Tag Archives: Sacramento CA

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Oil prices, Tar sands crude, Volatile gases

LOCAL OP-ED – Jerome Page: The triumph of human ingenuity

Repost from The Benicia Herald

Jerome Page: The triumph of human ingenuity

August 8, 2014 by Jerome Page

TIME TO TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT OUR STARTLING SUCCESS in solving our energy problems with oil — good old American Bakken crude along with a hefty swash of that Canadian tar sands crude. Canada being a very friendly neighbor, this seems a great deal on both sides of the border. And thanks to a fine railroad system, it’s just a simple straight shot from North Dakota and Alberta right up to our door here in Benicia, California! Providence be blessed!

And yet there are, as always, folks who not only want to examine that gift horse’s teeth but can be just plain ungracious — if not downright surly and disagreeable — about it. What could possibly be wrong with cheaper oil in copious quantities, without ever having to deal with folks who don’t even speak English?

But enough. I’ll step out of the Joe Schmoe character and comment just a bit on that question of what can, in fact, possibly be wrong.

From an Earth Island Journal clipping (June 29, 2014), a piece by Adam Federman, we read: “Since the Lac-Mégantic disaster (with its 47 dead) there has been a string of oil train collisions and derailments. Late on the night of November 7, a train carrying at least 2.7 million gallons of Bakken crude derailed near Aliceville, Alabama, resulting in dramatic explosions similar to those seen in Lac-Mégantic. Because the train exploded a few miles outside of Aliceville, no one was injured or killed. On December 30, a train carrying crude collided with another train outside of Casselton, North Dakota, releasing more than 400,000 gallons of oil into the surrounding land. At least half the town’s 2,400 residents were evacuated, though no one was injured. And on April 30, an oil train operated by CSX derailed in the city of Lynchburg, Virginia, sending flames and oil into the James River and forcing the evacuation of more than 300 residents. Last year more oil spilled in rail accidents — 1.15 million gallons — than the previous 35 years combined.” (Italics mine)

Then the following:

“Extra-flammable Bakken crude riskier to ship by rail than other oil, U.S. safety watchdog warns,” by Jeff Lewis, Jan. 2, 2014:

“CALGARY — U.S. authorities said Thursday crude oil shipped by rail from the Bakken shale in North Dakota across the United States and Canada ‘may be more flammable’ than other types of oil, as the latest in a string of explosive accidents focuses attention on the booming oil-by-rail trade.”

How about we ditch that “may be”! For example, another read on Casselton:

“‘There was a huge fireball’: Train carrying crude oil explodes after derailing in North Dakota,” by Dave Kolpack, Associated Press, Dec. 30, 2013:

“A train carrying crude oil from North Dakota’s oil patch derailed Monday near the small town of Casselton, setting off a series of fiery explosions. No injuries were initially reported, but officials were warning residents to stay indoors as the situation unfolded. Cass County Sheriff’s Sgt. Tara Morris says as many as 300 residents of Casselton may be evacuated.

“Morris estimates about 10 cars from a mile-long train caught fire and will have to burn out. She said it could take up to 12 hours before authorities can get close.

Next, “How crude-by-rail accidents may impact the U.S. oil market,” Reuters, Jan. 23, 2014:

“A spate of high-profile crude-by-rail accidents is making oil analysts consider how tighter rail safety standards could impact U.S. oil markets, by potentially crimping a mode of transport that has grown exponentially amid the shale drilling boom.

“Any regulation or industry-driven move to hastily sideline a fleet of some 75,000 older tank cars commonly used for shipping crude could roil U.S. oil logistics, boost costs for refiners, and even hit output from North Dakota’s giant Bakken field, oil analysts said.

“The scenario that many view as more likely — where older rail cars could be gradually retrofitted or retired — would be less disruptive but still raise transportation costs.” (And, of course, forestall greater dangers, but what the hell, what’s life without a little spice!)

“Tank cars known as DOT-111s are used to transport most of the 10 percent of U.S. oil production, or around 800,000 barrels per day, that is shipped by railroad. The cargoes have surged over the past half decade, offering drillers in fast-growing shale plays like the Bakken a quick and flexible way to send barrels to consumer markets without relying on limited regional pipelines.

“DOT-111 rail cars built before 2011, which have been involved in several accidents, are under scrutiny for safety issues that make them more likely to puncture in a derailment.

“Over the weekend, a train carrying North Dakota crude derailed in Philadelphia, although there was no fire or injuries.

