Tag Archives: explosion

Draft EIR, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Oil spill, Rail accidents, Risk Assessment, Valero Crude By Rail

Benicia DEIR downplays risks in marked contrast to NRDC assessment

Repost from AllGov California

This Is Where Deadly Crude Oil Trains May Be Rolling Through California

By Ken Broder, June 20, 2014
(graphic: Natural Resources Defense Council)

Although this country’s oil boom has been accompanied by an explosion of dangerous crude-carrying trains―literally and figuratively―a much-anticipated environmental impact report (Summary pdf) says the spill threat from Valero Refining Company’s proposal to run 100 tanker cars a day through Roseville and Sacramento to its Benicia refinery is negligible.

The draft EIR, written by Environmental Science Associates of San Francisco for the city of Benicia and released on Tuesday, singled out air pollution, “significant and unavoidable,” as the sole danger among 11 “environmental resource or issue areas.”

The next day, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released seven maps detailing the rail routes through the “Crude Oil Train Derailment Risk Zones in California,” which stretches from the Bay Area to the Central/San Joaquin Valley and encompasses 4 million people.

The NRDC’s assessment of risk was markedly different than in the EIR. Noting that “California has seen a dramatic increase of crude by rail, from 45,000 barrels in 2009 to six million barrels in 2013” without any new safety measures or emergency response put in place, the NRDC report said the aging “soda cans on wheels” are not built to handle the particularly volatile crude being fracked out of the ground in America’s rejuvenated oil fields like those in North Dakota, and shipped to refiners.

Tracks would run within half a mile of 135,000 people in Sacramento and 25,000 people in Davis.

The NRDC wants old tanker cars removed from service, lower speeds for trains, rerouting through less-sensitive areas, disclosure of what kind of crude is being carried, more visible emergency preparedness, fees on shippers to pay for emergency response, high-risk designations for oil-trains and more comprehensive risk assessments.

The EIR was a bit more upbeat.

It concluded that oil spills between Roseville and Benicia would occur about once every 111 years. The project would have no impact on agriculture and forestry resources or mineral resources. It would also have less-than-significant impacts on aesthetics, population and housing, public services, recreation and utilities and service systems.

In other words, the assumption is there won’t be anything like the tragic accident in July 2013 in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where 72 tank cars of crude oil exploded, killing 47 people and destroying much of the town’s core. As Russell Gold and Betsy Morris explained in the Wall Street Journal, “Each tank car of crude holds the energy equivalent of 2 million sticks of dynamite or the fuel in a wide body jetliner.”

The Sacramento Bee said the risk assessment’s author, Christopher Barken, previously worked for the Association of American Railroads, the industry’s leading advocacy group in Washington, and does research supported by the railroad association.

Barken’s website at the University of Illinois, where he is a professor and executive director of the Railroad Engineering Program, says, “Our strong relationship with the rail industry means our research has an impact.”

In describing the twice-a-day snaking of 50-car trains through heavily populated areas, the report offered far more information than has generally been made available by rail companies to state and local governments, as well as disaster first-responders. But the EIR did acknowledge Benicia would not reveal seven Valero “trade secrets” (pdf) at the oil company’s request.

That “confidential business information” included the specific crude Valero would be shipping in by rail and the properties of crude it refined now or in the past. That lack of information would be complicating factors in accurately assessing pollution and risk.

California, like states and localities across the nation, are scrambling just to get a handle on how much crude-by-rail is coursing through their jurisdictions, much less assessing what regulations and safety measures need to be put in place. They are working blind.

A study by Politico analyzed 400 oil-train incidents nationally since 1971 and found a dramatic escalation the past five years. Property damage from 70 accidents through mid-May this year is already $10 million, triple the year before.

“It has become abundantly clear that there are a whole slew of freight rail safety measures that, while for many years have been moving through the gears of bureaucracy, must now be approved and implemented in haste,” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said.

They must. Because the trains are already rolling and Valero would like to get its California project finished by the end of the year. America is waiting.

Bakken Crude, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fossil fuel divestment, Local Regulation, Phillips 66, Santa Maria Refinery

Oakland City Council votes to oppose coal, crude oil trains

Repost from Reuters
[Editor: See also “Oakland City Council Votes to Divest from Fossil Fuel Companies”  – RS]

Oakland City Council votes to oppose coal, crude oil trains

By Rory Carroll, San Francisco, June 18, 2014

(Reuters) – The Oakland City Council has unanimously backed a resolution opposing the use of the city’s rail lines to transport crude oil and coal, a move that supporters hope will call attention to proposed projects that would sharply increase the amount of such cargo rolling through the densely populated city.

