Tag Archives: Seattle WA

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Take Action

Bainbridge Island Review Guest Opinion: Why I blockaded an oil train

Repost from the Bainbridge Island Review

GUEST OPINION: Why I blockaded an oil train

BY ANNETTE KLAPSTEIN, August 16, 2014

On Monday, July 28, I joined Jan Woodruff of Anacortes and Adam Gaya of Seattle in locking ourselves to barrels full of concrete on the rail spur into the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes in order to keep an oil train from leaving the refinery.

Why would a 62-year-old retired lawyer and long-time resident of Bainbridge Island take such a drastic action?

The short answer is: I could not do otherwise.

This kind of resistance may seem extreme, but these are extreme times — these oil trains present an imminent threat to the lives and safety of tens of thousands of our friends and neighbors, and our politicians have done a woefully inadequate job of addressing this.

The puncture-prone DOT-111 tanker cars were deemed “inadequate” by federal authorities more than 20 years ago. Yet every week, more than a dozen of these trains travel through downtown Seattle to refineries including Tesoro.

These trains are carrying Bakken shale crude, which the DOT has warned is unusually volatile and can catch fire at temperatures as low as 75 degrees F!

There have been very frequent derailments, including one in Seattle last week (headed for the Tesoro refinery), which occurred despite a train speed of only 5 miles per hour. Had it been going much faster, the results would likely have been catastrophic.

There have been five explosions and massive fires associated with derailments within the past year, the worst being at Lac-Megantic, Quebec, where a derailment caused a massive explosion, leveling several city blocks and vaporizing 47 people. If this happens in Seattle near the sports stadiums during a Seahawks or Mariners game, tens of thousands of people will die a horrific death.

Tesoro had a terrible safety record even before the huge increase in oil-by-rail.

After its tragic 2010 fire, which killed seven workers, it was found to have committed 39 “willful” and five “serious” violations of safety regulations.

Tesoro is planning to build the massive Tesoro Savage Vancouver Oil Terminal, a project so fraught with potential problems that the Vancouver City Council has asked Governor Inslee to reject it.

The United States Supreme Court, in its questionable wisdom, has declared corporations to be “persons” with human rights. If Tesoro and the other oil companies trying to turn our beautiful state of Washington into the Bakken shale oil dealer to the world are “persons” it is terribly clear to me what sort of “persons” they are: psychopaths — lacking all conscience or empathy. If any other group of people exposed us to such risks, they’d be locked up as the criminals they are. Instead, we get cheap bromides about “safe fracking,” while wells across the country are poisoned and billions of gallons of water in drought-stricken California are ruined: all for cheap dirty energy, in an era when the ravages of climate change are becoming increasingly visible.

The fires in Washington last week were one small sample of ominous things to come. In under a week of the official fire season, more area was burned than in any full year of the past decade. If we do not take drastic measures to address climate change immediately, our children and grandchildren will have to live through the collapse of our civilization within decades. I cannot live with that on my conscience.

And what has our political leadership offered to address these issues? Feeble and half-hearted actions such as the federal plan to “phase out” the most unsafe oil-by-rail cars over the next four years.

In four years we are certain to have more disasters and more deaths — such a plan is criminally negligent and absolutely unacceptable.

We need a total ban on all shipment of Bakken crude by rail NOW, and a complete halt to the development of any new oil terminals in the Pacific Northwest.

The oil companies have no sense of responsibility to anything but their bottom lines. Companies that make decisions like this have no place doing business on our increasingly fragile planet, and we the people of the state of Washington have to draw the line.

Annette Klapstein is a Bainbridge Island resident and a retired attorney who worked for the Puyallup Indian Tribe for 21 years, primarily on fisheries issues.
Bakken Shale, Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Evacuation, Explosion, Fire, Smoke

King Co., Washington worriedly preps for oil train fire

Repost from Crosscut – News of the Great Nearby, Seattle, WA
[Editor: – Emergency training is going on all across North America.  Two examples: see Missouri firefighters train to handle fires, and Norfolk Southern Brings 40 Emergency Responders from Nine States to World-class Training Center for Crude-by-Rail Safety Class, not including California.  Where are the stories about training of Northern California emergency responders?  – RS]

King County worriedly preps for oil train fire

Executive Dow Constantine says a training exercise helps but the region needs a reduction or elimination of the dangerous trains.
August 7, 2014
Tank cars hours after they derailed under the Magnolia Bridge in Interbay.
Tank cars hours after they derailed under the Magnolia Bridge in Interbay. Bill Lucia

Five rail cars carrying petroleum crude oil derail and catch fire near Boeing Field, about five miles south of downtown Seattle. That was the scenario during a tabletop exercise King County held Tuesday.