“‘I view this as a potentially hugely significant rail risk,’ said Credit Suisse’s Jan Stuart, referring to how new crude-by-rail safety measures could impact Bakken-region oil logistics or production.” (That risk of course is financial, and when you’re talking financial risk, man you have an audience; human risk, risk to life and limb — not so much!)

“So far, the Department of Transportation has set a schedule for next year to draft new regulations, including updated tank car specifications, but it is facing pressure to move faster.

“‘Regulators have endorsed the new safety standards for newly built cars, but so far have not required any retrofitting,’ said Sandy Fielden of the RBN Energy consultancy in Austin. ‘If the existing fleet of older cars were to need retrofitting, it would be very disruptive.’”

And why in hell would we be wanting to do anything “disruptive” when the money is rolling in so beautifully! Is it that hard for people to focus on the crucial bottom line?!

“In the fast-growing Bakken, where pipeline capacity has not kept up with oil production, more than 70 percent of output that is approaching 1 million barrels per day now moves by rail, according to the North Dakota Pipeline Authority.

“Over half of the U.S. crude moved by rail hails from the Bakken, where the trend has allowed drillers to quickly send their barrels to refineries in the biggest fuel markets along U.S. coasts where they fetch higher prices, boosting profits.

“‘The most likely scenario is for regulators to gradually phase in safety improvements,’ said energy analyst Michael Wittner of Societe Generale. ‘That could increase transportation costs, but if there were a decision to replace older tank cars on short deadline, crude would be piling up in North Dakota.’” (Let’s not be disrupting the flow of oil — and cash.)

“Retrofitting the entire fleet of older DOT-111s would be costly and take up to ten years, the Rail Supply Institute, which represents tank car owners, said last year, in part because manufacturers are already struggling with a backlog of tank car orders. Newer DOT-111s feature safety improvements, but comprise only around 14,000 cars so far, according to the AAR.

“Sidelining older DOT-111s could depress Bakken oil prices at the wellhead as producers compete for insufficient pipeline capacity, eventually hurting production, Fielden said. Any fall in deliveries by rail could force some coastal U.S. refineries to go back to buying more expensive crude imports.

“If all older tankers were retrofitted, it could add between 20 and 40 cents per barrel to crude-by-rail costs, assuming a cost of $30,000 to $60,000 per car, according to a report this month from Turner, Mason & Company consultants.

“Should producers have to rely just on pipelines, Bakken deliveries would plummet to less than 600,000 bpd at the most, less than 60 percent of daily output, according to the state pipeline authority.

“Because of its rapid output growth and isolated location from fuel markets, only a small portion of Bakken crude is processed in facilities known as fractionation plants, which strip out volatile gases like propane and butane, known as light ends. The plants can require large up-front investment, and years to build.” (Whoa there, time and money again? Forget it!)

“‘Regulatory costs are going to go up, it’s just a question of how high and how fast,’ said Robert McNally, president at U.S. energy consultant Rapidan Group. ‘I expect officials will try to find a sweet spot where timely and adequate regulations … do not cripple Bakken economics.’” (Ah yes, a sweet spot that doesn’t interfere with profit!)

Just maybe in all of that there are some lessons for those of us living in Benicia, California about the priorities that should be guiding our decisions when it comes to bringing in Bakken and Canadian tar sands crude. Our neighbors to the east on that train route are obviously deeply concerned; why not Benicia?

Should an accident or major spill occur on that clearly precarious route down the Feather River Canyon, the damage to river, reservoir and water supply would be incalculable. And what of Sacramento and Davis and their obvious great vulnerability — have we no responsibility to our neighbors along that long trail from Alberta or North Dakota to Valero?

And, finally, of course, there is that bloody problem of the environmental costs of jacking up our use of not just more oil — bad enough in itself — but the most dangerously polluting stuff we can find. A bizarre example of man’s capacity to blot out the future in the pursuit of — just what?!

Jerome Page is a Benicia resident.
Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification

Modesto Bee editorial: Tell us when dangerous oil cars are rolling

Repost from The Modesto Bee

Our View: Tell us when dangerous oil cars are rolling

August 9, 2014

Tank cars suitable for carrying Bakken crude oil sit on the BNSF railroad tracks that run through Escalon in May. The cars were empty, but left unattended for several days at a time. MIKE DUNBAR — mdunbar@modbee.com

Anyone who bothered to examine the 40 black, cylindrical railway tankers parked within 60 feet of a neighborhood in Escalon would have noticed a couple of markings. First was the red diamond-shaped placard with a flame on it; the other was the designation “DOT 111” in a grid stenciled on the tank.Those markings are what you find on tank cars used to carry the most dangerous liquids across America – including the volatile crude oil extracted from Bakken shale deposits in North Dakota.

