Tag Archives: Lac-Megantic Quebec

Bakersfield High School worst-case derailment scenario

Repost from the Bakersfield Californian
[Editor: this is a MUST READ article, a comprehensive and graphic description of first-responder requirements and readiness.  Someone needs to interview first responders in each of our Bay Area refinery towns, ask every single question referenced in this article, and lay out similar scenarios for the all-too-imaginable catastrophes that threaten our communities.  – RS]

Increased oil train traffic raises potential for safety challenges

By John Cox, Californian staff writer  |  May 17, 2014
Bakersfield High School is seen in the background behind the rail cars that go through town as viewed from the overpass on Oak Street.  By Casey Christie / The Californian
Bakersfield High School is seen in the background behind the rail cars that go through town as viewed from the overpass on Oak Street. By Casey Christie / The Californian

First responders think of the rail yard by Bakersfield High School when they envision the worst-case scenario in Kern County’s drive to become a major destination for Midwestern oil trains.  If a derailment there punctures and ignites a string of tank cars, the fireball’s heat will be felt a mile away and flames will be a hundred feet high. Thick acrid black smoke will cover an area from downtown to Valley Plaza mall. Burning oil will flow through storm drains and sewers, possibly shooting flames up through manholes.

Some 3,000 BHS students and staff would have to be evacuated immediately. Depending on how many tank cars ignite, whole neighborhoods may have to be cleared, including patients and employees at 194-bed Mercy Hospital.  State and county fire officials say local 911 call centers will be inundated, and overtaxed city and county firefighters, police and emergency medical services will have to call for help from neighboring counties and state agencies.

While the potential for such an accident has sparked urgency around the state and the country, it has attracted little notice locally — despite two ongoing oil car offloading projects that would push Kern from its current average of receiving a single mile-long oil train delivery about once a month, to one every six hours.

One project is Dallas-based Alon USA Energy Inc.’s proposed oil car offloading facility at the company’s Rosedale Highway refinery. The other is being developed near Taft by Plains All American Pipeline LP, based in Houston.

Kern’s two projects, and three others proposed around the state, would greatly reduce California’s thirst for foreign crude. State energy officials say the five projects should increase the amount of crude California gets by rail from less than 1 percent of the state’s supply last year to nearly a quarter by 2016.

But officials who have studied the BHS derailment scenario say more time and money should be invested in coordinated drills and additional equipment to prepare for what could be a uniquely difficult and potentially disastrous oil accident.

Bakersfield High Principal David Reese met late last year with representatives of Alon, which hopes to start bringing mile-long “unit trains” — two per day — through the rail yard near campus.

He said Alon’s people told him about plans for double-lined tank cars and other safety measures “to make me feel better” about the project. But he still worries.

“I told them, ‘You may assure me but I continue to be concerned about the safety of my students and staff with any new (rail) project that comes within the vicinity of the school,'” he said.

Alon declined to comment for this story.

Both projects aim to capitalize on the current price difference between light crude on the global market and Bakken Shale oil found in and around North Dakota. Thanks to the nation’s shale boom, the Midwest’s ability to produce oil has outpaced its capacity to transport it cheaper and more safely by pipeline. The resulting overabundance has depressed prices and prompted more train shipments.

There are no oil pipelines over the Rockies; rail is the next best mode of shipping oil to the West Coast. Kern County is viewed as an ideal place for offloading crude because of its oil infrastructure and experience with energy projects. Two facilities are proposed in Northern California, in Benicia and Pittsburg; [emphasis added] the other would be to the south, in Wilmington.

A local refinery, Kern Oil & Refining Co., has accepted Bakken oil at its East Panama Lane plant since at least 2012. The California Energy Commission says Kern Oil receives one unit train every four to six weeks.

NATIONAL CHANGES

Shipments of Bakken present special safety concerns. The oil has been found to be highly volatile, and the common mode of transporting it — in quick-loading trains of 100 or more cars carrying more than 3 million gallons per shipment — rules out the traditional safety practice of placing an inert car as a buffer between two containing dangerous materials.

