Most Recent Oil Train Accidents and Spills Involved ‘Safer’ CPC-1232 Tank Cars
By Justin Mikulka | July 23, 2015 – 03:58
Roosevelt County chief deputy sheriff Corey Reum was one of the first responders to the recent Bakken oil train derailment in Montana, a few miles from the North Dakota border.
That is just one of the things first responders have learned since the deadly accident two years ago in Lac-Megantic. As a Globe and Mail article marking that two year anniversary recently noted, when the train was on fire and rail cars were exploding in Lac-Megantic, no one could figure out why.
The Globe detailed the questions the investigators were trying to answer in the aftermath.
And, perhaps most puzzling of all: How did the crude oil on the train – normally thought of as difficult to light on fire – cause the kind of violent explosions it did?
Now we know that the Bakken oil is different from most other crude, and based on the eight accidents since July 2013 involving derailed trains that involved Bakken oil and resulted in fires, first responders now know the risk the Bakken oil presents.
In Roosevelt County they evacuated a half-mile perimeter around the crash site as a precaution even though there was no fire.
However, despite the lack of fire in this latest accident, 35,000 gallons of oil did spill as four tank cars ruptured. And these were the newer CPC-1232 tank cars that the oil industry is currently suing to keep on the rails even longer than the new regulations allow — which for some 1232 tank cars is not until 2025.
Click to enlarge
There have now been six accidents involving oil trains in 2015 where tank cars derailed and were punctured and oil was spilled. In the first five, there were also fires and explosions.
All six oil train derailments involved the new 1232 model cars that the American Petroleum Institute is suing to keep on the tracks longer than existing long timelines in the new oil-by-rail regulations.
Even Cynthia Quarterman, the former administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the agency responsible for the regulations, was surprised by the timelines in the final regulations.
“That was the biggest surprise, by far,” Quarterman told Argus Media. “The push-back for five years for most things, I thought it was a substantial push-back in terms of dates.”
So while we have learned quite a bit in the two years since Lac-Megantic, not much has changed in how Bakken oil is moved by rail.
The oil and rail industries are fighting the new regulation requirements for modern braking systems on the trains starting in 2021.
The oil will still be transported in the obviously inadequate CPC-1232 cars for up to ten years or longer if the oil industry wins its lawsuit.
So, as Sheriff Reum pointed out in his observation, the best strategy for communities along the oil train tracks across North America is to spend the next ten years or so hoping you get lucky.
Battle Over New Oil Train Standards Pits Safety Against Cost
By David Schaper, June 19, 2015 3:30 AM ET
A train carrying crude oil derailed in Mount Carbon, W.Va., in February, causing a large fire that forced hundreds of people to evacuate their homes. Steven Wayne Rotsch/Office of the Gov. of West Virginia/AP
The federal government’s new rules aimed at preventing explosive oil train derailments are sparking a backlash from all sides.
The railroads, oil producers and shippers say some of the new safety requirements are unproven and too costly, yet some safety advocates and environmental groups say the regulations aren’t strict enough and still leave too many people at risk.
Since February, five trains carrying North Dakota Bakken crude oil have derailed and exploded into flames in the U.S. and Canada. No one was hurt in the incidents in Mount Carbon, W.Va., and Northern Ontario in February; in Galena, Ill., and Northern Ontario in March, and in Heimdal, N.D., in May.
Stephanie Bilenko of La Grange, Ill. (from left), Paul Berland of suburban Elgin and Dr. Lora Chamberlain of Chicago, are members of a group urging more stringent rules for the oil-carrying trains. David Schaper
But each of those fiery train wrecks occurred in lightly populated areas. Scores of oil trains also travel through dense cities, particularly Chicago, the nation’s railroad hub.
According to state records and published reports, about 40 or more trains carrying Bakken crude roll through the city each week on just the BNSF Railway’s tracks alone. Those trains pass right by apartment buildings, homes, businesses and even schools.