A BNSF official said those unattended tank cars left on one of the double tracks in Escalon for a total of seven days over several weekends from April to June were empty. Unfortunately, no one in the community of 7,000 knew enough about them to bother to ask what was in them.

“I’m not aware of what was in those cars,” said Escalon Fire Chief Rick Mello, who commands a staff of nine full-time firefighters and a volunteer force of 16. Up to 50 trains go through Escalon each day, and BNSF never notifies Escalon about what is moving along its tracks – unless asked.

That must change, because it’s entirely likely we’ll see far more of those cars in the future. And they won’t always be empty.

California’s Office of Emergency Services estimates shipments of Bakken crude will increase 25-fold by 2016 as 150 million barrels move to California’s refineries in the Bay Area, Southern California and eventually Bakersfield. Since all Bakken crude moves by rail, that could mean another 225,000 tank cars a year moving through Roseville, Sacramento, Modesto, Merced and beyond. Mother Jones magazine calls it a “virtual pipeline.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Bakken crude contains higher amounts of butane, ethane and propane than other crudes, making it too volatile for most actual pipelines. Those gases have contributed to the deaths of 47 people in the town of Lac-Megantic in Canada, where a train carrying Bakken crude derailed in July 2013 and exploded. Less dramatic derailments, some with fires, have occurred in North Dakota, Virginia and Illinois. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports 108 crude spills last year.

“When you look at the lines of travel from Canada and North Dakota, you figure if they’re headed for the Bay Area or to Bakersfield, the odds are that you’re going to see shipments going down the Valley,” said Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, who represents north Sacramento. That’s why he authored Assembly Bill 380, which would require the railroads to notify area first-responders whenever these trains are passing through.

But the nation’s railroads are largely impervious to local concerns; they’re governed by the U.S. Department of Transportation and they’re powerful.

In July, the DOT issued proposed new rules for safe transport, including increased cargo sampling, better route analysis, a 40 mph speed limit on trains labeled “high-hazard flammable,” and switching to the new, safer DOT 111 cars after Oct. 1, 2015. The new cars have double steel walls, better closures and heavier carriages. Currently, they make up about a third of the nation’s tanker fleet.

California’s Office of Emergency Services has issued 12 recommendations, ranging from allowing better data collection to phasing out those old tank cars to better training for first-responders.

Laudably, the railroads are already doing most of these things. Since the mid-1990s, BNSF has offered – at no charge – training for handling spilled hazardous materials and dealing with emergencies. One of Escalon’s eight full-time firefighters was trained at virtually no cost to the city. BNSF said they would even do on-site training for departments. But not every fire department has taken the courses. A BNSF spokeswoman said Sacramento sent only one firefighter to the most recent three-day training on dealing with hazardous materials, including Bakken crude.

The federal DOT issued an emergency order in May to require all carriers to inform first responders about crude oil being shipped through their towns and for the immediate development of plans to handle oil spills. Unfortunately, it contains a discomforting criteria: the order applies only to trains carrying 1 million gallons of Bakken crude, or roughly 35 tank cars. And to reach DOT’s definition of a “high-hazard flammable train,” a train must have 20 tank cars.

But a Bakken explosion in Virginia blew one tank car an estimated 5,500 feet; a photograph of another explosion showed a fireball rising 700 feet from a single car. Our first responders ought to know when even one car carrying such material is coming through.

Dickinson’s bill would make notification available on a real-time basis, without having to ask. His goal, said Dickinson, is to “give first responders better information on how to respond. The techniques and materials used in dealing with different chemicals, or even different types of oil, vary widely. ‘I know I’m dealing with oil, but what kind of oil?’ My bill is aimed at getting better, more timely, more complete information to responding agencies.”

But his bill mirrors federal orders on the size of the train; our first responders need to know when any hazardous shipment is moving through.

The incredible expansion of America’s oil resources is creating many positives – from more jobs to less dependence on foreign oil. But it’s happening so fast that we’re devising the safety aspects as we roll along this virtual pipeline from North Dakota to California in the west and to New Jersey in the east. Accidents are happening along the way. Federal rules don’t go nearly far enough to protect public safety in this new world. Dickinson’s bill and the state OES recommendations would help, but we need a broader dialogue. As Dickinson said, “we know we’re going to have derailments, no matter how careful people try to be.”

