dispatch

Using bad tank cars? Then pay a fee, Brown proposes

By Rick Rouan, June 30, 2015 11:36 PM

Sen. Sherrod Brown wants shippers using tank cars that have been linked to fiery train derailments to pay fees that would be used to reroute train tracks, train first responders and clean up spills.

Brown has proposed fees that start at $175 per car for those using the DOT-11 [sic], a tank car that federal regulators have warned hazardous-material shippers against using.

The fees would pay to clean up hazardous-material spills, to move tracks that handle large volumes of hazardous material and to hire more railroad inspectors. Brown’s bill earmarks about $45 million over three years to train first responders near rail lines that carry large quantities of hazardous material.

Earlier this year, federal regulators tightened rules on newly manufactured tank cars but did not require shippers to immediately remove the old cars.

“(The rule) probably didn’t go far enough,” Brown said on Tuesday at the site of a 2012 derailment and explosion near the state fairgrounds. “If it’s a threat to public safety, they probably need to be off the rails.”

The federal rule will phase out or require retrofitting of thousands of the oldest tank cars that carry crude oil by 2018. Another wave of the oil-carrying tankers would have to change by 2020.

Some of the tank cars that aren’t carrying crude oil would not be replaced or retrofitted until 2025.

Brown’s proposal calls for a tax credit for companies that upgrade their tank cars to the new federal standard in the next three years.

Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers trade association, said his organization would oppose the fee structure Brown proposed.

“We think the federal focus should be on the rail carriers and their efforts to improve track integrity,” he said. “We want to see legislation that beefs up track integrity to keep the trains on the track.”

A spokesman for the American Association of Railroads declined to comment on Brown’s proposal. The organization is appealing the new federal standard, arguing that it doesn’t do enough to require shippers to stop using the DOT-111 tank cars and should require more heat protection on the cars, spokesman Ed Greenberg said.

The cars have been involved in several fiery derailments while carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota to East Coast refineries. In July 2013, a runaway train killed 47 people and destroyed the business district in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.

And in February, a train carrying volatile Bakken crude derailed in Mount Carbon, W.Va., after it likely traveled through Columbus. The train was run by CSX, which has three tracks that carry crude oil converging in Columbus before they head toward West Virginia.

On July 11, 2012, a Norfolk Southern train slipped the rails just north of Downtown. One of the cars punctured, spilling ethanol and causing an explosion and fire. Two people were injured and about 100 people were evacuated.

The National Transportation Safety Board said a broken track caused the derailment.

“Unfortunately, that was not an isolated incident,” Brown said.

A recent analysis for Franklin County Emergency Management and Homeland Security found that crude oil represents the largest share of hazardous material transported by rail through the region, Director Mike Pannell said.

Earlier this year, the state released reports showing that 45 million to 137 million gallons of Bakken crude travel through the state each week.

Local first responders have procedures in place to handle derailments but not specific plans for every piece of track, including lines that run through residential areas, said Karry Ellis, an assistant chief in the Columbus Fire Division.

Brown’s proposal calls for the U.S. Department of Transportation to study whether first responders are prepared for flammable-liquid spills and whether longer freight trains pose a greater risk.

Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Fire, Insurance and liability, Lac-Mégantic, Oil Industry, Rail industry, Victim compensation

Victim compensation after oil train derailment: Big Oil cost of doing business?

Repost from DESMOG

Cost of Doing Business? Oil Companies Agree To Pay For Some of Lac-Megantic Damages, But Not to Solve the Real Problems

By Justin Mikulka, June 21, 2015 – 05:58
Image credit: Wikimedia

Although insisting the industry is not to blame, several of the oil companies involved in the fatal Lac-Megantic oil train accident in 2013 have agreed to contribute to a fund to compensate the families of the 47 victims in that accident.

The Wall Street Journal reported recently that oil companies Shell, ConocoPhillips, Marathon and Irving have all agreed to contribute to the fund to avoid future litigation, along with General Electric and the Canadian government. While the actual amounts contributed by most companies involved are not available, the total fund is reportedly at $345 million. That sounds like a lot of money but still is less than the $400 million retirement package for Exxon’s last CEO, for example.

Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. hasn’t agreed to the settlement, according to the Bangor Daily News, which reports that the judge in the case has delayed his decision on the settlement. Canadian Pacific has asked the court to shield it from future litigation and challenged the Quebec provincial court’s jurisdiction.

It is no surprise that oil companies would prefer to pay fines of tens of millions of dollars to avoid future litigation as well as duck responsibility for the full cost of the cleanup. Rebuilding the destroyed Lac Megantic property is expected to take as long as eight years and as much as $2.7 billion.

This approach has proven successful for the oil and rail industry in the past. In 2009, when a Canadian National (CN) ethanol train derailed in Cherry Valley, Illinois resulting in a fire and the death of one woman and injury to several others, the railroad paid the surviving family members $36 million.

The National Transportation Safety Board laid some of the blame for that tragedy on the “inadequate design of the tank cars, which made them subject to damage and catastrophic loss of hazardous materials during the derailment.”