“Well just imagine the carnage,” said Christina Martinez. She was standing alongside the BNSF tracks in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood as a long train of black tank cars slowly rolled by, right across the street from St. Procopius, the Catholic elementary school her six-year-old attends.
“Just the other day they were playing soccer at my son’s school on Saturday and I saw the train go by and it had the ‘1267’, the red marking,” Martinez said, referring to the red, diamond-shaped placards on railroad tank cars that indicates their contents. The number 1267 signifies crude oil. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ Can you imagine if it would derail and explode right here while these kids are playing soccer and all the people around there?”
New federal rules require stronger tank cars, with thicker shells and higher front and back safety shields for shipping crude oil and other flammable liquids. Older, weaker models that more easily rupture will have to be retrofitted or replaced within three to five years. But Martinez and others wanted rules limiting the volatility of what’s going into those tank cars, too.
Oil from North Dakota has a highly combustible mix of natural gases including butane, methane and propane. The state requires the conditioning of the gas and oil at the wellhead so the vapor pressure is below 13.7 pounds per square inch before it’s shipped. But even at that level, oil from derailed tank cars has exploded into flames.
And many safety advocates had hoped federal regulators would require conditioning to lower the vapor pressure even more.
“We don’t want these bomb trains going through our neighborhood,” said Lora Chamberlain of the group Chicagoland Oil by Rail. “Degasify the stuff. And so we’re really, really upset at the feds, the Department of Transportation, for not addressing this in these new rules.”
Oil trains sit idle on the BNSF Railway’s tracks in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. David Schaper/NPR
Others criticize the rules for giving shippers three to five years to either strengthen or replace the weakest tank cars.
“The rules won’t take effect for many years,” said Paul Berland, who lives near busy railroad tracks in suburban Elgin. “They’re still playing Russian roulette with our communities.”
A coalition of environmental groups — including Earthjustice, ForestEthics and the Sierra Club — sued, alleging that loopholes could allow some dangerous tank cars to remain on the tracks for up to a decade.
“I don’t think our federal regulators did the job that they needed to do here; I think they wimped out, as it were,” said Tom Weisner, mayor of Aurora, Ill., a city of 200,000 about 40 miles west of Chicago that has seen a dramatic increase in oil trains rumbling through it.
Weisner is upset the new rules provide exemptions to trains with fewer than 20 contiguous tank cars of a flammable liquid, such as oil, and for trains with fewer than 35 such tank cars in total.
“They’ve left a hole in the regulations that you could drive a freight train through,” Weisner said.
At the same time, an oil industry group is challenging the new regulations in court, too, arguing that manufacturers won’t be able to build and retrofit tank cars fast enough to meet the requirements.
The railroad industry is also taking action against the new crude-by-rail rules, filing an appeal of the new rules with the Department of Transportation.
In a statement, Association of American Railroads spokesman Ed Greenberg said: “It is the AAR’s position the rule, while a good start, does not sufficiently advance safety and fails to fully address ongoing concerns of the freight rail industry and the general public. The AAR is urging the DOT to close the gap in the rule that allows shippers to continue using tank cars not meeting new design specifications, to remove the ECP brake requirement, and to enhance thermal protection by requiring a thermal blanket as part of new tank car safety design standards.”
AAR’s President Ed Hamberger discussed the problems the railroads have with the new rules in an interview with NPR prior to filing the appeal. “The one that we have real problems with is requiring something called ECP brakes — electronically controlled pneumatic brakes,” he said, adding the new braking system that the federal government is mandating is unproven.
“[DOT does] not claim that ECP brakes would prevent one accident,” Hamberger said. “Their entire safety case is based on the fact that ECP brakes are applied a little bit more quickly than the current system.”
Acting Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg disagreed. “It’s not unproven at all,” she said, noting that the railroads say ECP brakes could cost nearly $10,000 per tank car.