That’s why first-responders such as Escalon’s Chief Mello must “prepare for anything, any day.” Knowing what’s coming gives us a head start.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DEIR, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Valero Benicia Refinery

Sacramento leaders: Risk of oil train explosions must be acknowledged

Repost from The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento leaders: Risk of oil train explosions needs to be acknowledged

By Tony Bizjak, Aug. 5, 2014
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An oil train derailment and explosion in Quebec last July prompted Canadian officials to impose tougher safety regulations. | Paul Chiasson / AP/Canadian Press

Sacramento area leaders say the city of Benicia is failing to acknowledge the risks of explosions and fires that could happen if the Bay Area city approves Valero’s plan to run crude oil trains through Northern California to its refinery.

The accusation, in a draft letter released Tuesday by the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, comes in response to a Benicia report that said twice-daily rail shipments of 70,000 barrels of crude will pose no significant threat to cities on the rail line, such as Roseville, Sacramento and Davis.

The Sacramento group is calling that finding “fundamentally flawed,” and points out that the federal government issued an emergency order in May saying new volatile crude oil shipments are an “imminent hazard” along rail lines.

“I don’t know how you can conclude there is not a significant hazard,” said Kirk Trost, an attorney for SACOG, a planning agency of the region’s six counties and 22 cities. “The (environmental report) never looks at the risk of fire and explosion in one of these situations.”

Trost said the letter has not yet been endorsed by the SACOG, but was written by SACOG staff in consultation with regional leaders.

It urges Benicia to redo its analysis and provide a clearer picture of the risks the project imposes on up-rail cities. It also says the project, proposed by Valero Refining Co., should not be approved without new funding to train firefighters to deal with oil spills and for rail safety improvements.

It also calls for limits on the amount of time crude oil tank cars are stopped or stored in cities. “Our view is they should not be stored in any of our communities along the line,” Trost said.

Valero, which receives most oil at its Benicia refinery via ship, plans to begin taking deliveries by train from various sites in North America, including potentially from the Bakken fields of North Dakota. Bakken trains have been involved in several recent explosive fires, including a derailment in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic that killed 47 residents. Federal officials said last month that studies show Bakken oil is more volatile than other crude oils. The oil industry disputes that assertion.

The Benicia report concluded that an oil spill between Roseville and Benicia can be expected to happen once every 111 years. It acknowledges “if a release in an urban area were to ignite and/or explode, depending on the specific circumstances, the release could result in property damage and/or injury and/or loss of life,” but doesn’t expand on that statement. Instead, it says rail transport is becoming safer.

The SACOG letter challenges the once-in-111-years figure, noting it was calculated using data from 2005 to 2009, and disregards a dramatic surge in crude oil rail spills and fires in the last two years. Benicia city planners did not respond to a Bee request for comment.

Benicia’s analysis stops at Roseville. Several local officials, including Plumas County supervisor Kevin Goss, say they want it to include likely routes to the north and east, including the Feather River Canyon and the Dunsmuir areas, both of which have been designated by the state as high-hazard areas for train derailments.

“I think it should be studied all the way out to where (the shipments) originate,” Goss said.

Benicia officials have said they did not study beyond Roseville because they do not know which route crude oil trains might take beyond that point.

Several attorneys, unassociated with the case, say state environmental law lays out what cities should study, but has gray areas.

Environmental law attorney Andrea Matarazzo, a partner with the Pioneer Law Group in Sacramento, says case law makes it clear that a city can’t draw a line around its project and study only local impacts. But she said the city can make a judgment call on where to stop, if it has a reasonable explanation.

Another environmental law attorney, Jim Moose, partner at Remy, Moose, Manley in Sacramento, said that CEQA does not require a city to look at the “Armageddon” or worst-case scenario, but cities are obligated to look at reasonably foreseeable impacts. “It seems to me a good EIR would lay out the consequences and not just say the probability of it, especially since the time frame in question is not all that long” from a legal perspective. “But it is a gray area of the law.”

SACOG attorney Trost said the draft letter will be reviewed by the SACOG board later this month. Benicia has set a Sept. 15 deadline for receiving comments and questions to its environmental analysis. Yolo County sent Benicia a similar complaint letter last month.

Bakken Crude, California Regulation, Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fracking, Massive increase in crude-by-rail

The Dangers of Crude Oil By Rail in California and the Nation: Official Evasions and Possible Solutions

Reposted from an email sent by the author, Dr. Paul W. Rea, PhD.  This article has also appeared in The Daily Censored.
[Editor – Highly recommended.  This is a comprehensive summary on the issues surrounding crude by rail to date.  – RS]

CAN’T YOU HEAR THE WHISTLE BLOWIN’?

