Tag Archives: explosion

Bridge inspection, Bridge safety, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail infrastructure, Rail inspection

New investigative report on neglect of rail bridges

Repost from Forest Ethics

New Investigative Report Documents Threat from Oil Trains on Nation’s Neglected Rail Infrastructure

Investigative Report: DEADLY CROSSING: Neglected Bridges & Exploding Oil Trains

With a 5,000% increase in oil train traffic, Waterkeepers across the U.S. identify significant areas of concern with 114 railway bridges along known and potential routes of explosive oil trains

Tina Posterli, and Eddie Scher, Tuesday Nov 10, 2015

Waterkeeper Alliance, ForestEthics, Riverkeeper and a national network of Waterkeeper organizations released a new investigative report today called DEADLY CROSSING: Neglected Bridges & Exploding Oil Trains exploring the condition of our nation’s rail infrastructure and how it is being stressed by oil train traffic. From July to September 2015, Waterkeepers from across the country documented potential deficiencies of 250 railway bridges in 15 states along known and potential routes of explosive oil trains, capturing the state of this often neglected infrastructure in their communities.

The Waterkeepers identified areas of serious concern on 114 bridges, nearly half of those observed. Photos and video footage of the bridges inspected show signs of significant stress and decay, such as rotted, cracked, or crumbling foundations, and loose or broken beams. Waterkeepers were also present when crude oil trains passed and observed flexing, slumping and vibrations that crumbled concrete.

“Waterkeepers boarded their patrol boats to uncover what is happening to the structural integrity of our nation’s railway bridges, a responsibility our federal government has shirked,” said Marc Yaggi, executive director of Waterkeeper Alliance. “People deserve to know the state of this infrastructure and the risks oil trains pose as they rumble through our communities.”

This effort was initiated out of concern for the threat posed by the 5,000 percent increase in oil train traffic since 2008. Oil train traffic increases both the strain in rail infrastructure, as well as the likelihood of a rail bridge defect leading to an oil train derailment, spill, explosion and fire.

“Half the bridges we looked at have potentially serious safety problems,” says Matt Krogh, ForestEthics extreme oil campaign director. “There are 100,000 rail bridges in the U.S. – any one of them could be the next deadly crossing. Oil trains are rolling over crumbling bridges and we can’t wait for the next derailment, spill, and explosion to act.”

A review of rail bridge safety standards revealed that the federal government cedes authority and oversight of inspections and repairs to railway bridge owners. Overly broad federal law, lax regulations, and dangerously inadequate inspections and oversight compound the threat from oil trains. The 2008 federal law and subsequent Department of Transportation standards regulating rail bridge safety leaves responsibility for determining load limits, safety inspections, and maintenance with rail bridge owners.

“Do truckers get to inspect their own trucks? Do you get to inspect your own car? Of course not. So it’s insane, and completely unacceptable, that the rail industry gets to inspect its own infrastructure while moving cargo that is of such enormous risk to American citizens and the environment,” said Riverkeeper Boat Captain John Lipscomb.

Oil trains directly threaten the life and safety of 25 million Americans living inside the 1 mile evacuation blast zone in the case of an oil train fire, and the drinking water supplies for tens of millions more, says the report. The groups are calling for the federal government and rail industry to immediately inspect all rail bridges, share safety information with emergency responders and the public, and stop oil train traffic on any bridge with known safety problems.

Read Deadly Crossing.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Evacuation, Explosion, Fire

North Dakota Town Moving Forward After Oil Train Derailment, Explosion

Repost from KFYR-TV, Bismarck, ND

Heimdal Residents Move Forward After Oil Train Derailments

By Megan Mitchell, Nov 03, 2015 9:55 AM

Six months ago Heimdal, N.D., made headlines for a oil train derailments. The accident forced the evacuation of the entire town. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) continues to investigation the incident and is focusing on wheel fragments recovered at the scene.

No cause for the crash has been identified at this point.

The NTSB has sent the evidence the collected to a metallurgy testing lab in Washington, D.C. Metallurgists specialize in the physical and chemical behavior of metals. Their examination could take another year to complete. In the meantime, residents of Heimdal have returned to their homes and routines.

Sparky is an affectionate 9-year-old border collie cross. His friendly disposition is second only to the loyalty he has for his owners Arden and Linda Georgensen.

Arden Georgensen is a resident of Heimdal and says the dog never leaves his wife’s side.

“If I can’t find her in the yard I can find the dog. He’s always with her,” Arden said.

On May 6, 2015 neither Linda or Arden could find Sparky when they were forced to evacuate their home without their beloved dog.

“I saw this big plume I thought it was a tornado the way it looked because it was swirling,” Arden said.

An oil train derailed just half a mile from their farm, spewing 60,000 gallons of Bakken crude. That’s when firefighters came knocking.

“They said you need to get out right now ’cause if those tanks explode it’s hard to say what’ll happen out here,” Arden said.

It was a long night wondering whether Sparky would be there when they returned.

Linda went back the next morning and was overjoyed.

“It was a good feeling to see him laying there ’cause when we got home here he was by the door like usual,” Linda said.