The planning exercise took place less than two weeks after three tank cars carrying highly flammable crude oil from North Dakota derailed in Seattle’s Interbay neighborhood. That incident was relatively benign. None of the cars leaked or caught fire. The mock scenario discussed on Tuesday was designed to be far more precarious.

“This is an emerging public safety threat,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine at a press conference on Wednesday. “And we need to have our emergency preparedness folks really up to speed on it and well-coordinated. And that’s what yesterday’s exercise was all about.”

The exercise highlighted some of the complications responders might face when dealing with burning tank cars of crude oil, such as monitoring toxic smoke, transporting evacuated people and delivering information to the public.

Between eight and 13 trains operated by BNSF Railway Co. pass through King County each week carrying crude oil, according to information the railroad released in June to the Washington Military Department.

A local fire chief involved in the exercise acknowledged on Wednesday that responders would most likely have to let some of the fuel burn off if one of those trains crashed and five tank cars were ablaze.

The cars commonly used to transport petroleum crude oil have a capacity of about 30,000 gallons apiece. In past wrecks, un-breached cars, heated by surrounding flames, have ruptured in dramatic explosions.

“We’ll want to probably suppress the fire enough to assess the integrity and exposure to the other tank cars. We’d certainly want to minimize life risks,” said Mark Chubb, Fire Chief of King County Fire District 20.

“It’s unusual for all five tank cars to breach,” he also said.

Battling flames would not be the only problem that burning tank cars of crude oil would present for responders.

“We have to be mindful of the impact of the smoke column on aviation,” Chubb said. He also noted that a large oil train fire could create problems on Interstate 5, even if the smoke and flames do not reach the highway. “The distraction of an event of this scale,” he said, “is going to be highly disruptive.”

Chubb added: “After you grapple with the fact that it’s a fire and it’s going to go on a while, it’s all about logistics.”

Walt Hubbard, director the King County Office of Emergency Management, viewed Tuesday’s exercise as helpful, because it got people from different agencies together in the same place, talking about how they would coordinate and communicate if there were a serious crude oil train accident.

In addition to emergency responders, staff from local transportation and public health departments attended, as did officials from federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Representatives from BNSF were also on hand. The company operated the train that derailed in Interbay.

For Hubbard, having the railroad representatives at the exercise was important.

“We want to keep them engaged,” he said. Hubbard specifically pointed to dialogue that took place between BNSF representatives and fire officials about what kinds of equipment and people the railroad could deploy after an accident.

“That was a very good exchange,” he said.

Another topic that came up during the exercise was evacuations. If a rail car of crude oil is on fire, U.S. Department of Transportation guidelines recommend that responders consider evacuating people within a half-mile of the accident scene.

The risk of an explosion would be one immediate reason to evacuate the area around the fire. But Chubb, the King County fire chief, also noted that toxic smoke is a hazard, and said that responders would consult with officials from public health agencies and the EPA when considering whether to tell people to leave the area.

Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Local Regulation, State regulation

Publicity-stunt sit-ins, council resolutions won’t stop oil trains

Repost from Seattle PI.com
[Editor: This is a challenging think-piece for opponents of crude by rail.  Personally, I believe that sit-ins, songs and resolutions have a place in a multi-faceted approach to organizing against big oil and rail.  But Connelly has a point – we need to think hard and long on serious strategies for success.  – RS]

Publicity-stunt sit-ins, council resolutions won’t stop oil trains

Posted on August 1, 2014 | By Joel Connelly
A sight that won't be stopped by sit-ins and City Council resolutions: A coal train passes an oil train after tanker cars derailed in Magnolia this morning. Oil and coal could become the Northwest's "supreme shipping commodities" crowding our trade dependent economy..
A sight that won’t be stopped by sit-ins and City Council resolutions: A coal train passes an oil train after tanker cars derailed in Magnolia this morning. Oil and coal could become the Northwest’s “supreme shipping commodities” crowding our trade dependent economy.

In watching the Seattle City Council’s ritual of passing whereas-heavy, symbolic resolutions over the years, an observer can come way believing the council’s prime purpose in life is to send demonstrators home happy.

The response to oil trains, arriving in every greater numbers, is the latest example of Seattle’s insular, echo chamber politics.  Its product is meaningless symbolism.