The dangers of shipping Bakken crude by unit train have been evident in several fiery derailments over the past year. One in July in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada, killed 47 people and destroyed 30 buildings when a 74-car runaway train jumped the tracks at 63 mph.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said 99.9 percent of U.S. oil rail cars reached their destination without incident last year. Two of its divisions, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, have issued emergency orders, safety advisories and special inspections relating to oil car shipments. New rules on tank car standards and operational controls for “high-hazard flammable trains” are in the federal pipeline.

Locally operating companies Union Pacific Railroad Co. and BNSF Railway Co. signed an agreement with the DOT to voluntarily lower train speeds, have more frequent inspections, make new investments in brake technology and conduct additional first-responder training.

Until new federal rules take effect next year, railroads can only urge their customers to use tank cars meeting the higher standards.

“UP does not choose the tank car,” Union Pacific spokesman Aaron Hunt wrote in an email. “We encourage our shippers to retrofit or phase out older cars.”

The San Joaquin Valley Railroad Co., owned by Connecticut-based Genesee & Wyoming Inc., is a short line that carries Kern Oil’s oil shipments and would serve the Plains project but not Alon’s. A spokesman said SJVR is working with the larger railroads to upgrade its line, and the company inspects tracks ahead of every unit train arrival, among other measures designed just for oil shipments.

STATE LEVEL PROPOSALS

Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed a big change in the way California protects against and responds to oil spills.

His 2014-15 budget calls for $6.7 million in new spending on the state’s Oil Spill Prevention and Administration Fund to add 38 inland positions, a 15 percent staffing increase. Currently the agency focuses on ocean shipments, which have been the norm for out-of-state oil deliveries in California.

To help pay for the expansion, Brown wants to expand a 6.5 cent-per-barrel fee to not only marine terminals but all oil headed for California refineries.

“We’ll have a more robust response capability,” said Thomas Cullen, an administrator at the Office of Spill Prevention and Response, which is within the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

A representative of the oil trade group Western States Petroleum Association criticized the proposal March 19 at a legislative joint hearing in Sacramento. Lobbyist Ed Manning said OSPR lacks inland reach, and that giving such responsibilities to an agency with primarily marine experience “doesn’t really respond to the problem.”

WSPA President Catherine Reheis-Boyd has emphasized the group has not taken a position on Brown’s OSPR proposal.

Also at the state capitol, Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, has forwarded legislation requiring railroads to give first responders more information about incoming oil shipments and publicly share spill contingency plans. The bill, AB 380, would also direct state grants toward local contingency planning and training. It is pending before the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.

LOCAL PREPARATIONS

In recent years Kern County has conducted large-scale, multi-agency emergency drills to prepare for an earthquake, disease outbreak and Isabella Dam break. There has not been a single oil spill drill.

Emergency service officials say that’s not as bad as it sounds because disasters share common actions — notification, evacuation, decontamination.

Nevertheless, State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris, County Fire Chief Brian Marshall and Kern Emergency Services Manager Georgianna Armstrong support the idea of local oil spill drills involving public safety agencies, hospitals and others.

Kern County is well-versed at handling hazardous materials. Some local officials say an oil accident may actually be less dangerous than the release of toxic chemicals, which also travel through the county on a regular basis.

There have been recent accidents, but all were relatively minor.

Federal records list 18 oil or other hazardous material spills on Kern County railroads in the last 10 years. No one was injured; together the accidents caused $752,000 in property damage.

Most involved chemicals such as sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid. Only two resulted in crude oil spills, both in 2013 in the 93305 ZIP code in the city of Bakersfield. Together they spilled a little more than a gallon of oil.

But the risk of spills rises significantly as the volume of oil passing through the county grows.

“The volume is a big deal,” Bakersfield Fire Chief Douglas R. Greener said. “Potentially, if you have a train derail, you could see numerous cars of the same type of material leaking all at once.”

Kern County firefighters are better prepared for an oil spill than many other first responders around the state. They train on an actual oil tanker and have special tools to mend rail car punctures and gashes. The county fire department has several trucks carrying spray foam that suffocates industrial fires.