Oil production in the Bakken has drastically declined, but tanker trains continue to roll through Heimdal every day. Despite what happened there, residents say they’re not overly concerned when they hear an engine whistle sound.

Curt Benson saw the oil train derail and was the first person to contact emergency management.

“It’s still a concern, but yeah, if you’re only getting five trains a day instead of 20 trains a day sure it’s a little less of a concern,” Benson said.

Other residents aren’t sidetracked by worry.

“You just have that risk. There’s a certain amount of risk just being alive,” Bill Ongstad said.

BNSF is still cleaning up the site, but it appears the landscape around Heimdal is almost restored.

“I have to say they did a pretty bang up job. I think seeing all of them come out here with all the equipment and the time they put in, it certainly makes you feel confident that they probably did a good job,” Benson said.

The 22 residents of Heimdal and Sparky are living in the moment and moving on.

The NTSB said the wheel fragments from the accident were sent to those metallurgy labs two and a half weeks ago.

The agency says they look at everything associated with this accident and no conclusions have been drawn.

Flag as irrelevant

 

Bakken Crude, Clean-up costs, Derailment, Explosion, Oil prices, Pipeline infrastructure, Pipeline rupture, Pipeline transport, Tar sands crude

Dangerous energy gamble: Pipelines vs. rail

Repost from the Washington Examiner
[Editor: One significant quote among many: “In the last five years, 423 oil trains have crashed in the U.S. Since 2010, those crashes have cost about $45 million in damages. In just the first six months of 2015, 31 oil train crashes cost almost $30 million in damages…. It’s 5.5 times more likely that oil will be spilled during rail transport than from a pipeline, according to a study by the Fraser Institute, an independent Canadian think tank. The risk of deaths, injuries and spills are higher with rail and trucks since vehicles can hit other vehicles, they travel through population centers and the drivers can err. None of those factors exist for pipelines.” – RS]

Dangerous energy gamble: Pipelines vs. rail

By Kyle Feldscher, 11/2/15 12:01 AM
Fire burns at the scene of a train derailment, near Mount Carbon, W.Va., on Feb. 16. Fires burned for nearly nine hours after the train carrying more than 100 tankers of crude oil derailed in a snowstorm. (AP Photo/WCHS-TV)

Energy companies increasingly have turned to rail to ship crude oil during the fracking boom, but with train crashes becoming more frequent, they are pushing for construction of more pipelines beyond the Keystone XL.

However, that effort is being stymied by the collapse of oil prices and concerns about pipeline safety.

On Wednesday, Shell announced it would stop construction on a site in Alberta, Canada, that potentially holds 418 million barrels of bitumen oil. The company blamed the project’s expense in a time of cheap oil as well as a lack of pipeline infrastructure.

It’s one example of low prices and lack of pipelines prompting companies to reconsider drilling for oil, especially in the Canadian tar sands, where it’s more expensive to drill. Pipeline transportation is typically cheaper than rail, which costs about $30 a barrel more.

Fifty pipelines have been proposed to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this year. They would carry the light, sweet crude from shale regions as well as the natural gas that has helped make the U.S. the world’s energy leader. ”

Because of the costs associated with [rail], it’s going to drive up the cost of oil and it’s going to be significantly higher than pipelines on a per barrel basis,” said Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at the conservative Institute for Energy Research.

Another calculation oil companies must make is the safety of their highly flammable product.

In the last five years, 423 oil trains have crashed in the U.S. Since 2010, those crashes have cost about $45 million in damages. In just the first six months of 2015, 31 oil train crashes cost almost $30 million in damages, mostly due to a major crash in West Virginia.

It’s 5.5 times more likely that oil will be spilled during rail transport than from a pipeline, according to a study by the Fraser Institute, an independent Canadian think tank. The risk of deaths, injuries and spills are higher with rail and trucks since vehicles can hit other vehicles, they travel through population centers and the drivers can err. None of those factors exist for pipelines.

The August study also found oil and natural gas production is rising faster than existing American and Canadian pipelines can handle. Those pipelines would be even busier if production increased in the Canadian tar sands.

Keystone XL, proposed by TransCanada in 2007, would be able to transport 830,000 barrels per day from the tar sands to the Gulf Coast to be refined. Due to the viscous nature of bitumen oil, it’s much easier to transport it by pipeline than by rail, experts say.

When a train carrying oil derails, it’s often catastrophic.

In West Virginia, oil burned for days after 26 oil tanker cars derailed in February. Nineteen of those cars caught on fire and oil spilled into a nearby river. The damages from that crash totaled more than $23 million.

A train derailment in a Quebec community that killed 46 people in July 2013 prompted calls for better rail safety and led some to question whether to transport highly flammable oil at all.

The State Department estimates rail transportation of oil is responsible for 712 injuries and 94 deaths per year, while oil pipelines are responsible for three injuries and two deaths per year.

“For our society, we have to evaluate the value we place on human life and we should make that a priority,” said Diana Furtchgott-Roth, a conservative economist who is the director of the Manhattan Institute’s e21 program.

“The families of those 46 people killed in Lac-Megantic would have been happy to have less oil and having the lives of their family members back.”

