By Christina Jedra, July 8, 2015, 9:57pm
Port Deposit, MD — A Norfolk-Southern train transporting crude oil heads north through Port Deposit past a railroad crossing near the U.S. Post Office. Amy Davis / Baltimore Sun (Amy Davis / Baltimore Sun)
The City Council held its first public hearing Wednesday on the safety of shipping crude oil through Baltimore, with environmental advocates expressing concern about the practice.
“Right now, we are in a blast zone,” said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “City Hall is in a blast zone.”
According to advocates, 165,000 Baltimore residents live within a one-mile radius of train routes that are potentially vulnerable to explosions from crude oil train derailments.
City Council Vice President Edward Reisinger said the informational hearing was called to evaluate the threat the shipments pose to the city.
Reisinger said recent derailments — such as one in Quebec in July 2013 that killed 47 people in a massive explosion — are cause for concern. He also pointed to an April 2014 derailment in Lynchburg, Va., that spilled thousands of gallons of crude oil into the James River.
The hearing Wednesday evening at City Hall lasted about two hours. Dozens of advocates — many from the climate action network and Clean Water Action — held a rally outside earlier.
“It’s not a matter of if another oil train will derail … it’s only a question of when,” said the Rev. Amy Sens of six:eight United Church of Christ.
The Maryland Department of the Environment recently denied an application by a Houston-based company to ship crude oil through Baltimore’s port terminal near Fairfield. A Connecticut-based company, Axeon Specialty Products, ships tens of millions of gallons of crude oil through the terminal.
It’s not known how much crude oil is shipped through the city or state. Norfolk Southern and CSX sued the state agency to prevent it from releasing the information.
Tidwell said the “No. 1 thing” advocates want is transparency — knowing the quantities, routes and times that hazardous materials are transported in local areas.
Trisha Sheehan, the regional field manager of Moms Clear Air Force, said she would like to see trains rerouted away from “vulnerable populations,” such as hospitals and schools, and a transition to renewable energy sources.
City emergency management officials answered questions for council members. Executives from rail companies, including Norfolk Southern and CSX, also were invited to attend.
Jon Kenney, a community organizer for the climate action network, said the hearing was necessary to raise public attention.
“Residents of Baltimore want [the council] to take action on oil trains in their communities,” Kenney said. “We have been talking to community members who live along the rail routes, and they are concerned. The rail companies are keeping everyone in the dark.”
Reisinger said the council can take little action to influence the sorts of shipments made along rail lines. Still, he said, it is important to discuss how prepared the city and the companies are to safeguard communities from future accidents.
Dave Pidgeon, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern, said company officials recognize that communities like Baltimore look to them to operate the rail lines safely. He said Norfolk Southern has long had a record of safe delivery of hazardous materials.
“This country depends on the railroads to operate safely,” he said. “That is something we have to shoulder.”
He declined to say how much crude oil Norfolk Southern transports through Baltimore, citing safety concerns, among other reasons. Crude oil makes up less than 2 percent of the company’s total traffic, he said.
He said the company works to make sure the shipments it delivers are carried on tank cars that meet the strictest safety standards.
“We have no choice,” Pidgeon said. “We have to haul hazardous material, including crude oil. If a customer gives us a tank car that meets safety standards, we have to haul it. There’s no question.”
Great news out of Baltimore: Maryland puts proposed crude oil terminal on hold
Great news out of Baltimore! Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) put the permits for the proposed crude oil terminal that we’ve been fighting on hold! MDE actually listened to our public comments saying that crude oil trains were way more dangerous than they previously thought, so they asked more questions for the company before issuing a final permit in the future. There will be plenty of opportunities to comment if the company decides to proceed with their plan to ship crude oil.
For now, the expansion of crude by rail in Maryland is on hold.
However, the fight isn’t over. Advocates throughout our region are continuing to organize. Crude oil still runs through Maryland, is still shipped out of Baltimore, and we still don’t have route transparency. Our goal is to continue pushing city and state legislators to take action, and will send updates along the way. Please see article [at right] for more details.
State denies permit for Baltimore crude oil terminal
By Jeff Barker, June 3, 2015 8:24 P.M.
Targa Terminals, located at 1955 Chesapeake Avenue along the Patapsco River, has applied for an air-quality permit with the Maryland Department of Environment to begin handling crude oil at the Baltimore facility. (Kenneth K. Lam, Baltimore Sun)
The state Department of the Environment has denied, for now, a Houston-based company’s application to permit crude oil to be shipped through its port of Baltimore terminal in Fairfield — a proposal that nearby residents say poses a safety threat.
The agency said it needs more information from Targa Resources, a Houston-based firm that handles and stores oil, natural gas and petroleum products.
MDE “is not moving forward with any further review of the crude oil related application submitted in February until the department receives additional information from the company,” it said in a summary of its decision.
A bill that would have required a study of crude oil rail shipments in Maryland, such as the one above in Cecil County, has stalled.
A bill that would have required a study of crude oil rail shipments in Maryland, such as the one above in Cecil County, has stalled. (Photo by Amy Davis)
“Before any decision is made on a crude oil related project at the Targa facility, there will be additional public review opportunities beyond the public meeting already held,” the agency said.
