By Mark Reilly, Managing Editor- Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal – July 8, 2014
Oil-industry shortcuts made in the early days of the North Dakota oil boom have left the state awash with crude oil that’s so unstable many pipeline companies won’t ship it. Cue the exploding trains.
The Wall Street Journal reports that only one company in North Dakota has installed stabilizer equipment to remove explosive gases from the crude oil before transport. Federal regulations don’t call for such measures, but pipeline companies do, and that’s one reason why North Dakota oil is so often shipped by rail — and why oil trains have exploded so ferociously when they derail.
Now, faced with the prospect of an explosion in a populated area, regulators are reconsidering those rules. Industry groups have played down the danger, saying that train cars can handle the issue.
The Journal contrasts North Dakota with Texas, another region that’s seeing a boom in fracking-produced oil that’s possibly even more combustible. But in Texas, companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars to add stabilizing equipment and now ship it via pipeline with no trouble.
By Matthew Brown, Associated Press, Jun 26, 2014
AP Photo/Matt Brown
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The dangers posed by a spike in oil shipments by rail extend beyond crude from the booming Bakken region of the Northern Plains and include oil produced elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada, U.S. safety officials and lawmakers said.
Acting National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher Hart said all crude shipments are flammable and can damage the environment – not just the Bakken shipments involved in a series of fiery accidents.
Hart cited recent derailments in Mississippi, Minnesota, New Brunswick and Pennsylvania of oil shipments from Canada. He said those cases exemplify “the risks to communities and for the environment for accidents involving non-Bakken crude oil.”
Hart’s comments were contained in a letter to U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley obtained by The Associated Press. They add to growing pressure on federal regulators to improve oil train safety in the wake of repeated derailments, including in Lac-Magentic, Quebec, where 47 people were killed in a massive conflagration last July.
Citing the highly volatile nature of Bakken oil, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx last month ordered railroads to notify states of shipments from the region so firefighters and first responders can better prepare for accidents.
But Wyden and Merkley told Foxx on Thursday that the order leaves emergency personnel in the dark on oil shipped from outside the Bakken region.
The Oregon Democrats urged Foxx to expand his order to cover crude from all parts of the U.S. and Canada. They also pressed for the 1 million-gallon minimum threshold in Foxx’s order to be lowered to include smaller shipments.
“With the exception of the Lac-Megantic accident, every accident involving crude oil, ethanol and other flammable materials since 2006 has resulted in a hazardous materials release of less than 1,000,000 gallons,” Wyden and Merkley wrote to Foxx in a letter.
They said the derailments cited by the transportation safety board show that trains carrying non-Bakken crude or less than 1 million gallons pose the same “imminent hazard” that Foxx has asserted for Bakken oil.
Bakken oil on average travels more than 1,600 miles to reach its destination, transportation officials said. That’s much further than oil from some other parts of the country.
U.S. transportation officials said the lengthier journey increases the overall risk exposure for Bakken oil – and is one reason it’s being treated differently than other hazardous cargos.
Representatives of the oil industry and officials in North Dakota also have complained about Bakken oil being singled out by regulators – although for opposite reasons. The American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers have argued Bakken oil is no more volatile than other light, sweet crudes.
The concerns aired Thursday by the NTSB and Oregon senators essentially flip that argument on its head, to say different types of crude and other hazardous liquids such as ethanol also pose a significant safety risk.
“Accidents involving crude oil or flammable liquids of any kind, especially when these liquids are transported in large volumes, such as in unit trains or blocks of tank cars, can have disastrous consequences,” Hart said.
Association of American Railroads spokeswoman Holly Arthur said the rail industry is complying with Foxx’s original order. She said the group would have to see the specifics of any proposed changes before commenting further.
About 700,000 barrels of oil a day – enough to fill 10 “unit trains” of 100 tank cars each – is coming out of the Bakken by rail, according to the North Dakota Pipeline Authority. That’s about 70 percent of crude-by-rail shipments nationwide, according to federal officials.
Yet the same hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking” – technology that has helped drive the boom in the Bakken region during the past decade is being employed on shale oil fields elsewhere. Crude from the tar sands of western Canada is also fueling the surge in North American production.
Charles Drevna, president of American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, said he supports getting more information on oil trains to first responders so they’re ready for potential accidents.
According to an analysis done for the U.S. State Department, more than half the loading capacity of oil train facilities built in recent years is in parts of the U.S. and Canada outside the Bakken region. That includes loading terminals in Colorado, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah and parts of western Canada.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. transportation officials said Wednesday that details about volatile oil train shipments are not sensitive security information, after railroads sought to keep the material from the public following a string of fiery accidents.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has ordered railroads to give state officials specifics on oil-train routes and volumes so emergency responders can better prepare for accidents.