But Chief Marshall acknowledged a bad rail accident could strain the department’s resources.

He has been speaking with Alon about securing additional firefighting equipment and foam to ensure an appropriate response to any oil train derailment related to the company’s proposed offloading facility.

What comes of those talks is expected to be included in an upcoming environmental review of the project.

“We recognize the need to increase our industrial firefighting program,” Marshall said.

Chief Zagaris said Kern’s proximity to on-call emergency agencies in Tulare, Kings and Los Angeles counties may come in handy under the Bakersfield High spill scenario, which is based on fire officials’ assessments and reports from several similar incidents over the past year.

He and Marshall would not estimate how many people would require evacuation in the event of a disaster near the school, or what specific levels of emergency response might become necessary.

But Zagaris said local public safety officials would almost certainly require outside help to assess injuries, transfer people in need of medical care, secure the city and contain the spill itself.

“I look at it as, you know, depending what it is and where it happens will dictate how quickly” outside resources would have to be pulled in, he said.

Refiners’ lobby says DOT-111 is “fine” for shipping Bakken crude

Repost from Railway Age

Refiners’ lobby says DOT-111 is “fine” for shipping Bakken crude

Written by  David Thomas, Contributing Editor  | May 19, 2014

Operators of the U.S. fleet of DOT-111 tank cars are fighting the emerging consensus that the cars and their contents are the key culprits in the succession of oil train conflagrations that started last July 6 at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.

Keeping trains on the tracks should be the priority in the reform of crude-by-rail, said the Washington-based policy advocate for the petroleum refiners that own much of the North American tank car fleet.

Too much focus is on the presumed weaknesses of the DOT-111 general-purpose tank car and on the particular properties of crude oil fracked from Bakken shale, said the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) in a May 14 submission to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Both are safe for haulage, the refiners argue in a contrarian view that rubs against the otherwise unanimous opinion of accident investigators, regulators, and railroaders that the DOT-111 and Bakken oil are an unacceptably risky pairing.

In an interview with Railway Age May 16, AFPM president Charles Drevna asked: “Can we have an intellectually honest discussion about mechanical and track integrity on the rails? You shouldn’t blame the cargo for an accident.”

At the same time, Canada’s oil shippers are resisting any requirement that they cover their consignments with public liability insurance. Legal and financial responsibility for the consequences of rail accidents should remain entirely with railroads and railroad insurers, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Canadian Fuels Association argued in a joint submission to a Transport Canada review arising from the Lac-Megantic accident.

Both Canadian Class I railroads and the Railway Association of Canada submitted that shippers should indeed insure their cargos against loss of life and environmental damages. Furthermore, CN and CP want the right to refuse consignments they judge to be too dangerous. Currently, as common carriers, railroads in both the U.S. and Canada are obliged to haul any legal cargo in authorized containers.

Thus, as the anniversary of the Lac-Mégantic catastrophe approaches, what had seemed to be a public consensus that the ultra-light Bakken crude is inherently too volatile for DOT-111 carriage is fracturing into open dispute between oil shippers and rail carriers.

“As the standards are today for flammable liquids, Bakken crude fits right in, and the DOT-111 cars should be fine,” Drevna said.

While the AFPM supports regulatory adoption of the 2011 standard proposed by a cross-industry committee, Drevna said he doubts that Canada’s phase-out of DOT-111s can be accomplished within the three-year timeline. Any additional new tank car specification beyond the industry-sponsored CPC-1232 standard should be delayed until comprehensive derailment data has been collected and analyzed.

No practical tank car would have survived the 64-mph derailment of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic’s runaway at Lac-Mégantic, said Frits Wybenga of Dangerous Goods Transport Consulting, who on behalf of AFPM analyzed a survey of Bakken oil samples by organization members. “You can’t design-out a tank car rupturing in those circumstances. You can make them heavier and heavier and make a tank car that would withstand those forces, but you wouldn’t be able to carry much crude oil in it.”

