New California Law Aims to Ease Oil Train Safety Worries
January 7, 2015, by Sonseeahray Tonsall
ANTELOPE- Last May, after devastating rail crashes made more damaging by a particular kind of crude oil being carried, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency order.
It said if more than a million gallons of that crude was moving on the rails, local emergency crews had to be notified.
California’s legislature tried to make that kind of notice permanent – not just for oil but also for 25 of the most toxic substances traveling the rails.
But there may be a hitch in California’s new law.
“Yesterday was a good example of a derailment of a toxic substance, except it didn’t leak and there was no immediate threat. But imagine that same rail car going through the Feather River Canyon and polluting the water source for millions of people in California,” Kelly Huston, Deputy Director of the California Office of Emergency Services said.
A new state law in effect as of January 1 is supposed to reduce the worry of some of those what-ifs, especially when it comes to the growing number of rail cars shuttling through the Sacramento region, loaded with the kind of highly flammable Bakken crude oil that’s exploded in other train derailments.
“Accidents happen, but our job as a society is to make sure accidents don’t become tragedies,” Assemblyman Mike Gatto said.
The Glendale area democrat co-sponsored AB 380, the new law requiring rail companies to notify emergency responders of what threats could be riding the rails in their area.
“What’s unique about this legislation is that we’re working with the railroads to try to provide more real-time information…sort of like an Amtrak schedule,” Huston said.
Right now, those details come to emergency crews after the fact, not in advance when they could prepare.
The other unfortunately unique thing about this law is that rail carriers can still argue they don’t have to follow it, even though implementation is supposed to be complete by January 31.
“It is a delicate balance because the railroads are federally regulated which means federal laws pre-empt state laws in most cases,” Huston said.
So even though California’s done all it can, it remains to be seen if rail companies will cooperate with a law that could save lives.
Under the continuing federal emergency order, Cal OES gets the shipment information from rail carriers.
Huston would like to create a system that first responders can log in to themselves and get the information real-time.
The effort would not compromise a oil producer’s proprietary information, they said.
Rail safety is back in the spotlight after a new warning from federal regulators.
The National Transportation Safety Board is urging railroads to take immediate action following its investigation of a derailment in Kansas. No one was hurt in the derailment, but it raised new questions about whether America’s rail network — carrying cargo and passengers — is as safe as it could be, CBS News’ Mark Albert reports.
The collision in September between two Union Pacific freight trains in Galva, Kansas, may have come down, in part, to a light bulb.
In a news release Friday, the NTSB said a green LED light was so bright it out-shined the old-fashioned, incandescent red stoplight nearby. The engineer accelerated, plowing into an oncoming train.
The NTSB now wants all railroads to eliminate any lighting hazards nationwide. It’s the latest in a string of safety issues in the past 18 months on America’s 140,000 miles of rails.
“What we know is the regulators are behind the curve,” said former NTSB chair Deborah Hersman, who sounded the alarm about crude oil shipments in April. “We’re losing cars. We’re losing millions of gallons of petroleum, and we aren’t prepared.”
Eight days later, train cars carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire along the James River in Virginia.
In December 2013, a derailment in North Dakota caused a huge fireball. And in July 2013, 47 people died after a derailment in Quebec, Canada. The train was carrying oil from North Dakota’s booming Bakken oil region.
McClatchy correspondent Curtis Tate acknowledges that the government and the railroads are making strides to make rail travel safer.
“Absolutely, they are,” he said. “The problem is it was too late for 47 people in Quebec.”
Tate published an investigation this week that found gaps in rail oversight, including:
The government lets railroads do their own bridge inspections.
There is no federal database on those bridge conditions, like there is with roads.
New rules that make railroads tell states when large oil shipments pass through only apply to higher-risk Bakken crude — not other types of oil.
“I’d like to think that they’re doing the best they can,” Tate said. “But the question is, will that be enough?”
In a statement to CBS News, the Association of American Railroads said the industry spends half a billion dollars per week on safety.
The Department of Transportation is expected to issue new federal rules by spring that may include stronger tank cars, tighter speed restrictions and tougher braking requirements.