Railroads have convinced some states to sign agreements restricting the information’s release for business and security reasons.
But the Federal Railroad Administration determined the information is not sensitive information that must be withheld from the public to protect security, said Kevin Thompson, the agency’s associate administrator.
Thompson added that railroads could have appropriate claims that the information should be kept confidential for business reasons, but said states and railroads would have to work that out.
Montana officials said they intend to publicly release the oil-train information next week.
The move is mandated under the state’s open records law and will help protect public safety by raising community awareness, said Andrew Huff, chief legal counsel for Gov. Steve Bullock.
“Part of the whole reason the federal government ordered that this information be given to states is to protect the communities through which these trains roll,” Huff told The Associated Press. “If there’s not some federal pre-emption or specific regulation or statute that prevents release of this information, then under our records laws we have to release it.”
Washington state officials also have said the oil-train details should be made public under state law. Last week, they gave railroads 10 days to seek a court injunction challenging the release of the information.
An oil-train derailment and explosion in Quebec last July killed 47 people. Subsequent derailments and fires in Alabama, North Dakota, Virginia and New Brunswick have drawn criticism from lawmakers in Congress that transportation officials have not done enough to safeguard against further explosions.
In response to the accidents, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in last month’s order that railroads must provide the details on routing and oil-train volumes to states. The order covered trains hauling a million gallons of oil or more from the Bakken region of North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada.
The Bakken’s light, sweet crude is more volatile than many other types of oil. It’s been involved in most of the major accidents as the crude-by-rail industry rapidly expanded during the past several years.
Some states have agreed to requests from BNSF Railway, CSX and Union Pacific to keep the information confidential after the railroads cited security concerns. Those include California, New Jersey, Virginia, Minnesota and Colorado.
Officials in New York, North Dakota and Wisconsin said they still were weighing whether restrictions on the information would violate state open-records laws.
State officials who questioned the confidentiality agreements sought by the railroads have said the notifications about oil trains were not specific enough to pose a security risk.
BNSF — the main carrier of crude oil in many western states — was notified late Tuesday of Montana’s intentions. A representative of the Texas-based company had said in a June 13 letter that BNSF would consider legal action if Montana moved to release the details on oil shipments.
“We must be cognizant that there is a real potential for the criminal misuse of this data in a way that could cause harm to your community or other communities along the rail route,” wrote Patrick Brady, BNSF’s director of hazardous materials, in a letter to a senior official at the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.
Company spokesman Matt Jones said Wednesday that at this time BNSF has no plans to ask a court to intervene.
While it’s important for emergency planners to have the information, Jones added, BNSF will “continue to urge discretion in the wider distribution of specific details.”
A second railroad, Montana Rail Link, submitted notifications earlier this month revealing that its tracks were carrying three oil trains a week along a route from Huntley, Montana, to Sandpoint, Idaho. The railroad said the trains pass through as many as 12 counties across southern and western Montana and through Bonner County in Idaho, according to copies of the documents obtained by the AP.
U.S. crude oil shipments by rail topped a record 110,000 carloads in the first quarter of 2014. That was the highest volume ever moved by rail, spurred by the booming production of shale oil from the Northern Plains and other parts of the country, according to the Association of American Railroads.
2 States Beef Up Oil-by-Rail and Pipeline Safety After String of Accidents
Other states that have surging oil-by-rail traffic and pipelines carrying tar sands are expected to consider similar safety requirements.
By Elizabeth Douglass, InsideClimate News | Jun 16, 2014
Oil tankers on fire at the train derailment site in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, on July 10, 2013. Concern among the public and state lawmakers over the safety of oil transport has been building with each major oil pipeline spill and train derailment. Credit: Sûreté du Québec
Alarmed by a string of explosive and disastrous oil spills, two states recently passed laws aimed at forcing rail and pipeline companies to abide by more rigorous emergency response measures instead of relying on the federal government.
The moves by New Hampshire and Minnesota reflect a desire for more control over in-state hazards, as well as mounting frustration over gaps in federal law involving oil pipelines and oil trains, superficial federal reviews and the secrecy surrounding spill response plans submitted to U.S. regulators.
“At this point, lots of states are looking at oil-by-rail and thinking about how they would respond—whether they have the resources, whether their first responders have the resources, and whether their laws are sufficient to protect their communities,” said Rebecca Craven, program director at the Pipeline Safety Trust, a safety advocacy group based in Washington State.
It’s the same with pipelines. “States are becoming more aware of new pipelines being proposed in their states, or expansion of existing pipelines, or changes in [a pipeline’s] products,” Craven said. “As a result of public concerns being raised, they’re starting to respond by undertaking state-level spill response plans. I think it could be a trend.”
