Repost from the Minneapolis Star Tribune [Editor: On October 8, 2015, the Star Tribune published Barbara Draper’s incredible, wonderful, beautiful, moving – and frightful – poem, “Oil Trains.” The Star Tribune gave it their own title, “Slithering into Minneapolis.” Published here with permission from the author (and reformatted to her specifications). – RS]
More tank cars like these seen near Gladstone, N.D., are traveling through downtown Minneapolis. JIM GEHRZ • Star Tribune
OIL TRAINS
A slithering line of obsidian tank-cars
from craven North Dakota
quakes the freshwater lakes of Minnesota,
then stuns the Mississippi.
Now on a neighborhood street in Minneapolis
it rumbles overhead —
over a bridge whose stanchions are stamped 1920.
Concrete crumbled off.
Ninety year-old steel shoulders the load.
I hold my breath against the ghost
like I did as a kid riding my bike past the cemetery.
Crows of unacknowledged intelligence …..Caw …………. ….and dive
as though raptors were invading their nests.
BACK IN JUNE OF 2013, I was alarmed to discover that Valero had plans to make me and all of Benicia complicit in the massive destruction taking place in the pristine forests of Alberta, Canada. With city Planning Commission approval, Valero planned to purchase crude oil taken from strip mines in Canada that are the dirtiest producers of oil on earth, then ship it on dangerous trains all across the West to our back yard.
Since then, Benicians have learned much more about Valero’s proposal. We’ve learned that Valero would also like to ship volatile Bakken crude oil, taken from fracking facilities in North Dakota and the Upper Midwest, on these trains. Bakken oil has proven different from most other crude, based on the eight accidents since July 2013 involving derailed trains that carried Bakken oil and resulted in massive fires and explosions. Several explosive train derailments have also been loaded with diluted tar sands crude.
Benicians have also learned much more about the trains themselves. Now we know how weak the train cars are, and how the federal government has established new rules that give industry years to strengthen them. Old DOT-111 tank cars still roll down our tracks. Updated — but still highly inadequate — DOT-1232 cars continue to roll, and retrofits of the older cars are to be spread out over the next decade. The railroads circumvent reporting requirements on their shipments to our state and county emergency responders by assembling trains that carry less than a million gallons of crude oil. And even when everything else goes right, aging railroad ties and rails will break, bridges will fail, and there aren’t enough inspectors. The accidents will continue.
Americans are sick of seeing the huge balls of fire on TV. We pray that the next BIG ONE will not be in a highly populated area — but we can’t reasonably pray there will be no next BIG ONE. It’s a matter of when, not if.
Finally, even if all the public safety issues could be solved, Valero’s proposal does far more harm to the environment than the company would have us think. Beginning at the source, production of these North American “extreme crudes” is beyond ugly: oil companies strip and gouge and pollute the soil, destroy wildlife habitat and contribute to soaring cancer rates in human communities. They foul the social fabric of small towns and farming communities with a disruptive boom-and-bust economy. Then come the trains, polluting the air from the upper Midwest all the way to Benicia, clattering over mountains and through gorgeous river passes and right through the hearts of our cities and towns, rattling and clattering near our schools, retirement villages, commercial and industrial centers and homes. In all this (if we give our permission), at every step along the way, the oil and rail industries contribute mightily to the warming of planet Earth.
Valero would like us to think that crude oil trains will save on air pollution by cutting back on the number of marine oil tankers. This may hold for a small region like the San Francisco Bay Area, but the city of Benicia’s own study showed that there would be “significant and unavoidable” impacts to air quality outside the Bay Area. Experts add that there would be “toxic plumes” all along the rail lines: “This thing called ‘crude shrinkage’ happens during transport, where entrained gases escape, leading to a 0.5- to 3-percent loss of crude oil. It’s a big problem for volatile crude oils like Bakken, and coupled with the high benzene levels found in some North American crudes (up to 7 percent) …we estimate over 100 pounds per day of excess benzene emissions from the Valero proposal in the Bay Area (or 1800 times more than the draft EIR reports),” said NRDC Senior Scientist Diane Bailey. Read her blog here: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dbailey/valeros_promise_to_benicia_wel.html.
