Saskatchewan train derailment cars same as those in Lac-Megantic disaster
WADENA, Sask. — The Canadian Press, Oct. 09 2014
A CN freight train carrying dangerous goods is shown after it derailed in central Saskatchewan, near the towns of Wadena and Clair, on Tuesday, October 7, 2014. (Alison J. Squires/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
CN Rail says the tanker cars that derailed and caught fire this week near a small community in Saskatchewan are the same type as those involved in the Lac Megantic disaster last year.
Jim Feeny says the Class DOT-111 rail cars are owned by shippers or leasing companies and CN has no choice but to accept them.
Almost three-quarters of the tanker cars used in North America are 111s.
Feeny says regulators on both sides of the border have laid out a time frame to replace the older cars, but it will take time.
“We are on record as favouring a very aggressive phase-out of the older model DOT-111s, but we are required to accept these cars at this point,” Feeny told radio station CKRM Thursday.
“We are required to operate them. We have no choice in that matter. We are calling on the industry and the federal government to phase them out, but the fact is, there are many of them, and it will take time to do this.”
Both CN and CP have said they are already phasing out or retrofitting their fleet.
Dozens of people had to leave their homes this week in Clair, Sask., and surrounding area when 26 cars derailed and two of them carrying petroleum distillate caught fire.
Forty-seven people were killed when a runaway train carrying crude oil barrelled down a hill, derailed and exploded in downtown Lac Megantic in July 2013.
The Association of American Railroads has recommended that the 111s used to transport flammable liquids be retrofitted or phased out and wants a reinforced standard for new tank cars.
The 111 car is considered the workhorse of the North American fleet and makes up about 70 per cent of all tankers on the rails. The cars have a service life of between 30 and 40 years.
Since October 2011, all new tanker cars have been built to safer specifications. But there is a long backlog on new car orders because there are only a handful of manufacturers in North America.
A government-commissioned report has said there are about 228,000 DOT-111 cars in service throughout North America. About 92,000 of them carry flammable liquids.
About 26,000 reinforced models have been put into service and that’s expected to rise to 52,500 next year.
Adam Scott, a spokesman for the advocacy group Environmental Defence, said Canada has seen an exponential growth in the amount of oil travelling by rail.
“The rail system was not designed with public safety in mind for that much oil,” said Scott, who added that the DOT-111 cars are generally used.
“They have well-documented safety problems,” he said. “They are very thin and in crashes they do tend to leak and explode.”
Scott said freight rail lines “actually go right through the centre of almost every major urban centre in the entire country including small towns … so the risk of accidents is significant.”
California Attorney General Kamala Harris blasts Benicia crude-by-rail project
By Tony Burchyns, 10/08/2014
California Attorney General Kamala Harris has blasted Benicia’s environmental review of Valero’s crude-by-rail project, claiming it underestimates safety risks and relies on an overly broad definition of trade secrets in failing to disclose the types of volatile crudes to be shipped.
In a letter to the city last week, Harris said Benicia’s safety analysis was inadequate because it only considers “a fraction” of the rail miles that would be traveled by oil trains headed to the city’s Valero refinery. Harris also faults the city for relying on Valero’s “unenforceable” promise to use newer, safer tank cars that are not currently required by federal regulations.
The letter follows similar critical comments from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response and the Public Utilities Commission. Those agencies called on the city to redo its safety analysis before allowing the refinery to receive two 50-car oil trains a day that would travel through Roseville and other parts of Northern California.
Also, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, the cities of Davis and Sacramento and the University of California at Davis have sent letters to Benicia expressing concerns about the project.
Valero is seeking city permits to build a rail terminal that would allow the refinery to receive up to 70,000 barrels of crude daily from North American sources such as the Bakken shale in North Dakota and tar sands in Canada.
According to Valero, the rail shipments would replace oil deliveries by boat and allow the refinery to remain competitive on the West Coast.
Benicia is one of at least 12 crude-by-rail related projects that are either operational or being considered in California — including in Richmond, Pittsburg, Martinez, Santa Maria, Stockton, Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Wilmington and Sacramento, according to the attorney general’s office.
Harris, whose duties include enforcing the California Environmental Quality Act, contends the city’s project analysis fails to analyze air pollution impacts from the foreseeable change in crude oils that would be processed at the refinery. It also faulted the city for limiting the scope of its rail safety analysis to 69 miles of track between Roseville and Benicia, and failing to consider cumulative impacts from other crude-by-rail projects proposed in California.
The letter also criticized the city’s finding that the risk of train spills of more than 100 gallons between Roseville and Benicia would be once in 111 years. Critics have said the analysis is flawed because it relies on rail safety data that predates the nation’s crude-by-rail boom.