If MDE had approved the permit, Targa would have become the second Fairfield-area terminal to handle crude oil shipments. Axeon Specialty Products, based in Stamford, Conn., ships tens of millions of gallons of crude oil through its nearby terminal just north of Interstate 895.
Axeon brings crude oil in by rail from the west and ships it by barge to refineries in the Northeast. But even those shipments are relatively new. While it moved nearly 57 million gallons of crude through Baltimore in the fiscal year that ended June 30 and 53 million gallons the year before, it handled none the previous two years, according to data from MDE’s Oil Control Program.
Substantially more crude oil passes through the state, much of it through Cecil County, but is not captured by the oil-control program because it is not unloaded.
Shipments of domestic crude oil have boomed in recent years because of the surge in production from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. So much oil is coming out of the ground there and from the Canadian oil sands that a global glut has suppressed prices.
Much of the domestic oil production is shipped by rail, and there have been several spectacular accidents and explosions. The Bakken crude is particularly volatile, stoking fears about such shipments across the country.
The derailment of a train carrying Bakken crude in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in July 2013 caused a huge explosion and fire that killed 47 people, forced about 2,000 people to evacuate their homes, spilled nearly 1.6 million gallons of crude oil and destroyed much of the downtown area.
Another derailment of a train carrying Bakken crude in Lynchburg, Va., in April 2014 caused an explosion and an evacuation and spilled thousands of gallons of crude into the James River, but no one was injured.
Other incidents have occurred in West Virginia and North Dakota.
While it denied the crude oil permit, MDE did grant Targa an air-quality permit May 26 allowing other products to be transported through the terminal. The permit will enable the company to offload fuel oils, noncrude oils and distillates from rail cars onto tanker trucks.
At Targa’s request, MDE considered the crude oil request separately. The agency said in its decision that Targa asked it to split the application “in order to meet current customer demand for storage and transport of the other types of fuel oils and distillates.”
Vincent DiCosimo, Targa’s senior vice president for petroleum logistics, did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
He has said previously that the company takes safety seriously and has the record to prove it.
“Targa is just as interested in safety as you are,” he said in December at a public hearing hosted by the department and attended by about 25 residents and environmentalists.
But residents have expressed concerns and environmental advocacy organizations said the new facility would increase the threat crude oil shipments pose to the Chesapeake Bay’s fragile ecosystem, since Targa would transfer the oil from trains onto barges for transport to East Coast refineries.
The company purchased the Fairfield terminal, previously owned by Chevron, in 2011.
“This decision by the Maryland Department of the Environment is good news,” said Leah Kelly, attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, in a statement Wednesday.
“Shipping crude oil through this terminal in Baltimore could have increased the risk of accidents and potentially explosions, such as have happened in Virginia, West Virginia and Canada,” she said. “Targa Terminals’ application for the crude oil permit was full of holes. MDE has said that it will not move forward with the crude oil permit unless the company provides more information about the air pollution that would be created by its operations.”
New rules on oil trains draw flak from firefighters, too
By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, May 11, 2015
Derailed train cars burn near Mount Carbon, W.Va., Monday. A CSX train carrying crude oil derailed at around 1:20 p.m. Monday, spilling oil into the Kanawha River and destroying a home in the path of the wreckage. Marcus Constantino/ Daily Mail
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers and environmental and industry groups criticized the federal government’s new safety measures for oil trains when they were announced earlier this month. Now another group has expressed disappointment in the new rules:
Emergency responders. They’re among the first in danger when a fiery derailment happens.
After another oil train derailed and caught fire last week, this time in North Dakota and the fifth in North America this year, firefighters renewed their call for more training and information about hazardous rail shipments.
The International Association of Fire Fighters’ primary objection to the new rules is about their information-sharing requirements. But Elizabeth Harman, an assistant to the general president of the group, also said firefighters needed more training on responding to hazardous materials incidents. The rule didn’t directly address that issue, though some lawmakers have sought additional funding.
“The training that’s needed has been developed,” she said. “This is the first step that needs to be funded and expanded for all first responders.”
Harman said her group had been talking to the Federal Emergency Management Agency about making more competitive grants available for first-responder training.
Tank cars still showing accident vulnerability
Tens of thousands of rail tank cars haul flammable liquids, such as crude oil and ethanol, across North America, and most have weak spots that make them vulnerable to puncture and fire in an accident. A new tank car design has been approved, but is not widely available yet. There have been five serious oil train derailments so far this year.
Click for full size viewingClick for full size viewing.
Feb. 14, Gogama, Ontario, 29 cars of a Canadian National oil train derail and a fire engulfs seven cars. No injuries are reported.
Feb. 16, Mount Carbon, W.V., 28 cars of a CSX oil train derail along the banks of the Kanawha River. One injury reported.
March 5, Galena, Ill., 21 cars of a BNSF crude oil train derail and a fire erupts.
March 7, Gogama, Ont., 39 cars of a Canadian National oil train derail and a fire engulfs multiple cars. A bridge is destroyed by the heat. No injuries are reported.