Repost from The Sacramento Bee [Editor: Significant quote: “…city officials said Union Pacific has been parking a dozen ethanol train cars at times on side tracks, some near the Ironworks Lofts housing area, where they wait until there is room to shuttle them onto the Buckeye property….City officials say UP frequently moves train cars back and forth across 15th Street at Jefferson Boulevard to make room in its yard.” Does this sound like something we can expect on nearby rails and street crossings outside of Valero if the City approves crude-by-rail? – RS]
West Sacramento says no to ethanol trains
By Tony Bizjak, 12/21/2014
A tanker truck is filled from railway cars containing crude oil on railroad tracks in McClellan Park in North Highlands on Wednesday, March 19, 2014. Several crude oil and ethanol trains have been involved in crashes and explosions nationally in recent years, prompting concerns in cities along rail lines. | Randall Benton
The city of West Sacramento and a Texas-based gasoline company are battling over whether it’s riskier to ship large amounts of ethanol through city streets on trains or on tanker trucks – a dispute that last week spilled into court.
Every day, six train cars full of the fuel additive arrive at a mixing terminal on West Sacramento’s riverfront south of Highway 50.
Saying the city is uncomfortable with trains, some of which sit unattended with their volatile cargo outside the terminal for days, the West Sacramento City Council refused on Wednesday to renew the company’s rail transport permit. The company, Buckeye Terminals, mixes the ethanol with gasoline at its South River Road plant for sale at Northern California gas stations.
Councilman Bill Kristoff noted that the train cars often park in the city’s Bridge District near a residential area, and that city officials are not allowed to know exactly what the cars carry. “I don’t understand the rail business well enough to know why all of these cars have to stay in our community for as long as they stay, and at the same time we don’t get to know what’s in them,” he said. “That is sort of alarming to me.”
Several crude oil and ethanol trains have been involved in crashes and explosions nationally in recent years, prompting concerns in cities along rail lines.
Buckeye officials quickly fired back, suing the city and contending that the permit denial creates a greater risk to the public because it likely will force the company to quadruple the number of tanker truck deliveries it receives daily at the plant, as a replacement for the rail deliveries.
In the lawsuit, filed Friday in Yolo Superior Court, the company accuses the city of failing to conduct adequate traffic studies in the new development areas along South River Road. Those studies, if done, would show safety risks where ethanol trucks mix with traffic, said Braiden Chadwick, a Buckeye attorney.
“The last thing anyone wants to see is a car vs. tanker truck (crash); that is a bad combo,” Chadwick said. “It is just a recipe for disaster.”
City officials declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying they are reviewing it.
West Sacramento’s decision to stop the ethanol trains represents another step in a decades-long effort by city leaders to transition the old industrial waterfront south of the Raley Field ballpark into modern live-work neighborhoods with condominiums, row houses, offices, hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues. The city previously ushered industrial companies out of the Bridge District around Raley Field and shut down a rail line along the waterfront to clear the site for redevelopment.
The city has accelerated those efforts in the Pioneer Bluff area near the Buckeye facility in recent months. A row of unused cement company silos is being torn down on the riverfront. The city has shut its sewer treatment plant. It also is planning to close its corporation yard to open space for waterfront development. The city opened a new bridge this month to connect South River Road to the Southport area, bringing more vehicles past the Buckeye site.
Although the Buckeye facility does not fit West Sacramento’s plans for the area, the permit refusal “is absolutely not intended to try to drive Buckeye out of the district,” Mayor Christopher Cabaldon said. Buckeye is one of several fuel-related industries still operating in the area south of Highway 50.
“The existing Buckeye facility is absolutely welcome to remain and operate at its existing site to the extent that it is complying with the terms of its permits (and) that it is not invading the public right of way,” Cabaldon said.
Buckeye’s attorney disagreed, saying the city’s actions suggest it is trying to squeeze the company out. “The confluence of events lead us to that conclusion,” Chadwick said. “It looks like they are trying to make operations of the Buckeye facility more difficult.”
Buckeye’s rail shipment permit for ethanol expires at the end of this month. The company had sought a permit to continue train deliveries of six cars a day through 2019. The site has been an ethanol station since 2002, when the city agreed to the first of a series of limited permits to allow a previous terminal owner to receive rail shipments of the additive. Buckeye bought the facility a few years ago. The company mixes the ethanol with gasoline that is piped to West Sacramento from the Bay Area.
The dispute is part of a growing national debate over the safety of rail transport of flammable commodities. Federal transportation officials are contemplating additional safety regulations for train transports after several explosive crashes in recent years. The federal focus has been on crude oil shipments to refineries. But safety experts say ethanol trains also should be subject to more requirements, citing crashes that caused explosions and fires.