“This boom in crude oil being transported by rail has corresponded with a major increase in the number of accidents involving such trains,” the letter states. “In 2013 alone, trains spilled 1.1 million gallons of crude oil, a 72 percent increase over the total amount of oil spilled by rail in the nearly four previous decades combined.”
The letter cites notorious spills such as the July 2013 derailment and explosion in Quebec that killed 47 people and destroyed a downtown. Other derailments in Aliceville, Ala., Casselton, N.D., and Lynchburg, Va. resulted in explosions and fires.
Harris also said the city’s nondisclosure of the characteristics of the crude oil to be processed at the refinery undermines states environmental laws by preventing the public to assess the nature of the project’s risks. Further, Harris said the broad grant of trade secret protection conflicts with recent decisions this year by state and federal agencies that the characteristics of crude oil traveling by rail should be publicly released.
“Benicia’s nondisclosure of this information deprives both the public and Benicia officials of the informed decision making process that is the ‘heart’ of (the California Environmental Quality Act),” the letter states.
Benicia has declined to comment on letters received during the report’s public comment phase. However, the city plans to respond to written and verbal comments before the project’s next public hearing.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris challenges Benicia oil train analysis
By Tony Bizjak, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014
A crude oil train operated by BNSF snakes its way through James, California, just outside the Feather River Canyon in the foothills of Sacramento Valley, on June 5, 2014. The potential environmental and safety risks posed by such trains continues to elicit debate. | Jake Miille / Special to The Bee/Jake Miille
California Attorney General Kamala Harris has joined the list of state and local government officials challenging Benicia’s review of plans to bring crude oil on trains to a local refinery.
In a letter last week to Benicia, Harris said the city’s draft environmental impact report “fails to properly account for many of the project’s potentially significant impacts.”
Benicia is conducting an environmental review of a plan by Valero Refining Company to build a crude oil transfer station on its Benicia plant site, so it can transport two 50-car crude oil trains a day through Northern California to the refinery for processing.
In the report, Benicia officials conclude the project’s oil spill risk along the rail line is insignificant. The state Office of Spill Prevention and Response and state Public Utilities Commission already have challenged the report, calling it inadequate. The Sacramento Area Council of Governments has challenged Benicia’s analysis, as well. All three criticize the Benicia report for only looking at the spill risks between Roseville and Benicia, failing to study rail lines all the way to the state border.
Harris’ letter repeats most of the earlier criticisms, including the contention that the report “underestimates the probability of an accidental release from the project by considering only a fraction of the rail miles traveled when calculating the risk of a derailment.”
“These issues must be addressed and corrected before the City Council of Benicia takes action” on the project,” Harris states.
The letter is one of hundreds Benicia officials said they received in the past few months in response to their initial environmental study. Benicia interim Community Development Director Dan Marks said the city and its consultants would review the comments and prepare responses to all of them, then bring those responses to the city Planning Commission for discussion at an as-yet undetermined date.
Under the Valero proposal, trains would carry about 1.4 million gallons of crude oil daily to the Benicia refinery from U.S. and possibly Canadian oil fields, where it would be turned into gasoline and diesel fuel. Valero officials have said they hope to win approval from the city of Benicia to build a crude oil transfer station at the refinery by early next year, allowing them to replace more costly marine oil shipments with cheaper oil.
Crude oil rail shipments have come under national scrutiny in the last year. Several spectacular explosions of crude oil trains, including one that killed 47 residents of a Canadian town last year, have prompted a push by federal officials and cities along rail lines for safety improvements.
A representative for the attorney general declined comment when asked if Harris would consider suing Benicia to force more study of the project.
“We believe the letter speaks for itself,” spokesman Nicholas Pacilio said. “We expect it will be taken seriously.”
Repost from The Wall Street Journal [Editor: Following the money… WSJ’s important analysis of refinery trends in California includes a brief discussion of current and proposed projects, including Valero Benicia, with quotes by Valero spokesperson Bill Day and Andrés Soto on behalf of Benicians For a Safe and Healthy Community. Significant quote: “Opposition over safety has drawn out the permitting process in some cases, making some companies rethink their strategies. Valero Energy Corp. in March canceled plans to build an oil-train terminal near its Los Angeles refinery. But Valero still hopes to add a terminal to the company’s Benicia, Calif., plant, 35 miles northeast of San Francisco. ¶“Every day that goes by that we’re not able to bring in lower cost North American oil, is another day that the Benicia refinery suffers competitively,” says spokesman Bill Day. The state last month asked Benicia for another safety review to better forecast the potential for derailments and other accidents.” – RS]
California Finally to Reap Fracking’s Riches
Crude-by-Rail From Bakken Shale Is Poised to Reverse State Refiners’ Rising Imports
By Alison Sider and Cassandra Sweet, Oct. 7, 2014
Tanker cars line up in Bakersfield, Calif., where Alon USA Energy recently received permission to build the state’s biggest oil-train terminal. The Bakersfield Californian/Associated Press
For the past decade, the U.S. shale boom has mostly passed by California, forcing oil refiners in the state to import expensive crude.
