Tag Archives: Lac-Mégantic

Bakken Crude, Bridge safety, Crude By Rail, Derailment, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs), Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail inspection

Sen. Schumer: Urgent need for more railroad bridge inspectors

Repost from The Daily Freeman, Kingston NY

Sen. Schumer: Urgent need for more railroad bridge inspectors

By Kyle Hughes, NYSNYS News, 04/09/15, 9:26 PM EDT

ALBANY >> Senator Charles Schumer said Thursday there’s an urgent need for more federal railroad bridge inspectors, saying the combination of old infrastructure and oil trains is an accident waiting to happen.

Schumer said there are 3,000 rail bridges in New York, most of them privately owned, and only one federal inspector assigned to monitor them for safety purposes. The inspector is also responsible for overseeing rail bridges in 13 other states.

“New York as you know has some of the oldest and most frequently used infrastructure in the nation hands down and that is particularly true when it comes to rail,” he told reporters in a conference call. “Part of the reason is we are an older state. Another reason is New York has always been a vital geographic link between the Midwest and the East Coast.”

Schumer said that adding $1 million to the Federal Railroad Administration budget would double the number of available inspectors. He said public roadway bridges in New York must be inspected every other year, and private rail bridges must be inspected by their owners annually, subject to federal oversight.

But he said the FRA doesn’t have the resources to properly oversee the rail system.

“It’s not that expensive a price for safety,” Schumer said. “The bottom line we all know is simple: We should not be waiting for a derailment or a horrific collapse to do something to make sure our train bridges are safe, privately owned or otherwise.”

He said 2,158 of the 3,000 rail bridges are in upstate New York, including 281 in the Capital Region, 261 in Central New York and 307 in the Hudson Valley. Even in the sparsely populated northern region of the state, there are 144 privately owned rail bridges.

“For years agriculture states in the Midwest have been transporting their products on New York rail lines, but recently, of course, oil producing states like North Dakota have been shipping millions of gallons of crude oil across New York to the east Coast and Canadian refineries as extraction has surged from the Bakken formation,” Schumer said.

He said the shipments and the wear and tear on New York rail infrastructure “should caution us to make rail infrastructure safety a priority. Especially our rail bridges which are the most vulnerable to deterioration and present the greatest risk.”

“So far we’ve been lucky … [but] it’s very likely many of the bridges are deteriorating and some of them may be deteriorating fast.”

He said bridge failures and derailments could occur, and cited the accidents in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in July 2013 that killed 47 people and a more recent explosive oil train disaster in Lynchburg, VA.

Schumer also released a letter Thursday to the FRA pledging support for increasing funding for rail safety. The letter said there are an estimated 70,000-100,000 privately owned rail bridges in the U.S.

Oil train traffic has increased annually in New York each year as production in the western U.S. and Canada has boomed. Experts say the U.S. in on track to replace Saudia Arabia and Russia as the world’s biggest oil producer by 2017.

Besides oil, other dangerous substances are shipped by rail, including liquefied natural gas and ethanol. A 2009 derailment of 13 ethanol cars in Illinois killed one person and caused 600 homes to be evacuated and $8 million in damage.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail routing

Swinomish tribe sues to permanently ban Bakken oil trains

Repost from The Seattle Times

Swinomish tribe sues to block Bakken oil trains

A federal lawsuit filed by the Swinomish Indian tribe seeks to ban BNSF Railway from transporting Bakken crude oil across tribal lands. The line in question carries oil trains to the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes.

By Hal Bernton, April 7, 2015 at 8:37 pm, Updated April 8, 2015 at 12:10 pm
A view of the Tesoro refinery, as seen from Cap Sante lookout in Anacortes. Photographed on July 16, 2012. (John Lok / The Seattle Times)
A view of the Tesoro refinery, as seen from Cap Sante lookout in Anacortes. Photographed on July 16, 2012. (John Lok / The Seattle Times)

The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community on Tuesday went to federal court to block BNSF Railway from sending 100-car oil trains through reservation lands, claiming the company is violating an easement that sharply restricts rail traffic.

The easement signed by the railway’s predecessor company in 1991 permits only two trains a day of 25 cars or less from transiting the reservation. It also calls for the railroad company to get permission from the tribe to increase traffic.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle asks the court to permanently ban the railroad from shipping Bakken shale crude oil across tribal land, asserting that the railroad never sought permission for the oil trains.

“A deal is a deal,” said Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby in a statement released Tuesday. “Our signatures were on the agreement with BNSF, so were theirs. So was the United States. But despite all that, BNSF began running its Bakken oil trains across the reservation without asking, and without even telling us.”

The Swinomish rail line that traverses tribal land on Fidalgo Island enables trains to reach a Tesoro refinery in nearby Anacortes.

A BNSF spokesman, in a statement released Tuesday said, “We have received the complaint and are reviewing it.”

The tribal lawsuit is part of an intensifying backlash in Washington and elsewhere in North America against shipping Bakken shale crude from North Dakota and Montana. Production from those fields has surged with the development of new fracking techniques.