In short, oil trains are dangerous AND dirty.
The city of Benicia will release a revised draft environmental impact report on Valero’s proposal at the end of August. Everyone should stay tuned. Be prepared to study the document, read critical reviews, and share a comment with our Planning Commission. Together, we can make a difference.
Iran agreement could spell end to limits on U.S. oil imports
By Emily Schwartz Greco, July 29, 2015
What a relief. In exchange for Iran taking steps to guarantee that it can’t build nuclear weapons, the sanctions that have choked off its access to world markets will end without a single shot.
Instead of celebrating this diplomatic breakthrough, conservative lawmakers are plotting to scuttle the pact. And despite their opposition, some Republicans are milking this accord for a pet project: ending all limits on U.S. crude sales.
“Any deal that lifts sanctions on Iranian oil will disadvantage American companies unless we lift the antiquated ban on our own oil exports,” Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski declared a few weeks back.
It’s an enticing argument. Why should Washington help Iran freely sell its oil while denying the U.S. industry the same liberty?
Well, the ban is already punctured. The United States, which imports 7 million barrels a day of crude, also exports half a million barrels of it every 24 hours.
And most of that oil goes straight to Canada by rail or gets hauled to ports by trains after getting extracted from North Dakota’s landlocked Bakken fields.
Remember that oil train that derailed two years ago in the Quebec town of Lac Megantic, unleashing an inferno that burned for four days and killed 47 people? It was ferrying exported Bakken crude.
Smaller accidents are happening too. Most recently, an oil train derailed near the tiny town of Culbertson, Montana, spilling thousands of gallons of oil from North Dakota.
Ramping up exports would only boost the chances of a major disaster, Oil Change International Executive Director Steve Kretzmann says.
That’s why the restrictions, imposed by Congress during Gerald Ford’s presidency to boost energy independence, should remain unless the government creates better safeguards.
Besides, Iranian oil sales won’t begin bouncing back until early next year at the soonest as diplomats must first verify compliance with nuclear obligations. But there’s no doubt that more crude will eventually gush from that Middle Eastern country.
Prior to the 1979 revolution that brought a theocratic government to power, Iran was exporting 6 million barrels a day — quadruple current levels. By 2008, amid lighter sanctions, it was only shipping 3 million barrels a day overseas. Seven years later, that figure has been halved again.
Iran’s got between 30 and 37 million barrels stored and ready to sell before it even re-starts wells that were shut down when sanctions tightened. As Iran sits atop some 158 billion barrels of oil, the world’s fourth-largest reserves, its potential is huge.
Will American companies, which can freely export value-added oil products like gasoline, lose out if they can’t ship more crude overseas? Not really.
Money spent beefing up infrastructure could be wasted if Iran dislodges new markets. Nixing export restrictions could boost production by half a million barrels daily, but many North American wells won’t make financial sense if the Iran gusher adds to the global glut responsible for slashing oil prices over the past 12 months.
Goldman Sachs analysts expect U.S. oil prices to hover around today’s $50-a-barrel mark for at least another year. If they’re right, many North Dakota and Texas fracking sites won’t be viable anyway.
And why are prices slumping? Domestic output has nearly doubled under President Barack Obama’s leadership to 9.7 million barrels a day. The United States now drills more oil than Saudi Arabia despite the White House’s calls for climate action.
While the leaky ban does chip away at U.S. prices, it’s not as if the Obama years have been a bust for oilmen.
And regardless of whether the industry gets the freedom Murkowski seeks, the United States, Iran, and the rest of the world must figure out how to get by on less oil.
Columnist Emily Schwartz Greco is the managing editor of OtherWords, a non-profit national editorial service run by the Institute for Policy Studies.