Now that’s changing as energy companies overcome opposition to forge ahead with rail depots that will get oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale.
Thanks in large measure to hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. has reduced oil imports from countries such as Iraq and Russia by 30% over the last decade. Yet in California, imports have shot up by a third to account for more than half the state’s oil supply.
“California refineries arguably have the most expensive crude slate in North America,” says David Hackett, president of energy consulting firm Stillwater Associates.
Part of the problem is that no major oil pipelines run across the Rocky Mountains connecting the state to fracking wells in the rest of the country. And building pipelines is a lengthy, expensive process.
Railroads are transporting a rising tide of low-price shale oil from North Dakota and elsewhere to the East and Gulf coasts, helping to keep a lid on prices for gasoline and other refined products.
Yet while California has enough track to carry in crude, the state doesn’t have enough terminals to unload the oil from tanker cars and transfer it to refineries on site or by pipeline or truck.
Just 500,000 barrels of oil a month, or 1% of California’s supply, moves by rail to the state today. New oil-train terminals by 2016 could draw that much in a day, if company proposals are successful.
Bakken oil since April has been about $15 a barrel cheaper than crude from Alaska and abroad, according to commodities-pricing service Platts. That would cover the $12 a barrel that it costs to ship North Dakota crude to California by rail, according to research firm Argus.
The state’s lengthy permitting process has contributed to the shortage of oil-train terminals. Some California lawmakers also want to impose fees on oil trains to pay for firefighting equipment and training to deal with derailments and explosions. And community and environmental activists have been waging war on oil trains. The dangers of carrying hazardous materials by rail were underscored Tuesday when a train carrying petroleum derailed in Canada.
But energy companies recently won two hard-fought victories that will pave the way for California to get more crude by rail.
Kern County officials last month gave Alon USA Energy Inc. permission to build the state’s biggest oil-train terminal. That project, which the company hopes to finish next year, is designed to receive 150,000 barrels of oil a day in Bakersfield, Calif., 110 miles north of Los Angeles.
The site was home to an asphalt refinery until 2012 when Alon shut it down because it struggled to turn a profit. Alon plans to reconfigure and restart the plant, but much of the oil transported there by train will move by pipeline to other companies’ refineries in California.
Plains All American Pipeline LP says it plans to open a 70,000-barrel-a-day oil-train terminal in Bakersfield this month.
And in northern California, a judge last month dismissed a lawsuit brought by environmental groups that challenged Kinder Morgan Inc.’s rail permits. The company is now receiving oil trains at a Richmond, Calif., terminal near San Francisco that was built to handle ethanol.
Opposition over safety has drawn out the permitting process in some cases, making some companies rethink their strategies. Valero Energy Corp. in March canceled plans to build an oil-train terminal near its Los Angeles refinery. But Valero still hopes to add a terminal to the company’s Benicia, Calif., plant, 35 miles northeast of San Francisco.
“Every day that goes by that we’re not able to bring in lower cost North American oil, is another day that the Benicia refinery suffers competitively,” says spokesman Bill Day. The state last month asked Benicia for another safety review to better forecast the potential for derailments and other accidents.
Several oil-train explosions in the last 15 months—including last year’s blast in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people—have struck fear in many residents along rail corridors.
“These railcars are not safe at any speed,” says Andrés Soto, a musician from Benicia who has helped organize campaigns against several oil-train projects. “We don’t see that there’s any way that they can actually make these projects fail-safe.”
Environmental-impact challenges have been one means that groups have used to delay oil trains.
Pittsburg, Calif., officials say WesPac Midstream LLC’s proposed oil-train terminal is on hold after the state attorney general asked for an expanded environmental review. The company is gathering answers for regulators and hopes to gain approval and start accepting oil trains at the site by late 2016, 40 miles east of San Francisco, a WesPac spokesman says.
Even if oil trains are kept off California tracks, more fracked crude still could flow to California. A 360,000-barrel-a-day oil-train terminal in Vancouver, Wash., aims to transfer North Dakota crude from tanker cars to barges that will sail the Columbia River about 100 miles northwest to the Pacific Ocean. From there, it is a quick trip down the coast to California ports.
That project also has faced stiff headwinds. Refiner Tesoro Corp. and transportation provider Savage Cos. were forced to postpone the start for the Vancouver terminal because of approval delays. While the governor hasn’t approved the project, the companies say they expect to be up and running next year.
Part of the problem is that no major oil pipelines run across the Rocky Mountains connecting the state to fracking wells in the rest of the country. And building pipelines is a lengthy, expensive process.