Products considerably more hazardous are routinely and legally transported in DOT-111 cars and Bakken crude should continue to be classified and transported like any other Class 3 flammable liquid under the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR), said the AFPM.

“Bakken crude oil currently is transported in compliance with the HMR as a Class 3 Flammable Liquid in either Packing Group I, II, or III. In conclusion, there is no identifiable basis for regulating Bakken crude differently than other flammable liquids regulated by the DOT Hazardous Materials Regulations,” says the AFPM submission to DOT.

The AFPM report included an assessment of routine assays performed by its own members in the course of loading and receiving Bakken crude. With just one exceptionally high concentration of hydrogen sulfide among the 1,400 samples drawn between loading terminals and destination refineries, the AFPM concludes that Bakken crude falls comfortably within Class 3 Flammable Liquid specifications for carriage in DOT-111 cars. Furthermore, the DOT-111 was a safe vessel for any flavor of crude oil—providing railroads keep the cars on the tracks.

“Bakken crude oil was found to be well within the limits for what is acceptable for transportation as a flammable liquid,” the AFPM reported. “Bakken crude oil was compared with other light crude oils and determined to be within the norm in the case of light hydrocarbon content, including dissolved flammable gases. Measured tank car pressures show that even the older DOT-111s authorized to transport Bakken crude oil are built with a wide margin of safety relative to the pressures that rail tanks may experience when transporting Bakken crude oil.”

The report relies substantially on the “Reid Vapor Pressure” test, which was abandoned in 1990 for U.S. hazmat classification in favor of the dual criteria of whether a material is liquid or gas at 20°C (68°F) or, alternatively, has a vapor pressure of more than 300 kPa (43.5 psia) at 50°C (122°F). The Reid test remains a common industry measure of vapor pressure at 100°F (38°C) and transposes accurately to the HMR-approved pressure scale, says the AFPM.

“AFPM and its members appreciate the concerns raised in relation to rail transport of Bakken crude oil and stand ready to work cooperatively with DOT and other governmental organizations to ensure the safe transportation of Bakken crude oil,” the report says. “This survey shows that Bakken crude oil does not pose risks that are significantly different than other crude oils and other flammable liquids authorized for transportation as flammable liquids.”

BNSF Railway: Future of crude by rail depends on safety

Repost from The Kansas City Star
[Editor: Significant quote by BNSF Executive Chairman Matt Rose: “Without focus on the elements of safety, the social license to haul crude by rail will disappear, to say nothing of the regulatory agencies’ response.”  – RS]

BNSF: Future of crude by rail depends on safety

James MacPherson, The Associated Press | 2014-05-21

— The future of crude oil shipments by train depends on proving to the public that it can be done safely, the head of BNSF Railway Co. said Wednesday.

“Without focus on the elements of safety, the social license to haul crude by rail will disappear, to say nothing of the regulatory agencies’ response,” BNSF Executive Chairman Matt Rose told several hundred people at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck.

BNSF is based in Fort Worth, Texas, but is part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., based in Omaha, Nebraska. The railroad is the biggest player in the rich oil fields of Montana and North Dakota, hauling about 75 percent of the more than 1 million barrels that moves out of the region daily.

Rose told the conference that the railroad is committed to preventing accidents like its Dec. 30 crash outside Casselton that left an ominous cloud over the town and led some residents to evacuate. The disaster in the small town west of Fargo was one of at least eight major accidents during the last year, including an explosion of Bakken crude in Lac-Megantic, Quebec that killed 47 people. Other trains carrying Bakken crude have since derailed and caught fire in Alabama, New Brunswick and Virginia.

Rose last month joined U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx at the North Dakota crash site, where options for enhancing tank car standards were discussed.

The crash occurred when a train carrying soybeans derailed in front of a BNSF oil train, causing that train to also derail and set off fiery explosions. The crash spilled about 400,000 gallons of crude oil, which took nearly three months to clean up.