Since 2013, a series of train derailments resulted in fiery explosions of Bakken crude, with four of those accidents occurring since early February. Bakken crude has a higher volatility than many other crudes, due to elevated levels of gases such as ethane, propane and butane

At Seattle’s Emergency Operations Center on Tuesday, Mayor Ed Murray, King County Executive Dow Constantine and other officials joined U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to discuss threats posed by these accidents.

“In Canada nearly two years ago, a mile-long train derailed and the ensuing explosion cost 47 people their lives,” Cantwell said. “That blast leveled a half-mile radius. If that happened in Seattle, the effects would be catastrophic.”

“In Seattle, an incident of this type could impact tens of thousands of residents.”

Cantwell introduced legislation last month that would require the federal Transportation Department to regulate the volatility of crude oil shipped by trains.

The bill also would increase funding for first responders and require more disclosures from railroads about train routes. The railroads would also have to plan for worst-case derailment scenarios.

In Washington last year, up to 19 trains a week crossed parts of the state with crude oil that ends up at state or California refineries.

Some of those trains now cross Swinomish lands on the way to the Tesoro refinery. The number of those trains could rise if Shell gets approval for a rail facility at its refinery in Anacortes.

As the trains move through tribal lands, they pass close by a casino, a lodge and other development.

“Based on the demonstrated hazards” of Bakken shale crude, the tribe is “justifiably and gravely concerned” with the oil shipments, the lawsuit asserts.

The railroad’s 1991 easement across the reservation lands resulted from the settlement of an earlier tribal lawsuit that alleged that BNSF’s predecessor company was trespassing on their lands with its trains during most of the past century.

The settlement called for periodic railroad disclosures “as different products, or commodities, are added or deleted.” It also called on the tribe not to “arbitrarily withhold permission to increase the number of trains or cars when necessary to meet shipper needs.”

The crude-oil shipments across tribal lands began in late 2011, but tribal officials said they were never informed in advance, and have never authorized that train traffic.

“We told BNSF to stop, again and again,” Cladoosby said. “It’s unacceptable for BNSF to put our people and our way of life at risk without regard to the agreement we established in good faith.”

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Environmental review, Marine transport, Oil Industry, Oil storage, Pipeline transport, Pittsburg WesPac, WesPac Midstream LLC

Pittsburg CA: Critics blast proposed oil terminal, even without Bakken crude trains

Repost from The Contra Costa Times
[Editor:  Significant quote: “WesPac officials said they dropped inbound crude oil shipments by rail from their plans for several reasons, including public sentiment against it, an unstable regulatory environment surrounding those shipments, and drops in crude oil prices that have made such shipments less economically viable.”  – RS]

Pittsburg: Critics blast proposed oil terminal, even without Bakken crude trains

By Sam Richards, 04/07/2015 12:31:04 PM PDT

PITTSBURG — Train loads of Bakken crude oil are no longer in the plans for a proposed oil storage terminal near the waterfront, but that does not mean the project is being welcomed to town with open arms.

The City Council voted 5-0 Monday night to approve amending the environmental report for WesPac Midstream LLC’s proposed Pittsburg Terminal Project, which would renovate and modernize a long-dormant PG&E tank farm between West 10th Street and the Sacramento River waterfront.

The key change is that the five previously planned 104-car trains of domestic oil, mostly the volatile Bakken crude, are no longer part of the project. The new EIR will reflect that.

Councilman Sal Evola stressed that the vote reflected the council’s desire for “the process” to play out and fully vet the proposal.

“Every project at least deserves its fair process,” Evola said. “I’m all for preserving our industrial base, but we have to do it safely, and fair process is needed.”

Others were less interested in process, saying the WesPac proposal to bring an average of 242,000 barrels of crude or partially refined crude oil to be unloaded daily from ships and from pipelines, and stored in 16 tanks on 125 acres, is a problem for various reasons.

Speakers told the council that vapors from the storage tanks, the possibility of spills into the Sacramento Delta and the danger of the tanks exploding — all near hundreds of downtown homes — are potential issues, and that the project should simply be rejected.

“The only way you can mitigate this project is not do it,” said Willie Mims, representing the NAACP and the Black Political Association.

And though some at the meeting Monday night are grateful that WesPac that no longer plans to bring crude oil to the terminal by rail, others told the council that leaving out rail shipments doesn’t come close to salvaging the project. Some 30 people holding up “No WesPac” signs or wearing similar T-shirts crowded the council meeting.

Without the trains, the Pittsburg Terminal Project would now take oil from ships and a pipeline from the Central Valley and store it for later processing by refineries in Martinez, Benicia, Rodeo and Richmond.

Pamela Aranz of Antioch, representing the group Global Community Monitor, was one of several speakers who criticized the WesPac proposal as a dinosaur — old-fashioned, with increasingly outmoded technology. Others said the oil terminal would be at cross purposes with a nicely developing downtown area. Developing wind and/or solar power on that land, Aranz and others said, would make better sense.