The Dangers of Crude Oil By Rail in California and the Nation: Official Evasions and Possible Solutions

By Paul W. Rea, PhD

“Our regulators have got to figure out whether they’re working in the interest of the American people or the oil industry.”

—Tom Weisner, mayor of Aurora, Illinois who shudders when he hears trains hauling crude oil through his Chicago-area town.

Just a year ago, 63 tank cars exploded and a firestorm engulfed Lac Mégantic, Quebec. In the middle of the night, highly volatile crude oil exploded into boiling balls of fire. With a radius of one kilometer, the blast and firestorm incinerated much of the town.

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The remains of many among the 47 victims were never found. Today residues from crude oil and heavy metals have rendered areas Lac Mégantic uninhabitable.

Media Silence about Oil Trains

Mile-long freight trains are hardly quiet, but somehow a drastic increase in oil trains has, until very recently, gone largely unheard. Beyond a lack of media attention, the incremental, rather than sudden, increases in oil-train traffic have made them harder to notice. While some of us have been fighting the Keystone XL pipeline, we may not have noticed the surge coming down the track on a mega-pipeline on rails. In 2008, American railroads were running 9,000 tank cars; today the number has soared to 434,000 (https://www.aar.org/keyissues/Documents/Background-Papers/Crude%20oil%20by%20rail.pdf).

Few Americans are aware that, nationally, transport of crude oil by train has jumped 45-fold between 2008 and 2013, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report(http://time.com/2970282/a-year-after-a-deadly-disaster-fears-grow-about-the-danger-of-crude-oil-shipped-by-rail/).

Nor are many Californians aware that, since 2007, their state has experienced a surge in crude-oil trains of 400%; and in 2013, the trains shot up at the highest rate yet. The number will likely spike still higher this year and next. These sharp increases mean that railroads and refineries are both expanding, subjecting the public to additional risks. In 2011, a fire at the Chevron refinery in Richmond, California belched out a huge cloud of toxic black smoke, sending 15,000 residents to the hospital (http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Chevron-refinery-fire-a-close-call-3802470.php).

Even if no accident occurs, public health consequences follow the transport fossil fuels. These include increased air pollution (soot and particulate matter from diesel smoke and coal dust, toxic fumes from refineries). These pollutants affect public health—especially among lower-income people who cannot afford to live very far from railroads and refineries.

Fire Bombs on Rails

Increasingly, accidents are occurring. Twelve derailments have occurred in the past year—one a month.

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Some have sparked huge explosions and fires, such as one that happened in Casselton, N.D. in December of 2013. First note the size of the towering fireball relative to the rail cars below; then imagine the conflagration that would have occurred if all of them had been tankers full of Bakken crude.

So it’s not a matter of if, but of when, where, and just how disastrous the debacles will be. Diane Bailey, Senior Scientist for the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), warns that given the archaic regulations, high speeds, and aging infrastructure, accidents are just waiting to happen; “so far we’ve been lucky.”

While these trains commonly pull 100 tank cars and run a mile long, they can include 150 cars and run a mile and a half long (http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2014/community-leaders-advocates-call-on-secretary-of-transportation-to-ban-use-of-hazardous-rail-cars?utm_source=crm&utm_content=button). And these trains often carry highly flammable crude of the sort that caught fire in Lac Mégantic. Here in California, oil-train accidents have jumped from 3 in 2011 to 25 in 2013, even outpacing the steep increases in the number of trains. Nationally, train wrecks have increased 14 fold in the past five years, at an even faster rate than the increase in rail traffic (NPR “Weekend Edition” 7.6.14). The fact that mile-long trains carry nothing but crude oil increases the chances that if there is a derailment, a huge amount of liquid fuel suddenly becomes available, often feeding a chain conflagration

Nationally as well as locally, government officials have called for better preparation of first responders to fight crude-oil fires. This is hardy the solution to the problem, which surely lies with prevention. Fire Chief Greg Cleveland of La Crosse, Wisconsin indicates that despite upgrades, his firefighters have neither the advanced training nor the specialized equipment to lay foam on boiling balls of fire (NPR “Weekend Edition” 7.6.14). Moreover, they may not be able to reach a wrecked train quickly, if at all. Tragic experience with intensely hot forest fires surely suggests the inability of first responders to control huge fireballs pouring out toxic smoke.

Reacting to a rash of train wrecks—particularly to a derailment, a fire, and an oil spill into the James River in May 2014—the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a safety alert citing an “immanent hazard” to the public. This emergency order requires that shippers indicate to state and local officials the number of trains each week, their specific routes, and the contents of the tank cars. It also requires railroads to inform state emergency commissions about any large (one million gallons or more) shipments of oil.