But CN just paid the $36 million and the industry kept using the same inadequate DOT-111 tank cars to move ethanol and crude oil. It was the DOT-111 tank cars that were involved in the Lac-Megantic accident four years later, and the same tank cars that the oil industry is currently fighting to keep on the rails as long as possible.

There is no question it is far more profitable for the oil and rail industries to continue to use unsafe rail tank cars and to just pay off the families of the victims or for environmental damages from oil spills after any accidents than to invest in safer tank cars.

Canadian National has had two oil train derailments already in 2015 which the company reports have cost it $40 million. However, CN still reported over $700 million in net income for just the first quarter of 2015.

Business as usual in the oil-by-rail industry is highly profitable. Which is why the oil and rail industries are fighting against any safety measures that would require investment and cut into profits.

After the faulty tank cars, the two other issues the oil industry has fought against are modernized braking systems and removing the volatile and explosive natural gas liquids from the oil itself via stabilization.

Both of these proven safety measures would cost the industry billions of dollars to implement. So they haven’t done anything. It is far more profitable to live with the consequences of some accidents and make relatively small payouts to avoid lawsuits than it is to invest in safe alternatives.

In 2013, the year of the Lac-Megantic disaster, the big five oil companies made $93 billion in profits. Fines and settlements like those resulting from oil train disasters or deadly refinery accidents are simply a cost of doing business. And for these companies, it turns out to be a very small cost when compared to the profits.

In a forum on rail safety held in Albany, NY this month, emergency first responders from three oil train accidents (Lac-Megantic, Lynchburg, Virginia and Galena, Illinois) recounted their experiences dealing with oil train fires and explosions. While offering excellent insights to the risks involved with oil-by-rail, there also was insight into how the rail companies responded once the accidents occurred.

For both the Lynchburg and Galena accidents, it was noted that the rail companies were on the scene almost immediately. And they rebuilt the tracks and got them back in operation as soon as possible because in Galena, rail downtime was costing the company $1 million an hour. When money is at stake, the rail companies jump into action.

Did the rail company jump into action the day before the Lynchburg rail accident when an inspection revealed a defect in the track in Lynchburg? No.

At the forum in Albany, Lynchburg Battalion Chief Robert Lipscomb summed up the situation nicely.

“You got to remember their business is making money. Our business is taking care of emergencies. So sometimes those two don’t line up exactly right,” Lipscomb said.

When your business is making money, it is much easier to accomplish your goals by lobbying regulators to ensure weak regulations and paying out meaningless fines when something goes wrong than to invest in safety.

The oil trains will return to Lac-Megantic in 2016, with the same inadequate tank cars and 19th century braking systems. And they will be full of unstabilized, dangerous and very profitable oil.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, DOT-112, DOT-117, Ethanol, Explosion, Tank car design, Tank car retrofit

New Brunswick derailment: some tank cars fared better than others

Repost from McClatchy DC News

Tank car upgrades effective in derailments, Canadian report shows

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, June 19, 2015

Tank car improvements required by the U.S. and Canadian governments last month should cut the risk of spills and fires in oil train accidents, Canadian investigators have concluded.

The finding came from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s investigation of on a derailment in January 2014 in Plaster Rock, New Brunswick.

While the report pinpointed a broken wheel as the cause, the derailment provided a rare side-by-side comparison of the performance of two different types of tank cars in use for decades on the North American rail system.

A type of tank car called the DOT-112 survived the Plaster Rock derailment with no impact damage, according to the report, released Friday. Four such cars carrying butane derailed.

In contrast, two DOT-111 cars carrying crude oil sustained punctures, spilling more than 60,000 gallons. The spilled oil caught fire.

The DOT-112 cars have features very similar to the new DOT-117 standard unveiled by regulators on May 1. Both include half-inch thick shields that fully protect both ends of the car, thicker 9/16-inch shells and thermal insulation around the tank shell enclosed with an additional layer of steel.

Typically, the DOT-111 cars have 7/16-inch shells and none of the other protections.

As McClatchy reported last year, the DOT-112 was beefed up after a series of catastrophic tank car explosions in the 1970s that killed railroad workers and firefighters and caused extensive property damage. After the 112 was upgraded, the accidents subsided.

But the DOT-111 fleet remained unchanged, even when railroads began hauling larger quantities of ethanol a decade ago, followed by crude oil five years ago.

The Canadian report lists 13 other rail accidents involving crude oil or ethanol since 2005 that illustrate the vulnerabilities of the DOT-111. Three of those derailments took place this year, including two in Ontario and one in West Virginia.

The list also includes the 2013 disaster in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, which resulted in 47 fatalities. The families of the victims and their attorneys earlier this month unanimously ratified a proposed $350 million settlement package.

The U.S. Department of Transportation last month required that new tank cars carrying crude oil and ethanol meet the DOT-117 standard beginning in October. Tank car owners, which are typically railcar manufacturers, financial firms and energy companies, must comply with a series of retrofit deadlines for DOT-111 cars that are spread out over a decade.

The oil industry says the timeline is too short, while environmentalists say it’s too long. Both have since taken the department to court.