The resolution will not halt crude oil trains from entering Oakland since U.S. railroads are federally regulated, but backers hope it will stoke debate about plans for export facilities that would boost demand.

Backers of the resolution are particularly concerned about a proposed upgrade to Phillips 66’s Santa Maria refinery that would allow it to take in more crude oil from North Dakota on trains that would pass by rail through Oakland.

They are also worried about the redevelopment of the Oakland Army Base, which includes the building of a commodities facility that they believe will be used to export coal. The coal would also be moved through the city by rail.

“These proposed export facilities are a serious threat to Oakland and the East Bay communities,” said Jess Dervin-Ackerman of the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club.

“If oil and coal companies have their way, the Bay Area will become the biggest fossil fuel export hub on the West Coast,” she said.

The fuels will not be consumed in the Bay Area, she added, but would just pass through the area on their way to overseas markets.

California has in recent years seen a surge in crude oil arriving by rail on the back of an oil boom in North Dakota’s Bakken shale formation and in Canada, prompting safety and environmental concerns.

Crude oil-by-rail shipments into California increased from about 70 rail tanker carloads in 2009 to nearly 9,500 carloads in 2013, according to state regulators. They are projected to soar in the next few years.

Last July, 47 people were killed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, when a freight train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed and exploded. Since then, there have been a number of fiery derailments in the United States that have caused environmental damage, but no fatalities.

Separately, the Oakland City Council on Tuesday night unanimously passed a resolution to divest money from city employees from fossil fuel companies, although none of that money is currently invested in those types of businesses.

The move is intended to put pressure on the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), which does hold such investments, to follow suit.

CalPERS is one of the country’s largest managers of public pensions, with $288 billion in retiree assets under management. (Reporting by Rory Carroll, editing by G Crosse)

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Oil spill

Feds: Vandergrift’s 10,000-gallon oil spill among nation’s worst in recent years

Repost from TribLive.com, Pittsburgh, PA
[Editor: This recent update about the February derailment and spill in Vandergrift, PA was sent to me by a Benicia Independent reader who grew up in Vandergrift.  She reports, “Here is a recent article citing the Vandergrift spill was actually 10,000 gallons of crude oil (way above initial estimates and reports) and has been dubbed ‘among the nation’s worst in recent years.’  Norfolk Southern is sweeping this under the rug. Please help to expose this catastrophe for what it is. I have asked them repeatedly to please help fund an emergency evacuation plan for my hometown of East Vandergrift, PA that has an emergency preparedness budget of $100 per year.  Norfolk Southern now refuses to answer or acknowledge my emails.”  – RS]

Vandergrift’s 10,000-gallon oil spill among nation’s worst in recent years

By Mary Ann Thomas | May 29, 2014
The railroad tracks next to the MSI Corp. building in Vandergrift where a train derailed in February as seen on Wednesday, May 21, 2014. Jason Bridge | Valley News Dispatch
The railroad tracks next to the MSI Corp. building in Vandergrift where a train derailed in February as seen on Wednesday, May 21, 2014. Jason Bridge | Valley News Dispatch

The federal government recently ranked the train derailment in Vandergrift in February that spilled thousands of gallons of crude oil as one of the 14 worst spills over the past eight years nationwide.

Additionally, preliminary estimates of the spillage were woefully short as government records now show that close to 10,000 gallons of heavy crude oil was released — twice the amount initially reported.

The amounts of crude oil transported these days and the danger in doing so have been increasing dramatically. Of the greatest concern is Bakken shale crude, which can be explosive.

Last July, a runaway train crash in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, involving Bakken oil, incinerated much of the downtown, killing 47 people.

The train in which 21 railroad cars derailed in Vandergrift was carrying a far less volatile form of crude.

The U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration determined the Vandergrift derailment to be the 14th most significant involving crude oil or ethanol in the past eight years. The most recent seven major derailments occurred within the past 11 months, and all involved crude oil.

Although no one was injured and there were no explosions in Vandergrift, the safety issues are the same ones currently being debated by the federal government, industry and activists:

  • The three railroad cars that released heavy crude oil and butane in Vandergrift were of the controversial variety known as DOT-111, according to Norfolk Southern. The railroad did not own those tankers, according to a spokesman. Critics dub these old-style tankers as flimsy as soda cans.
    The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued an advisory urging industry to voluntarily use sturdier tankers for Bakken crude oil transportation.
  • The federal government issued an emergency order in early May requiring railroads to alert state emergency agencies about large Bakken crude shipments traveling through local communities. Shipping of crude has become widespread: In 2008, major rail companies hauled about 4,500 tanker carloads of crude, according to the Washington-based Association of American Railroads.
    Because of skyrocketing petroleum production in the Dakotas and Canada, the group estimated that trains transported more than 400,000 tanker cars of oil last year, many of them crossing Western Pennsylvania to reach refineries farther east.
  • Environmentalists as well as industry experts complain that the federal government is not doing enough quickly enough to increase safety.