Rose said the railroad has learned from the disaster and has done such things as decreased train speeds in some areas and increased inspections. The railroad also announced in February that it would voluntarily purchase a fleet a of 5,000 strengthened tank cars to improve safety for hazardous materials shipments. The company said it hoped to accelerate the transition to a new generation of safer tank cars and give manufacturers a head start in designing them as federal officials consider changes to the current standards.

Not everyone in the oil sector is eager to transition to stronger tank cars. At the expo a day earlier, Kari Cutting, vice president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said it was “not proven that extra steel is going to prevent those breaches.”

Cutting also said the newer, stronger DOT-111 tank cars have 14 percent less capacity than older tank cars. Cutting said making those cars the standard will require hundreds more trains to make up the lost volume, actually increasing the risk of accidents.

Oil from North Dakota began being shipped by trains in 2008 when the state reached capacity for pipeline shipments. The state is now the nation’s No. 2 oil producer, behind Texas.

BNSF said it plans to invest $5 billion in its railroad this year, including $900 million to expand capacity where crude oil shipments are surging. Its 2014 spending plan is about $1 billion more than last year, a record, Rose said.

Much of the upgrades will be aimed at safety, he said.

“BNSF believes, at the end of the day, that every rail accident is preventable,” Rose said.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/05/21/5037936/bnsf-future-of-crude-by-rail-depends.html#storylink=cpy

Vancouver City Council urged to oppose Tesoro oil terminal

Repost rom The Columbian
[Editor: The resolution is expected to pass.  – RS]

In Our View: Stopping the Oil Terminal

Vancouver City Council should formally adopt its opposition to proposed project

May 19, 2014

After months of limbering up, members of the Vancouver City Council have taken a swing at a proposed oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver — and smacked one out of the park. Councilors have prepared a draft resolution weighing in on the deal reached last year between port officials and Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies. They have opposed the proposal in no uncertain terms and have urged government entities that have a say in the matter to rule against it.

The draft resolution will be discussed by the council during a workshop Monday and will receive a public hearing on June 2; council members are expected to vote on the resolution June 16. And while the city has no official decision-making capacity regarding the oil terminal — which would handle up to 380,000 barrels of crude oil per day, arriving by train from the Bakken formation in North Dakota — it has effectively distilled the arguments against the idea. Among the items included in the resolution’s 37 “whereas” statements:

• “Human error, acts of nature and unforeseen disasters are beyond the control of measures proposed for the Vancouver oil terminal project and could have devastating effects on the entire community.”

• There have been several well-documented derailments and explosions of trains carrying Bakken crude, including one in Quebec that killed 47 people.

• The city has invested heavily in a proposed Columbia Waterfront Development, a $1.3 billion project that would result in commercial, residential, and recreational outlets along the banks of the Columbia River — just upriver from the terminal site and in the shadow of the rail tracks used by oil trains.

Each of these is an important aspect deserving of consideration, but the most valid argument from city officials is this: “Whereas the City has a paramount interest in the health, safety and welfare of its citizens and believes that the development of the proposed Tesoro Savage crude by rail oil terminal is contrary to the health, safety and welfare of its citizens and business community.”

These talking points have been presented previously by some on the city council and by many members of the public. But formal adoption of the resolution by council members (four of the seven members have expressed opposition to the terminal) would go a long way toward stopping it in its tracks. The state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council is reviewing the proposal and will make a recommendation to Gov. Jay Inslee, who will have the final say regarding approval. The city council’s resolution urges both EFSEC and the governor to decline certification of the terminal, and it also urges federal and state lawmakers to tighten regulations regarding the transportation of crude oil.

Most intriguingly, council members request that the Port of Vancouver terminate its lease with Tesoro and Savage. The ability of port officials to do that remains open to interpretation — in part because the lease released to The Columbian under a public-records request contains heavily redacted portions. It is difficult to assess the legal obligations of the port under such a veil of secrecy, which is another reason to question the terminal proposal. If Tesoro and Savage cannot trust the public to know the details, it’s unlikely the public will trust the companies to act in the best interest of the community.

The reasons for opposing the oil terminal are sound and well-considered, having undergone months of scrutiny and discussion. The Vancouver City Council would be wise to formally adopt its opposition.