“I do understand that the railroad industry views it as costly,” Feinberg adds. “I don’t think it’s particularly costly, especially when you compare it to the cost of a really significant incident with a train carrying this product.”
“We’re talking about unit trains, 70 or more cars, that are transporting an incredibly volatile and flammable substance through towns like Chicago, Philadelphia,” Feinberg continues. “I want those trains to have a really good braking system. I don’t want to get into an argument with the rail industry that it’s too expensive. I want people along rail lines to be protected.”
Feinberg said her agency is still studying whether to regulate the volatility of crude, but some in Congress don’t think this safety matter can wait.
“The new DOT rule is just like saying let the oil trains roll,” U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said in a statement. “It does nothing to address explosive volatility, very little to address the threat of rail car punctures, and is too slow on the removal of the most dangerous cars.”
Cantwell is sponsoring legislation to force oil producers to reduce the crude’s volatility to make it less explosive, before shipping it on the nation’s rails.
Repost from The Center for Investigative Reporting and KUOW.org [Editor: This is an important report. State regulators can’t get accurate oil train data from the federally regulated railroads, so Washington officials are turning to the refineries: “Washington state lawmakers passed a law recently that requires oil refineries, which are state regulated, to give weekly notice of the train schedule to first responders.” (See previous report.) The story of Dean Smith’s Train Watch is inspiring – we should set up annual counts in all of our frontline refinery communities. – RS]
Growing oil train traffic is shrouded in secrecy
By Ashley Ahearn / June 13, 2015
Dean Smith was frustrated with the lack of public information about oil train traffic so he organized 30 volunteers to count the trains coming through his community north of Seattle. Credit: Ashley Ahearn/EarthFix/KUOW
EVERETT, Wash. – Dean Smith, 72, sits in his car by the train tracks here north of Seattle.
It’s a dark, rainy Tuesday night, and Smith waits for an oil train to come through town. These trains are distinctive: A mile long, they haul 100 or so black, pill-shaped cars that each carry 30,000 gallons of crude oil.
Smith has been counting the trains for about a year, noting each one on a website he built. The former National Security Agency employee does it because the railroads share little information about oil train traffic with Washington state. They don’t have to because they’re federally regulated.
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What is known: The railroads are moving 40 times more oil now than in 2008 due to an oil boom in the Bakken formation of North Dakota. Bakken crude oil contains high concentrations of volatile gas, with a flashpoint as low as 74 degrees Fahrenheit.
Derailments and explosions have occurred around North America since the oil boom began, including a 2013 catastrophe that killed 47 people in rural Quebec.
This has prompted emergency responders to call for more information from railroad companies about oil train traffic patterns and volumes. The railroads mostly have refused; they say that releasing that information could put them at a competitive disadvantage.
Which is why Smith decided to find out for himself. “It’s pretty hard to hide an oil train,” he said with a chuckle.
Last year, Smith launched the first Snohomish County Train Watch. He organized 30 volunteers to take shifts counting trains around the clock for a week.
In their first week of watching oil trains, the group collected more information about oil train traffic than the railroads had given Washington in the three years the trains have come here.
State officials say Smith’s data is helpful but insufficient. They say they shouldn’t have to rely on citizen volunteers to get critical information in case of disaster.
Dave Byers, the head of spill response for the state’s Department of Ecology, said his team needs the information to plan area-specific response plans to protect the public and keep oil from getting into the environment.
“It gives us an idea of what the risk is, the routes that are taken,” Byers said. “The frequency and volume of oil really gives us an idea of what level of preparedness we need to be ready for in Washington state.”
Oil train traffic shows no signs of slowing, which adds to the state’s sense of urgency. The oil industry wants to build five new terminals in Washington to move crude oil off trains and onto ships.
Meanwhile, Congress is considering legislation to lift a federal ban on exporting crude oil that’s been in place since 1975 – allowing American crude to be shipped around the world.