Railroads have long resisted such calls from local officials and first responders to know the amount and contents of the cars; the Association of American Railroads said only that rail companies would “do all they can to comply with the DOT’s emergency order.” Not surprisingly, the railroads have done little to comply:

County Commissioner Caren Ray from San Luis Obispo complains that she has repeatedly requested information on arriving trains but does not receive it (http://www.energy.ca.gov/2014_energypolicy).

Defective Tank Cars

For many years the standard tank cars, known to the industry as DOT 111s,have proved prone to rupture when overloaded or involved in a wreck. Two thirds of the tank cars still in use today are older models that safety experts have found vulnerable to puncture. Nevertheless, the railroads still use them to transport increasing flammable “extreme” crude oil.

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In Canada, the 111s built before 2011 are supposed to be phased out by 2017; in the US, however, the DOT is talking about a phase out but has set no date for taking “legacy cars” off the rails. Catering to the carriers and the owners, it has merely called for shippers to use the safest cars in their fleets and for outmoded cars to be replaced “to the extent reasonably practicable.” These recommendations are pathetically weak. They guarantee that the most flammable crude will be carried in the most dangerous tank cars (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/business/us-orders-railroads-to-disclose-oil-shipments.html?_r=0).

And are the newer models significantly safer? The Canadian Transportation Safety Board found that the post-2011 design, though an improvement, is still not safe enough for the transport of hazardous liquids like crude oil. Except for a few reinforced areas, the steel is still only a half inch thick.

One might suspect that federal regulators are “asleep at the switch,” but their own statements suggest something even more unsettling: Peter Geolz, former managing director at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the agency that investigates crashes, has remarked that the agency may be reluctant to phase out the older DOT-111s out of fear of slowing the U.S. energy boom (http://topics.bloomberg.com/national-transportation-safety-board). In other words, the feds figured “we wouldn’t want to over-regulate railroads; that might slow the biggest oil bonanza in history.”

California Regulators Also “Recommend” Action

While federal agencies largely control railroad traffic, clearly state government has an obligation to protect both the citizens of California and the state’s environment. Not until last winter did Gov. Jerry Brown finally convene an Interagency Rail Safety Working Group to deal with the oil-train juggernaut.

But rather than asking how much oil trains can haul without posing unacceptable risks to health and safety—and then finding ways to limit their length and number—the Working Group simply recommended safety measures for trains and sought to improve emergency responses. The Group’s report, “Oil by Rail Safety in California,” made many recommendations for improved safety procedures but mandated few changes in regulations (http://www.sfgate.com/file/830/830-SCAN6267.PDF).

Even if implemented, small measures such as more frequent track inspections only chip away at the monolith; they do not begin to deal with the big problems stemming from the great length, unprecedented number, and highly flammable contents of today’s crude-oil trains.

At best, these overdue safety recommendations seem utterly inadequate to handle current risks, let alone those involved with still more oil trains that are increasingly, as never before, running through populated areas.

On their way to Bay Area terminals, oil trains run right through cities such as Sacramento, where they endanger the 250,000 residents living near the tracks. How could this degree of risk escape the attention of the state legislators and regulators who work in downtown Sacramento? By the summer of 2014, the residents of Sacramento, Davis, Roseville, Pittsburg, and Benicia were becoming increasingly fearful of ever-more-frequent oil trains. Protests erupted in Sacramento and elsewhere along the line (http://www.sacbee.com/2014/07/08/6541363/crude-oil-train-protests-planned.html).

Oil Trains To Rumble Down East Bay Urban Corridor

Railroads and refineries are now planning to run crude oil trains along the highly urbanized east side of San Francisco Bay. A proposed upgrade to the Phillips 66 refinery in Santa Maria, California (outside San Luis Obispo) would allow it to “crack” more Bakken crude arriving from North Dakota on trains passing through Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, Hayward, Fremont, and San Jose. The Oakland City Council passed a resolution opposing any additional trains running through that densely populated city (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/18/us-usa-crude-rail-oakland-idUSKBN0ET34620140618).

The Working Group’s Toothless Guidelines

Since the Rail Safety Working Group made recommendations, not regulations, it didn’t take the panel long to publish a report and hold a workshop. Both were intended to reassure the Californians (especially those living along the East Bay rail corridor) that state and local governments are preparing for the increased threats posed by the previous year’s spike in oil trains. The prevention of accidents received much less attention.