Councilman Mike O’Brien gins up an oil train resolution, much as he did on Occupy Seattle.  Council member Kshama Sawant shows up at the BNSF tracks for her demonstration of the day.  A Sawant mini-me running for the Legislature gets arrested.  The news is telephoned to a Stranger reporter who is supporting the candidate.

Will any of this impact the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad?  Will it influence the business of giant refiners like BP and Tesoro, increasingly dependent on rail shipments of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota?

Of course not.  The carbon economy has the Interstate Commerce Act on its side.  The U.S. Department of Transportation seems intent on accommodating shippers in its rule-making. Refineries support 2,000-plus jobs in northern Puget Sound.

For instance, the USDOT’s proposed safety rules tout a “two year” required phase out of old, explosion-prone tanker cars.  When you read the fine print, phase out period begins in September 2015.

Seattle_City_Hall_2014-02-21
Concerned citizens rally for the need of a statewide moratorium on potentially dangerous oil-by-rail projects Friday, Feb. 21, 2014, at City Hall in Seattle. Oil trains have exploded in different regions in the U.S., causing death and property damages. (Jordan Stead, seattlepi.com)

Here is how critics can effectively put the heat on, and deal their way into the safety debate. The recent and ongoing coal port/coal train battle is a model for dealing with obtuse agencies and potentially more lethal cargoes:

– Mass support, not just driblets:  Somewhere in Seattle, somebody (usually Kshama Sawant) is demonstrating every day.  Protests pant after a moment on the evening TV news.  Often, they leave as much impression as footprints in the snow.

By contrast, a well-planned event can signal (to politicians) that a movement has staying power.  It registered when 395 people packed a Bellingham City Club meeting for a debate on the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal.  Sponsors had appears to have it greased.  A bigger impression was made 2,500 people who showed up for a federal-state “scoping” hearing in Seattle.

In this image made available by the City of Lynchburg, several CSX tanker cars carrying crude oil in flames after derailing in downtown Lynchburg, Va., Wednesday, April 30, 2014. (AP Photo/City of Lynchburg, LuAnn Hunt)

– An agenda, not 1960′s slogans:  Coalport/coal train port critics asked  for an independent, comprehensive look  at impacts trains will have across Washington.  They wanted environmental studies to look at climate consequences of providing economical fuel to keep aging Chinese power plants in operation.

It is absurd, for instance, for the Army Corps of Engineers to limit “transportation” to the seven-mile spur line from Custer to Cherry Point in Whatcom County.  Big coal, railroads and construction unions were flummoxed by a reasonable demand.

– A real coalition, not just a paper list:  Seattle “coalitions” are populated by the usual suspects.  A real movement gets a cross-section of recruits.  Montana ranchers are not keen to see their land torn up.  Firefighters worry that long trains will block waterfront access, and (with oil) that they’ll be left holding the bag when a 1960′s-vintage tanker car blows up.

The proposed Pebble Mine, near Alaska’s Bristol Bay, shows REAL reach-out.  Opposition began with greens, quickly embraced Alaska’s commercial and sport fisheries, gained backing from the powerful Bristol Bay Native Corp., expanded to Washington fishermen, and found roles for restaurant chefs and major jewelry companies.

– Political work horses, not show horses:  Behind all the posturing on coal ports, state Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, put together letters to the feds and state laying out — precisely — potential impacts that must be known.  The letters helped shape the charge given by Gov. Jay Inslee to the Department of Ecology.

Security vehicles are shown at a gate to a Tesoro Corp. refinery , Friday, April 2, 2010, in Anacortes, Wash. An overnight fire and explosion at the refinery killed at least three people working at the plant. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

With oil trains, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., recently cornered — and treed — USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx at a recent hearing.  She delivered a message that MUST be driven home.  Faux safety measures won’t cut it.  Cantwell and Carlyle don’t go for whereas clauses.

– Fact and evidence, not just hyperbole:  Exaggeration is a basic activist weapon, broadly deployed.  It gets people riled, but has limited staying power.  What’s needed are activist-experts who learn the stuff, and steep themselves in places to be impacted.

A lighter touch should be put on heavy handed manipulation of the media.  Certain web sites and outlets can be counted on to spout the party line.  Others aren’t content to simply be fed.

The carbon economy is coming our way — big time — with proposed coal export terminals, a big terminal to receive oil trains (in Vancouver, Wash.), coal and oil trains taking over the rails, plus pipeline terminals and oil export ports in British Columbia.

It’s not going to be turned back by sit-ins or Council resolutions in a city with less than 10 percent of Washington’s population.

Seattle politics is sandlot.  What we’re facing, and trying to influence, is a big-league challenge.