The Vandergrift derailment

In the Vandergrift derailment, 21 of the 130 railroad cars jumped the track just before 8 a.m. on Feb. 13 in an area between the Kiski River and the Sherman Avenue neighborhood.

One of the derailed tanker cars slammed into a business and three others broke open, leaking thousands of gallons of oil. An undisclosed amount of contaminated soil had to be removed from the site, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

However, major damage was averted. The crude oil was not of the Bakken variety and not easily combustible. The spillage didn’t foul the nearby Kiski River. Residents did not have to be evacuated. The town was spared.

Final reports on the cleanup from DEP and the cause of the derailment are expected to be released within the month.

“We had a lot of things in our favor that day,” said Dan Stevens, spokesman for Westmoreland County Emergency Management.

“We had the wind blowing in a direction that was not affecting homes and it was 17 degrees,” he said.

The cold weather thickened the crude oil, further slowing any complications from the oil.

“If it would have been July 4, things could have been different,” he said.

Initial estimates shortly after the derailment, originally pegged that spillage at more than 1,000 gallons. As the day went on, that figure jumped to 4,500 gallons.

But the figure of almost 10,000 gallons was not released until it was referenced in a report earlier this year from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

Norfolk Southern, which provided the estimates, did the best that it could at the time, according to Norfolk Southern spokesman David Pidgeon.

“When you are dealing with hazardous materials, you don’t just rush in,” he said. The tanker cars don’t have windows, and emergency responders don’t easily know how much exactly had been discharged.

“It takes a long time to unload material from derailed cars,” he said. And when responders can assess all of the derailed cars, that’s when the railroad is better able to calculate the spillage, he said.

John Poister, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, noted that by the time a more accurate figure for the spillage was available, there weren’t follow-up media reports.

Future protection

Although, the federal Department of Transportation issued a voluntary request for shippers to use sturdier tankers than the DOT-111, many are not satisfied.

Even some railroads aren’t satisfied.

The tank car safety requirements are set by two agencies, the U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Association of American Railroads Tank Car Committee.

“That committee has for many years pushed for stricter standards for cars than those set by PHMSA,” said Pidgeon.

Last November, the Association of American Railroads urged U.S. Department of Transportation’s hazmat administration to increase federal tank car safety by requiring that all tank cars used to transport flammable liquids be built to a higher standard.

It also is calling for all existing cars to be retrofitted to this higher standard or phased out of flammable service, according to the Association of American Railroads website.

But the fear of explosion shouldn’t be the only incentive, according to activists.

“We’ve seen the spills happen with these kinds of rail cars,” said Joanne Kilgour, director of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Sierra Club.

“The spill in Vandergrift – 10,000 gallon is still significant,” she said.

“Even though there wasn’t an explosion, it shouldn’t have required an explosion and the loss of the life to retire outdated rail cars,” she said.

The recent requirement for notification of the shipping of Bakken crude is good for awareness but it isn’t going to change much, according to Stevens.

“If a train derails, it derails. What are you going to do? It doesn’t matter what is hauling,” Stevens said. “At the county level, our guys prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

Bakken Crude, DEIR, Derailment, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazardous cargo transparency, Keystone XL, U.S. Department of Transportation

The dark side of the oil boom – analysis of federal data from more than 400 oil-train incidents since 1971

Repost from Politico

The dark side of the oil boom

By Kathryn A. Wolfe and Bob King | 6/18/14

Communities throughout the U.S. and Canada are waking up to the dark side of North America’s energy boom: Trains hauling crude oil are crashing, exploding and spilling in record numbers as a fast-growing industry outpaces the federal government’s oversight.

In the 11 months since a runaway oil train derailed in the middle of a small town in Quebec, incinerating 47 people, the rolling virtual pipelines have unleashed crude oil into an Alabama swamp, forced more than 1,000 North Dakota residents to evacuate, dangled from a bridge in Philadelphia and smashed into an industrial building near Pittsburgh. The latest serious accident was April’s fiery crash in Lynchburg, Virginia, where even the mayor had been unaware oil was rolling through his city.