Testifying this week before the West Sacramento City Council, Fire Chief Rick Martinez expressed a preference for tanker truck ethanol shipments over rail shipments, acknowledging both have risks.
Martinez noted that the city has almost no legal control over rail operations, so it cannot prohibit trains with hazardous commodities from parking overnight next to residential areas. The federal government pre-empts city regulation of rail activities. But, Martinez said, the city can manage the risk of tanker truck shipments, controlling where the trucks drive, and at what speed, and can prohibit those trucks from sitting unattended overnight.
Martinez and other city officials said Union Pacific has been parking a dozen ethanol train cars at times on side tracks, some near the Ironworks Lofts housing area, where they wait until there is room to shuttle them onto the Buckeye property. The parking area runs from Raley Field under the Pioneer Bridge to 15th Street. City officials say UP frequently moves train cars back and forth across 15th Street at Jefferson Boulevard to make room in its yard.
Martinez said his department also has noted ethanol train cars parked along Jefferson Boulevard.
“This practice puts the adjacent residential neighborhood at increased risk from a hazardous materials incident,” Martinez said in a recent memo. “By removing the ethanol rail cars from their current location, the risk potential is significantly reduced.”
Buckeye attorney Chadwick contends that increasing the number of tanker trucks making daily ethanol deliveries is a risky move. He said the trucks would have to make left turns on South River Road to get to the plant, and would have to deal with more traffic as the city turns the Pioneer Bluff area and the Bridge District into populated communities.
Buckeye officials say they currently receive ethanol on two to three tanker trucks a day, in addition to the six rail cars. A city staff report suggests as many as four trucks may arrive on weekdays. The city analysis says Buckeye could bring in nine additional tanker trucks daily to its plant after rail shipments are halted this month.
Chadwick said that number is low, and that his company estimates 15 or more additional tanker trucks would be needed daily. He said he did not know what route the trucks would use to get to West Sacramento, but said they likely would arrive via area freeways.
The lawsuit, he said, maintains the city failed to adequately study how much extra traffic would use South River Road, and how that traffic would mix with daily ethanol trucks trying to make left turns.
“Buckeye views that lives might be at risk here,” Chadwick said. “Help us keep the facility safe, because we are not going anywhere.”
Safety of shipping oil by rail addressed in appropriations bill
By Jodi Weigand, Dec. 17, 2014
Provisions pushed by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey to improve the safety of crude oil shipments are included in the final version of the appropriations bill that will fund the federal government for the next nine months.
Casey began pushing for more money for rail safety after three train derailments in the state this year, including one in Vandergrift in February.
“This program was not included in the original House bill, so it needed a strong push from the Senate (and) Casey to make it in the final package,” said Casey’s spokesman John Rizzo.
The $54 billion in appropriations for transportation, housing and urban development includes funding for 15 new rail and hazardous material inspectors. It also calls for $3 million to expand the use of automated track inspections for 14,000 miles of track and $1 million to pay for online training for first responders on how to handle train derailments.
The Senate on Saturday approved the 2015 Omnibus Appropriations Bill that the House narrowly passed Thursday.
Casey’s bill requires the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to finalize regulatory action to change tank car design standards by Jan. 15. The PHMSA began the changes in September 2013.
Among the new requirements is that newly manufactured and existing tank cars that are used to haul crude oil have puncture resistance systems and protection for hatches and valves that exceed the existing design requirements for the DOT-111 tankers, an old-style variety that critics say are too flimsy.
In the event that there is a trail derailment that involves a crude oil spill, new funding will ensure that first responders have better training on how to handle it.
The money in the bill for a web-based hazardous materials emergency response training curriculum will help ensure that communities that lack the resources to send their first responders to training sites can still access education to contain oil spills and prevent danger to people and communities.
“Funding will also be used to expedite implementation of a remote automated track inspection capability to increase inspection mileage at a reduced cost,” Rizzo said. “There is too much track for manual inspections to cover it all.”
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, said she’s pleased the bill would mandate comprehensive oil spill response plans for railroads and provide funding focusing on providing safety training.
“I worked to set a deadline for the Department of Transportation to issue new safety standards for tank cars next month and worked to protect smaller communities without sufficient resources to respond to oil trains,” Murray said.
A federal investigation into the Feb. 13 derailment and oil spill in Vandergrift determined that “widening,” or spreading of the rails on that section track, was the probable cause.
The report said that speed did not cause the derailment. However, two railroad experts said it was a contributing factor because speed could have caused track problems on the curve.