Held in Berkeley on June 22nd, a day-long California Energy Commission’s (CEC) Workshop was led by top state officials: Energy Commissioner Janea A. Scott, Chair Robert Weisenmiller, and Public Utilities Commission President Michael R. Peevey. Since this event required a full day from highly paid administrators, it cost taxpayers lots of money.

The Workshop was highly instructive not only about the dangers posed by oil trains but also about the attitudes of state and local officials toward them. The subscript was, “even though we’re not fully ready for accidents, we expect still more of these trains.” Moreover, presenters tended to assume that accidents were the only threat. Although arson, sabotage, terrorism, and especially earthquakes are always potential threats to infrastructure, officials made almost no mention of them.

Workshop Promotes Emergency Responses, Not Prevention of Emergencies  

Throughout the day, mounting dangers to public health and safety—not to mention to the environment—were repeatedly underestimated. Speakers typically welcomed the energy boom and found few problems with the vast increase in oil trains since 2007.

Discussion did not include possible scenarios such as that of an overloaded oil train derailing on an old trestle and starting a forest fire far from first responders or polluting highly sensitive waterways. The state’s worst “high-hazard areas” are both along tracks traversing the Sierras (http://www.energy.ca.gov/2014_energypolicy).

Yet with increasing frequency, oil trains are traversing antiquated iron bridges such as the 1000-foot Clio Trestle spanning the Feather River Canyon. That one was built in 1909, 105 years ago.

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Imagine a mile-long train of substandard tank cars groaning and clanking across an antique trestle over a river that provides a significant percentage of the drinking water needed by a drought-ridden state.

No Big Picture Is Presented

The CEC Workshop was much about normalizing the abnormal, about making mile-long trains carrying highly flammable crude seem not just acceptable, but even inevitable.

Rather than admit that the country is now awash in an oversupply of oil, both government and industry speakers left the impression that the crude coming into California would serve the needs of its residents and the region. Tom Umenhofer, Senior Environmental Advisor to the Western States Petroleum Association, asked the audience to believe that “crude by rail [is] needed to supply the Western US” (http://www.energy.ca.gov/2014_energypolicy).

Speakers failed to mention that the petroleum industry targeted these refineries because they are situated near deep-water ports—and that, once refined, much of the increasingly low-grade crude is already being exported to Japan, China, and India. The Chevron refinery in Richmond, the second largest in the state, is pushing to expand its capacity—but not for the production of California-grade gasoline, the demand for which has declined in recent years (San Francisco Chronicle 7.12.14).

America As a Colony, California as a Sacrifice Area

The stark reality is this: the oil industry is exposing the American people to health and safety hazards so it can profit by refining an oversupply of dirty crude for export. In an ironic reversal, the fossil fuel boom is making the USA into a colonial country, one that suffers the depletion of its resources and the degradation of its environment so it can export its fossil fuels. But “colonial” isn’t the right term, really; the country is not getting subdued or exploited by a colonial power—but by its own corporate giants and their lackeys in government. Ditto for Canada, which is supplying most of the crude coming to California. Odd as it sounds, both countries are plundering themselves and fueling climate chaos.

In doing so, they’re demanding that California bear the risks as they turn key coastal areas into a sacrifice zones. While most of the crude is just passing through on its way to Asia, for those who live along the way there’s no “just” about it.

Listening to state and corporate officials, one does not hear about the larger problems faced by the industry: fracking and acidification technologies have enabled it to tap the vast reserves of the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and the tar sands in Alberta, but with nowhere nearly enough pipelines to carry all this crude. Resistance to pipelines in Canada has put additional pressure on the only other alternative carrier, railroads.

Tank-car trains haul the oil to refineries, which are usually located near seaports; but the industry has encountered resistance to its search for additional ports up and down the West Coast through which it can export gas and oil. Climate change activist Bill McKibbon sees grassroots resistance as part of a global movement to halt the overconsumption of fossil fuels (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-fossil-fuel-resistance-20130411).

At least the Canadians, who are ravaging their north country to extract heavy crude from the tar sands, are up front about why they’re doing this: the conservative government led by Steven Harper and the corporations involved both want the profits from exports.

The Governor, the Legislature,and Big Money

The accepting, often endorsing tone of officialdom at the CEC Workshop fits with the Brown’s administration’s stance on energy production. Much as it has supported fracking, the technology making possible the glut of crude, the administration has also avoided policies that could restrict incoming tanker trains, slow “the energy boom,” or otherwise reduce exports and corporate profits. Only recently—and surely belatedly—did the administration clamp down on the injection of fracking waste into the state’s aquifers (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/07/19).