Close call in Seattle
Anyone who has attended a Mariners baseball game in downtown Seattle likely has seen or heard oil trains passing the ballpark. The trains continue north through the city to refineries on Puget Sound.
Seattle had a close call last year when an oil train derailed near downtown.
Byers and his team weren’t notified for one and a half hours and initially were not told there was oil in the derailed train cars.
No oil was spilled, but Byers is critical of how BNSF Railway, the company that moves most of the oil out of the Bakken oil fields, handled the situation.
BNSF did not tell the state there was highly flammable Bakken crude oil in the derailed train cars – that information came five hours later from the oil refinery waiting for the train. Additionally, Byers said that when his team arrived on the scene, no BNSF representative was present, but welders were working on the derailed cars. The welders said they did not know what was inside.
“We became concerned because people were wandering off the street and taking selfies of themselves next to the rail cars,” Byers said. “There was no preparing for the potential that one of those cars could actually start leaking.”
BNSF spokeswoman Courtney Wallace said in an emailed statement that BNSF Railway had its hazardous materials team quickly in place to evaluate the situation. “This derailment did not cause a release at any point, nor was there a threat of a release,” she said.
The state and BNSF Railway have sparred over the railroad company’s reports of hazardous materials spills. Earlier this year, state regulators released an investigation and recommended that BNSF be fined up to $700,000 for not quickly reporting these spills. The company has disputed the state’s findings. A final decision is expected next year.
Concern in Anacortes
This spring, several hundred people packed into the Anacortes City Hall for information from oil companies and BNSF Railway about the oil trains moving through their community. Just that morning, a BNSF oil train had derailed and caught fire in North Dakota.
In northern Puget Sound, Anacortes is home to two refineries that receive oil by rail from North Dakota. Its residents, like others in small communities along the tracks in Washington state, have voiced concern about oil trains. Congestion woes are among their complaints; unlike Seattle, where the trains mostly pass through tunnels and over bridges, trains here disrupt traffic.
Audience members were allowed to submit written questions only. Oil refineries’ representatives told them about safety precautions at their facilities to prevent and respond to spills. They also talked about their commitment to getting newer oil train cars.
Wallace, the BNSF spokeswoman, gave a presentation about the company’s commitment to safety. She said BNSF believes that every accident is preventable.
When pressed by a reporter about how much information BNSF shares with local emergency responders, Wallace said BNSF has “always provided information to first responders, emergency managers about what historically has moved through their towns.”
She cautioned that sharing regular updates or notifications of oil train movements could put the public at risk.
“We’re always cognizant of what information is shared, because we don’t want to see an incident that involves terrorism or anyone else who might have that kind of frame of mind,” Wallace said.
Fight for information
A federal emergency order demands that railroads share limited information with states – but state officials want more.
Washington state lawmakers passed a law recently that requires oil refineries, which are state regulated, to give weekly notice of the train schedule to first responders.
State Rep. Jessyn Farrell, a Seattle Democrat who sponsored the bill, said BNSF and the oil industry opposed the legislation from the beginning.
“We’re going to get the information,” she said. “I don’t really care who gives it to us as long as it’s good information and it stands in court, because we need that information now.”
BNSF Railway spent more than $300,000 on lobbyists and political contributions in Washington state in 2014.
“I think they’re absolutely on the wrong side of this,” Farrell said. “In the public mind, and morally, they are absolutely wrong.”
BNSF’s Wallace said the company still is reviewing the law to see how federal regulatory authority will interact with state authority.
Back in Everett, Dean Smith said he isn’t waiting for politicians or lawyers to duke this one out.
Instead, he’ll wait for trains, he said, and he’ll continue gathering information about them.
Four hours into a recent train-watching shift, Smith perked up.
“There’s something coming,” he said. He opened the door of his Chevy Volt and stepped into the rain. An orange BNSF engine emerged from the tunnel. Behind it were oil cars – about 100 of them, black as night.