Dangerous derailments led the Obama administration to introduce new regulations to make tanker cars safer. The rule, announced in May, requires improvements to braking systems, making tanker cars thicker and more fire resistant and new protocols for transporting flammable liquids.

The number of crashes steadily increased during the last five years, as more trains shipped crude and natural gas, rising from nine crashes in 2010 to 144 crashes in 2014. But as the price of oil plummeted, the amount of crude oil being drilled and shipped leveled off in 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration.

If drilling in the Canadian tar sands in Alberta were to pick up in earnest, State Department officials believe rail transport would lead to 49 more injuries and six more deaths per year. If that oil were to be moved by the Keystone XL pipeline, there would be one additional injury and no fatalities.

Environmentalists, who have been fighting the Keystone XL, point to the State Department’s finding that pipeline spills are often bigger than those from trains and trucks.

They also point to declining oil use and the collapse of prices as great excuses to leave it in the ground.

Zach Drennen, legislative associate at the League of Conservation Voters, said with oil prices as low as they are, it’s economic folly for oil companies to drill in the Canadian tar sands. Without high oil prices, companies can’t afford to build pipelines. They also can’t afford to ship by rail.

That is why green groups think oil companies could be willing to leave the oil in the earth.

“If you look right now, a lot of oil companies are just deciding that’s not where they want to put their money at,” Drennen said.

To Kish, environmentalists’ goal is to make it too expensive to drill.

“They’re going to try and fight against every damn pipeline they can,” he said, “because if they can choke off production and delay construction of pipelines, it causes disruptions.”

But Ken Green, senior director of natural resource studies at the Fraser Institute, said environmentalists’ dream of keeping oil in the ground isn’t feasible.

“The oil in the ground has a market value and everyone knows what the market value is,” he said. “It’s not hard to calculate that market value … My assumption is sooner or later, that value will be sought.”

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, Benicia Industrial Park, Carbon emissions, Climate Change, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Environmental review, Explosion, Public Health, Public permitting, Public Safety, Revised Draft EIR (RDEIR), Tar sands crude, Valero Crude By Rail

An Ethical Case Against Valero Crude By Rail

By Roger D. Straw, Benicia Herald Editor
October 30, 2015

Roger D. StrawIn June of 2013, I wrote a guest opinion for the Benicia Herald, “Do Benicians want tar-sands oil brought here?” I had just learned that the City of Benicia staff was proposing to give Valero Refinery a quick and easy pass to begin construction of an offloading rack for oil trains carrying “North American crude.” Valero was seeking permission to begin bringing in two 50-car Union Pacific trains every day, filled with a crude oil. Valero and the City would not disclose where the oil was coming from, but everyone knew of the boom in production in Canada (tar-sands crude) and North Dakota (Bakken crude).

At that time, my most pressing concern was that Benicia, my home town, not be the cause of destruction elsewhere. Tar-sands oil strip mining is the dirtiest, most energy-intensive and environmentally destructive oil production method in the world. It struck me then, and it still does, as a moral issue. Our beautiful small City on the Carquinez has a conscience. We have a global awareness and a responsibility to all who live uprail of our fair city. Our decisions have consequences beyond our border.

My article, and my conscience-driven concern, came BEFORE the massive and deadly oil train explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. That wreck and the many horrific explosions that followed involving Bakken crude oil and tar-sands “dilbit” (diluted bitumen) became the sad poster children of a movement to STOP crude by rail. It became all too easy for Benicians to base our opposition on a very legitimate self-protective fear. Not here. Not in our back yard. No explosions in OUR Industrial Park, in our town, on our pristine bit of coastal waters.

But fear mustn’t deaden our heart.

I was encouraged to read in the City’s recent Revised Draft EIR, that the document would analyze environmental impacts all the way to the train’s point of origin, including North Dakota and Canada:

“In response to requests made in comments on the DEIR, the City is issuing this Revised DEIR for public input to consider potential impacts that could occur “uprail” of Roseville, California (i.e., between a crude oil train’s point of origin and the California State border, and from the border to Roseville) and to supplement the DEIR’s evaluation of the potential consequences of upsets or accidents involving crude oil trains based on new information that has become available since the DEIR was published.” [emphasis added]

Sadly, the City’s consultants never made good on their intention. Our moral obligation to those uprail of Benicia extends, according to the consultants, to our neighbors in Fairfield, Vacaville, Davis, Sacramento, Roseville and to the good folks and mountain treasures beyond, but ONLY TO CALIFORNIA’S BORDER. What happens at the source, in Canada where boreal forests and humans and wildlife are dying; what happens in North Dakota where the night is now lit and the earth is polluted wholesale with oil fracking machinery – what happens there is of no concern to Benicians. Too far away to care. Their air, their land, their water is not our air, land and water. Evidently, according to our highly paid consultants, this is not, after all, one planet.

Or is it?

Our Planning Commissioners have more than a civic duty. They and we are called morally and ethically to understand our larger role in climate change and to protect the earth and its inhabitants. Our decision has consequences.

Together, we can STOP crude by rail.