Plans for the Pittsburg Terminal Project, first proposed in 2011, had been dormant for the past year, after local groups like Pittsburg Defense Council had protested the prospect of trains carrying volatile Bakken crude oil rolling in to the city. Communities across the United States — including Pittsburg, Richmond and Berkeley — have come out in opposed to crude by rail shipments through their cities after several high-profile derailments, including one in Lac Mégantic, Quebec, in 2013 killed 47 people and destroyed part of that city.

The new environmental report, to be paid for by WesPac, will replace an earlier one that was criticized in 2014 by the state Attorney General’s office because it did not suitably analyze air pollution impacts, address the risks of accidents involving storing and moving oil, consider the project’s climate change impacts, and consider a “reasonable range of alternatives” that could reduce impacts. WesPac officials said they dropped inbound crude oil shipments by rail from their plans for several reasons, including public sentiment against it, an unstable regulatory environment surrounding those shipments, and drops in crude oil prices that have made such shipments less economically viable.

If the needed approvals come at a typical pace, renovation work at the old PG&E tanks could begin in early 2016, and likely would take between 18 and 24 months.

Representatives from several area labor union locals supported moving ahead with the environmental study. Some said Monday night they wanted the jobs, both to rebuild the terminal and to operate it. Others said they favored the environmental process determining whether the terminal would be a safe place for union workers to be.

That, Evola said, is one benefit of continuing the process. “We want to be overly transparent,” he said.

That is fine with Lisa Graham and other members of Pittsburg Defense Council.

“We’ll be shining a bright spotlight on the project in the coming months,” she said.

Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Ethanol, Federal Regulation (U.S.), National Transportation Safety Board, Oil Industry, Tank car retirement, Tank car retrofit

NTSB: Equip oil trains with fire protection within 5 years

Repost from McClatchyDC
[Editor:   Bloomberg adds coverage of NTSB comments on the inadequacies of the CPC-1232 tank cars.  – RS]

NTSB: Equip oil trains with fire protection within 5 years

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, April 6, 2015
US NEWS RAILSAFETY-CA 2 SA
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. (Randall Benton/Sacramento Bee/MCT)

The National Transportation Safety Board on Monday called for the nation’s fleet of railroad tank cars hauling crude oil and ethanol to be equipped with fire protection within five years in an effort to eliminate the large explosions associated with recent accidents.

The NTSB cited the performance of tank cars in four recent oil train derailments, two in the U.S. and two in Canada, where fire exposure weakened the bare steel tanks and increased the pressure inside the cars beyond what they were designed to sustain.

The agency called on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to require tank cars carrying oil and ethanol to be equipped with a ceramic blanket and high-capacity pressure-relief devices.

The NTSB also for the first time endorsed a five-year timeline for retrofitting or replacing the tank cars, including the goal that 20 percent of the fleet be made compliant per year. Industry groups representing oil producers and refiners have pushed for a 10-year timeline.

“We can’t wait a decade for safer rail cars,” NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart said in a statement. “The industry needs to make this issue a priority and expedite the safety enhancements, otherwise, we continue to put our communities at risk.”

In January, the NTSB added tank cars to its “ Most Wanted” list of safety improvements. But at the time, Hart wouldn’t say what the NTSB considered an appropriate timeline for making the fixes.

The independent board, which has only advisory power, has been recommending upgrades to the nation’s workhorse tank car, called the DOT-111, for more than 20 years.

The car’s design became an issue after railroads across North America began hauling exponentially larger volumes of crude oil and ethanol. An oil train derailment that killed 47 people in Quebec in July 2013 galvanized a new effort on both sides of the border to improve the cars.

In February, the Transportation Department sent a package of proposed regulations to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. They include requirements for thermal protection on the tank cars and are similar to a tank car design the Canadian government proposed last month. The final rule is scheduled for publication next month.

In the meantime, four trains carrying different types of crude oil derailed in the span of four weeks. The derailments, two in Ontario, and one each in West Virginia and Illinois, led to spills, fires and evacuations.

Oil industry groups have called for more attention to preventing derailments and less emphasis on the cars and what’s in them. But the tank car improvements have widespread support from lawmakers, regulators, mayors and governors, the rail industry and the NTSB.

In statements Monday, Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Peter DeFazio, both Oregon Democrats, praised the NTSB’s recommendations.

“I am very happy to see that they recommended thermal protection for cars carrying hazardous materials, an aggressive retrofit or replacement schedule, and a transparent, publicly available reporting mechanism to report tank car replacement,” DeFazio said.

“It is my hope that the next step from the administration will be a strong DOT rule that will get these cars upgraded quickly, or get them off the tracks completely,” Wyden said.

The railroad industry’s leading advocacy group in Washington echoed those calls.

“The freight rail industry supports an aggressive retrofit or replacement program and believes final regulations on new tank car standards will provide certainty and chart a new course in the safer movement of crude oil by rail,” said Ed Greenberg, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, in a statement.