May 6, Heimdal, N.D., six cars of a BNSF crude oil train derail and a fire erupts, forcing temporary evacuation of Heimdal.
*In addition to the 2015 accidents, the map locates selected derailments from 1981 through 2014 involving DOT-111A tank cars that polluted waterways and threatened cities with flammable or toxic chemicals. Sources: McClatchy Washington Bureau, National Transportation Safety Board, Department of Transportation, Surface Transportation Board, Association of American Railroads, Railway Supply Institute
Since 2010, an exponentially larger volume of flammable liquids, especially crude oil and ethanol, has been moving by rail, and with it has come an increase in risk to communities.
“We need to be prepared for it, and we’re willing to be prepared for it,” Harman said.
The rail industry and the government have funded new training for emergency responders as a result of the increased risk. Railroads train 20,000 firefighters a year in communities across the country, according to the Association of American Railroads, an industry group.
Since last summer, the rail industry has paid to send hundreds more to an advanced firefighting academy in Pueblo, Colo., designed for responding to oil train fires.
While firefighter groups have praised the industry’s efforts, 65 percent of fire departments involved in responding to hazardous materials incidents still have no formal training in that area, according to a 2010 survey by the National Fire Protection Association.
While no first responders have been injured in multiple oil train derailments and fires in the past year and a half, they’ve faced numerous challenges:
– When an oil train derailed and caught fire near Casselton, N.D., on Dec. 30, 2013, a BNSF student engineer became an ad-hoc first responder. According to interview transcripts published last month by the National Transportation Safety Board, the student donned firefighting gear and equipment as he uncoupled cars that were still on the track to move them away from the fire.
– When an oil train derailed and caught fire in downtown Lynchburg, Va., on April 30, 2014, first responders didn’t know right away which railroad to call, since two companies operate tracks through the city. According to a presentation at a conference of transportation professionals in Washington in January, it also took 45 minutes for first responders to obtain documents showing them what the train was carrying.
– After an oil train derailed and caught fire near Galena, Ill., on March 5 this year, volunteer firefighters could reach the remote site only via a bike path. Once there, they attempted to extinguish the fire, but had to retreat when they realized they couldn’t, leaving their equipment behind. According to local news reports, their radios didn’t work, either.
Harman said the U.S. Department of Transportation’s new regulations for trains carrying crude oil, ethanol and other flammable liquids didn’t go far enough with respect to information that railroads provided to communities.
Under an emergency order the department issued last May, railroads were required to report large shipments of Bakken crude oil to state emergency-response commissions, which then disseminated that information to local fire departments.
But under the department’s new rules, starting next year, railroads will no longer report the information to the states, and fire departments that want the information will have to go directly to the railroads. It also will be shielded from public disclosure.
“These new rules fall short of requiring rail operators to provide the information fire departments need to respond effectively when the call arrives,” said Harold Schaitberger, general president of the firefighters group.
Susan Lagana, a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation, said Friday that the department was reviewing feedback from emergency responders and lawmakers to address their concerns.
She said the new rule would expand the amount of information available to first responders and noted that for now, last year’s emergency order remains in place.
Ed Greenberg, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, said the industry was reviewing the new regulations. He said it had shared information with first responders for years and would continue to do so.
Greenberg said the industry was developing a mobile application called AskRail that would give emergency responders immediate access to information about a train’s cargo.
“Freight railroads have ongoing dialogue with first responders, residents and local civic officials on rail operations and emergency planning,” he said.
Emergency planners in Washington state sought more information about oil trains from BNSF, including routing information, worst-case derailment scenarios, response planning and insurance coverage. On April 30, the railroad met with state fire chiefs in Olympia.
“I think both sides learned a little bit about the other group’s point of view,” said Wayne Senter, the executive director of the Washington Fire Chiefs. “I was pretty positive by the end of the meeting the information we asked for in our letter was either available or will soon be available either directly or indirectly.”
Samantha Wohlfeil of The Bellingham (Wash.) Herald contributed to this article.
Repost from Sightline [Editor: An excellent summary that promises to be kept current. This will replace the now outdated Bomb Trains facebook page. Bookmark it! (I hope someone will offer to edit this adding a few salient facts about each derailment/explosion.) – RS]
Oil Train Explosions: A Timeline in Pictures
Ten explosions in two years, and no end in sight.
By Eric de Place and Keiko Budech, May 6, 2015 10:51 am
At 7:15 this morning, yet another crude oil train erupted into an inferno, this time near a small town in central North Dakota. As these wildly dangerous trains continue to explode—at least 10 in the last two years—it’s become challenging to keep track of them all. So, for the record, we’ve assembled here a pictorial timeline of North America’s bomb trains.
Last week, the Obama administration adopted new regulations that will phase out many of the most hazardous tank cars over the next five to six years. The regulations also substantially reduce public oversight of train movements and industry behavior.
We will update this post as new explosions occur.
Heimdal, North Dakota: May 6, 2015
Train derailment and tanker fire by Heimdal, ND, 2015-05-06. Pic courtesy of Jennifer Willis.
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