(WATCH: News coverage of recent oil train spills)

A POLITICO analysis of federal data from more than 400 oil-train incidents since 1971 shows that a once-uncommon threat has escalated dramatically in the past five years:

  • This year has already shattered the record for property damage from U.S. oil-train accidents, with a toll exceeding $10 million through mid-May — nearly triple the damage for all of 2013. The number of incidents so far this year — 70 — is also on pace to set a record.
  • Almost every region of the U.S. has been touched by an oil-train incident. These episodes are spreading as more refineries take crude from production hot spots like North Dakota’s Bakken region and western Canada, while companies from California and Washington state to Missouri, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida build or expand terminals for moving oil from trains to barges, trucks or pipelines.
  • The voluntary reforms that DOT and industry have enacted so far might not have prevented the worst accidents. For example, the department announced a voluntary 40 mph speed limit this year for oil trains traveling through densely populated areas, but DOT’s hazardous-incident database shows only one accident in the past five years involving speeds exceeding that threshold. And unlike Canada’s transportation ministry, DOT has not yet set a mandatory deadline for companies to replace or upgrade their tank cars.

Starting this month, DOT is requiring railroads to share more timely information with state emergency managers about the trains’ cargoes and routes. But some railroads are demanding that states sign confidentiality agreements, citing security risks.

Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx says each step is a move in the right direction.

“There’s been such exponential growth in the excavation of this crude oil that it’s basically outrun our normal systems,” Foxx said in an interview. But Foxx, who became secretary four days before the Quebec disaster, added: “We’ve been focused on this since I came in. … We’re going to get this right.”

Defending the voluntary speed limits, Foxx said: “You have to understand that all these pieces fit together. So a stronger tank car with lower speeds is safer than a less strong tank car at higher speeds.”

Members of Congress are joining the call for more action.

“The boom in domestic oil production has turned many railways and small communities across our country into de facto oil pipelines, and the gold-rush-type phenomenon has unfortunately put our regulators behind the eight ball,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has been pushing for stricter safety and disclosure rules. “It has become abundantly clear that there are a whole slew of freight rail safety measures that, while for many years have been moving through the gears of bureaucracy, must now be approved and implemented in haste.”

Sierra Club staff attorney Devorah Ancel said the rising damage toll should “ring alarm bells in the minds of our decision-makers, from cities all the way up to Congress and the president.”

“Our fear is that the regulators are being pushed over by the industry,” she said.

Like the oil boom itself, the surge in oil-train traffic has come much faster than anyone expected. Meanwhile, the trains face less onerous regulations than other ways of moving oil, including pipelines like TransCanada’s Keystone XL project.

Keystone, which would carry oil from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, has waited more than five years for a permit from the Obama administration while provoking a national debate about climate change. But no White House approval was needed for all the trains carrying Canadian oil into the United States. In fact, freight railroads in the U.S. are considered “common carriers” for hazardous materials, meaning they can’t refuse to ship it as long as it meets federal guidelines.

The oil-trains issue is bringing a flurry of foot traffic to the White House Office of Management and Budget these days as railroad and oil industry representatives press their case on what any new regulations should look like. Representatives of the country’s leading hauler of Bakken crude, Warren Buffett’s BNSF Railway, met with OMB regulatory chief Howard Shelanski on June 3 and June 6, and joined people from railroads including CSX, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern in another meeting June 10.

DOT says it has been working to address the problem since as far back as September 2012, and that efforts accelerated after Foxx took over in July. His chief of staff, Sarah Feinberg, holds a meeting each morning on the issue, and she and Foxx meet regularly with top leadership at the two key DOT agencies that oversee railroads and the transport of hazardous materials.

The voluntary agreements that Foxx’s department has worked out with the freight rail industry and shippers address issues like track inspections, speed limits, brakes and additional signaling equipment. Those are all “relevant when dealing with reducing risk” from oil train traffic, the freight rail industry’s main trade group said in a statement.

“The number one and two causes of all main track accidents are track or equipment related,” the Association of American Railroads said. The statement added, “That is how the industry came up with the steps in the voluntary agreement in February aimed at reducing risks of these kinds of accidents when moving crude oil by rail.”

Meanwhile, the oil train business is primed to get bigger. Even TransCanada might start using rail to ship oil to the U.S. while waiting for Keystone to get the green light, CEO Russ Girling said in an interview in May — despite agreeing that trains are a costlier and potentially more dangerous option.

“If anybody thinks that is a better idea, that’s delusional,” Girling said.

In fact, the State Department estimated this month that because of the risks of rail compared with pipelines, an additional 189 injuries and 28 deaths would occur every year if trains end up carrying the oil intended for Keystone.

But environmentalists who warn about the dangers of crude-by-rail say it would be wrong to turn the issue into an excuse to approve Keystone. For one thing, the Texas-bound pipeline would replace only part of the train traffic, which has spread its tendrils all across the U.S. “There are no pipelines that run from North Dakota to the West Coast,” the Sierra Club’s Ancel said.