As we all know, it pays to “follow the money.” In 2012, Jerry Brown received $5,000,000 from Occidental Petroleum to help fund a favored referendum campaign. Brown has consistently supported hydraulic fracking, calling it “a fabulous opportunity,” one he had to balance against climate protection (Mark Hertsgaard, “How Green Is Brown?” The Nation July 7/14, 2014).

Sacramento is awash in both money and industry lobbyists pushing for more fossil fuels and less alternative energy. ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, remains a major player, just as it is in other statehouses and governor’s mansions. Bankrolled by Koch Industries, Exxon, and Philip Morris, ALEC led successful attacks on clean energy in Ohio and Oklahoma—and now they’re promoting fossil fuels in other states, notably California (http://www.energyandpolicy.org/alec_s_attack_on_clean_energy).

It’s indisputable that Brown and other prominent Democrats are influenced by the vast profits made by fracking oil, shipping and refining it, and then exporting a significant amount from California’s ports, including Richmond and Long Beach. It’s also important to factor in that enviable wages are earned during an energy boom, and that labor unions also make large contributions to Democratic candidates.

Actions State Agencies Should Take

Even if the governor and the statehouse are compromised and unwilling to act, state agencies can get tough. They can require that any new rail-related projects—and there are many just in California—do not go forward until regulations are significantly strengthened, speed limits are lowered, upgrades are made to existing infrastructure, and dangerous tank cars are no longer used in California.

That said, Sacramento cannot solve all the problems; it’s the feds—the DOT and the NTSB—who hold most of the power to regulate railroads and apply the brakes on runaway trains. Getting them to serve the public may be difficult, however, as recent disclosures about the Canadian government reveal. Internal government memos show how the government of Prime Minister Harper is so fixated on getting oil to market cheaply that it has ignored safety warnings from its own experts. The Canadian feds are relying on risky trains since pipelines involve a public review process like the one that has stalled the Keystone XL project (http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/Blog/lac-megantic-one-year-later-what-has-been-don/blog/49833).

Though activists need to keep up the pressure on the feds, the public can’t wait for them to act; in the short term, both activists and regular citizens need to work with state officials, who are apt to be more responsive to sufficient public pressure. The precedent-setting victories of the “national fracking revolt” that surged up in the first half of 2014 provide a heartening example of how grassroots pressure can get results (http://earthjustice.org/blog/2014-july/small-town-fracking-victory-makes-waves-across-the-country?utm_source=crm&utm_content=button).

Challenging the Grand Illusions

State and federal officials in both countries tend to assume that environmental damage can somehow be mitigated or remediated. Both seem to forget the catastrophic oil spills that occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska in 1989 and the Kalamazoo River in 2010. Yet how could they forget Deepwater Horizon, the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico that surely challenged conventional ideas about restoring damaged ecosystems? Once large amounts of oil are released, it’s too late for remediation. Today, four years later, any Gulf shrimper can tell you that.

It’s high time to challenge the illusion of endless economic growth on a finite planet. Underlying the policies governing oil trains are the world’s addiction to fossil fuels and the denial, by government and industry alike, that this dependency can continue without destroying the ecosystems that support all life. The obsession with corporate profits is costing us far too much, and the costs can only rise.

At a time when the urgency for climate action is ascendant, when burning fossil fuels clearly exacerbates the earth’s problems, surely it’s irresponsible to focus on the most profitable methods to extract and transport gas and oil. With the survival of so many species now in question, wouldn’t it make sense to leave more oil in the ground and keep it off the rails?

Rather than accepting reality, gradually kicking the habit, and converting to more benign and sustainable energy sources, officials tend to grasp at short-term technological fixes to problems whose solution will require tough choices, clearer perception, and more enlightened values—including a reverence for life.

 Paul W. Rea, PhD, is a researcher, author and activist in Newark, California.

For Further Reading

http://us.wow.com/search?q=human+causes+of+global+warming+articles&s_chn=25&s_pt=aolsem&v_t=aolsem&s_cs=-2823176844128393677&s_it=rhr1_relsearch

http://us.wow.com/search?q=human+causes+of+global+warming+articles&s_chn=25&s_pt=aolsem&v_t=aolsem&s_cs=-2823176844128393677&s_it=rhr1_relsearch

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/fracking-action-center/

—http://www.nrdc.org/

—http://www.earthjustice.org/

—For updates on the Alberta Tar Sands: http://www.forestethics.org/

—For the routes of oil trains: http://www.blast-zone.org/

—Juhasz, Antonia. The Tyranny of Oil: the World’s Most Powerful Industry and What We Must Do To Stop It New York: HarperCollins 2008.