Under New Hampshire’s law, which the governor is expected to sign, the state gains the power to establish its own, more stringent requirements for inland pipeline spill response plans and equipment. Minnesota’s law creates tougher emergency preparedness standards for pipelines and oil-carrying railroads. It also charges rail and pipeline companies a fee to help equip and train local fire departments to handle oil accidents.
“I think it’s pretty much indisputable at this point that what exists at the federal level is not adequate,” said Sheridan Brown, legislative coordinator for the New Hampshire Audubon. “We’re happy that there’s going to be some state level oversight.”
The concern over the safety of oil transport has been building with each major oil pipeline spill and train derailment.
The most catastrophic incident was the July 6, 2013 accident in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where a train derailed, causing 63 railcars full of North Dakota light crude oil to explode and killing 47 people. Since then, a series of other oil train derailments have resulted in fires or explosions, including in Aliceville, Ala.; Casselton, N.D.; Plaster Rock, New Brunswick; and Lynchburg, Va.
Major pipeline spills have been in the public spotlight, too. The most notable of them is the July 2010 pipeline rupture in Marshall, Mich., where more than one million gallons of tar sands oil spilled, fouling the Kalamazoo River—a disaster that has yet to be fully cleaned up. In April 2013, a pipeline split open and dumped tar sands oil into a Mayflower, Ark., neighborhood.
“Essentially, there’s no meaningful regulation or requirements or standards for oil spill response for railroads,” said Paul Blackburn, an attorney and consultant who helped push for Minnesota’s new law. “Instead, decades old federal regulations continue…[that] for all practical purposes exempt railroads from federal oil spill response standards.”
Urgency Felt in Wash., N.H.
Under the federal 1990 Oil Pollution Act, states are allowed to enact their own rules for spill preparedness as long as they are equal to or more rigorous than the federal regulations. Several, including California, Washington, and Oregon, did so years ago.
Now, railroads carrying crude oil through Minnesota have to submit spill prevention and response plans to the state pollution control agency, carry out practice drills and comply with other requirements in an emergency. Companies that move oil in the state via rail or pipeline also have to pay a fee to fund training and buy equipment for emergency crews to respond to an oil-train explosion or pipeline rupture.
“Minnesota recognized that scores of its cities and towns are threatened by crude oil shipments by rail and pipeline, and that local first responders are almost always the first on the scene,” said Blackburn. “To respond to a major spill—such as from an oil unit train [of around 100 tank cars]—is well beyond the abilities of most rural fire departments.”
Blackburn said he expects other states that have growing oil-by-rail traffic to consider similar fees and requirements.
In New Hampshire, lawmakers were focused on preventing and cleaning up oil possible spills from just one pipeline: the Portland-Montreal Pipeline, the only hazardous liquids pipeline in the state. It is partly owned by Portland Pipe Line Corp.
“They have, by and large, been good neighbors, but you look around the country and you see some of the problems that have occurred,” said state Sen. Jeff Woodburn, who sponsored the New Hampshire bill. “I think it’s pretty important to take steps toward giving more authority, more autonomy, to the states to be more engaged in the potential of a spill.”
The 236-mile line consists of three separate pipes built to carry conventional crude oil from Maine, through New Hampshire and Vermont, and on to refineries in Montreal and Ontario. Two of the pipes are still carrying varying amounts of oil, while a third was retired in 1984.
What worries state officials and environmentalists is that the Portland-Montreal pipeline could be reversed and used to carry tar sands oil to Maine’s coast for export. Canada approved what could be the first part of this plan—a reversal on Enbridge Inc.’s Line 9b so it can deliver Alberta’s tar sands to Montreal.
The Portland-Montreal pipeline runs through New Hampshire’s picturesque northern region, crossing more than 70 streams and wetlands, including two major rivers, according to Brown, the legislative coordinator for New Hampshire Audubon. Brown and others are concerned that oil spills involving dilbit are harder to clean because globules tend to sink in water.
“Our North Country economy is primarily based on recreation, so to have something up there that damages wetlands and rivers would really be catastrophic for those communities,” said Brown.
“That got us looking at what [protections are] in place,” he said. “And there really isn’t a lot at the state level…there is a heavy reliance or faith in the federal government that it’s going to take care of things. But the spill in [Michigan] and some of these other spills have shown that that is not the case.”
Once the governor signs it, the New Hampshire law will give the state’s department of environmental services the authority to craft pipeline spill regulations to cover inland oil transit. Currently, that agency is in charge of marine spill prevention and response.
The catch is that the new law won’t come with any new funding—and least not yet. A proposed fee ran into opposition and was dropped from the legislation.
“Our department of environmental services was very generous to accept additional responsibility without additional money,” said Brown. “They saw enough urgency there to doing this, enough benefit to doing it that they said, ‘let’s go forward, and we’ll figure out the funding part of it some other time’…they were eager to have that tool to make sure the plans are better here in the state.”