Repost from McClatchyDC [Editor: Significant quote: “Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania told McClatchy last month that they had received no updated oil train reports from CSX since June 2014.” See also the Federal Railroad Administration press release AND letter. – RS]
Feds warn railroads to comply with oil train notification requirement
By Curtis Tate, July 22,2015
This Feb. 17, 2015, photo made available by the Office of the Governor of West Virginia shows a derailed train in Mount Carbon, W.Va. U.S. transportation officials predict many more catastrophic wrecks involving flammable fuels in coming years absent new regulations. | Steven Wayne Rotsch AP
The U.S. Department of Transportation warned railroads that they must continue to notify states of large crude oil shipments after several states reported not getting updated information for as long as a year.
The department imposed the requirement in May 2014 following a series of fiery oil train derailments, and it was designed to help state and local emergency officials assess their risk and training needs.
In spite of increased public concern about the derailments, railroads have opposed the public release of the oil train information by numerous states, and two companies sued Maryland last July to prevent the state from releasing the oil train data to McClatchy.
The rail industry fought to have the requirement dropped, and it appeared that they got their wish three months ago in the department’s new oil train rule.
We strongly support transparency and public notification to the fullest extent possible. Sarah Feinberg, acting administrator, Federal Railroad Administration
But facing backlash from lawmakers, firefighters and some states, the department announced it would continue to enforce the notification requirement indefinitely and take new steps make it permanent.
There have been six major oil train derailments in North America this year, the most recent last week near Culbertson, Mont. While that derailment only resulted in a spill, others in Ontario, West Virginia, Illinois and North Dakota involved fires, explosions and evacuations.
In a letter to the companies Wednesday, Sarah Feinberg, the acting chief of the Federal Railroad Administration, told them that the notifications were “crucial” to first responders and state and local officials in developing emergency plans.
“We strongly support transparency and public notification to the fullest extent possible,” she wrote. “And we understand the public’s interest in knowing what is traveling through their communities.”
The letter was written after lawyers for Norfolk Southern and CSX used the new federal oil train rules to support their position in the Maryland court case that public release of the information creates security risks and exposes the companies to competitive harm.
Feinberg added that the notifications must be updated “in a timely manner.”
States such as California, Washington and Illinois have received updated reports regularly from BNSF Railway, the nation’s leading hauler of crude oil in trains. Most of it is light, sweet crude from North Dakota’s Bakken region and is produced by hydraulic fracturing of shale rock.
But to get to refineries on the east coast, BNSF must hand off the trains to connecting railroads in Chicago or other points. Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania told McClatchy last month that they had received no updated oil train reports from CSX since June 2014.
The emergency order requires the railroads to report the weekly frequency of shipments of 1 million gallons or more of Bakken crude, the routes they use and the counties through which they pass. The railroads must update the reports when the volume increases or decreases by 25 percent.
Railroads found to be in violation of the requirement face a maximum penalty of $175,000 a day for each incident. The Federal Railroad Administration periodically audits railroads for compliance.
6 – Number of major oil train derailments in North America in 2015.
Though publicly available data on the exact volume of crude oil moved by railroads is difficult to come by, in an April earnings call, Norfolk Southern, the principal rival of CSX, reported that its crude oil volumes increased 34 percent from the first quarter of 2014 to the first quarter of 2015.
That’s not a reliable indicator of the increase in Bakken crude oil on any one route, but Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania did say they received updated oil train reports from Norfolk Southern in the past year.
Of the states on the CSX crude oil network McClatchy asked, only Virginia reported receiving an update in the year between June 2014 and June 2015, and that was a week after a CSX oil train derailed and caught fire in February near Mount Carbon, W.Va.
Rob Doolittle, a spokesman for CSX, said the railroad continues to be “in full compliance” with the emergency order. He added that the railroad “recently” sent new notifications to the affected states, “regardless of whether there was any material change in the number of trains transported.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article28078114.html#storylink=cp
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