The streetlight reflected off Smith’s glasses and shadows gathered in the furrow of his brow as he stood by the tracks, shoulders hunched.
“Sometimes I wonder, why fight it? Why not just move? That’d be the easiest thing to do,” he said. “But I think we have to fight. And I would like to see citizens groups acting like this all over the country. That’s the form of checks and balances we can create. All it takes is a few people.”
Repost rom ABC News [Editor: Note that the oil was CONDITIONED according to North Dakota regulations, but it was not STABILIZED which is a stricter standard currently used elsewhere. (See The difference between oil “conditioning” and oil “stabilization”.) The vapor pressure of oil on this train was measured at 10.8 psi. Compare this with DeSmogBlog: “…regular crude oil has a Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) of 5-7 psi and Bakken crude has an RVP between 8-16 psi. To put that in perspective, gasoline typically has a RVP of 9 psi.” Note also: “The North Dakota train was traveling 24 miles an hour…much slower than the 50 mph limit imposed by federal regulators.” – RS]
Oil in North Dakota Derailment Was Treated to Cut Volatility
By Matthew Brown and Blake Nicholson, Associated Press, May 7, 2015, 7:09 PM ET
BISMARCK, N.D. — A shipment of oil involved in an explosive train derailment in North Dakota had been treated to reduce its volatility — a move that state officials suggested could have reduced the severity of the accident but won’t prevent others from occurring.
Hess Corporation spokesman John Roper said the oil complied with a state order requiring propane, butane and other volatile gases to be stripped out of crude before it’s transported. That conditioning process lowers the vapor pressure of the oil, reducing the chances of an explosive ignition during a crash.
Despite the treatment of the crude in Wednesday’s accident, six cars carrying a combined 180,000 gallons of oil caught fire in the derailment 2 miles from the town of small Heimdal in central North Dakota. The town was evacuated but no one was hurt.
Investigators on Thursday recovered wheel fragments from the scene. Those will be sent to a government laboratory for analysis, said National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway. A defective tank car wheel is suspected to have played a role in another oil train accident, in Galena, Illinois, on March 10.
The North Dakota train was traveling 24 miles an hour, Holloway said, much slower than the 50 mph limit imposed by federal regulators.
The state volatility standard went into effect last month. It came in response to a string of fiery oil train accidents, including a 2013 derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec that killed 47 people and a derailment and fire near Casselton, North Dakota last year.
Members of Congress have called for a stricter, national volatility standard for crude moved by rail.
Roper said the Hess shipment was “fully in compliant with North Dakota’s crude conditioning order.” It was tested immediately prior to loading onto a BNSF Railway train in Tioga and had a vapor pressure of 10.8 pounds per square inch — compared to the 13.7 pounds per square inch maximum under the state standard.
Reducing the explosiveness of crude moved by rail was not supposed to be a cure-all. Federal regulators last week announced a new rule that calls for stronger tank cars better able to withstand a derailment and more advanced braking systems to help keep fuel-carrying cars on the tracks.
“Our oil conditioning order in no way will prevent an accident,” said Alison Ritter with the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which set the vapor pressure standard. “Oil is still going to burn. That’s why the oil was produced. But it’s not as explosive.”
The first witness on the scene Wednesday, 68-year-old Heimdal resident Curt Benson, said he heard and felt an explosion in his house and then witnessed three or four more explosions when he got to the scene. He said it was nowhere near the magnitude of the Casselton explosions, which he saw on television footage.
“I would say that ours was somewhat minor compared to theirs,” Benson said.
Casselton Fire Chief Tim McLean said the disaster outside of that city appeared much worse than the Heimdal incident, but there were other factors to consider than just the volatility of the oil. The Casselton derailment involved more than twice the amount of crude and different kinds of tanker cars, he said. Another freight train, carrying soybeans, also was involved in Casselton and provided more fuel for the fire.
Democrats in Congress contend more needs to be done to reduce the danger of oil shipments by rail that pass through more than 400 counties including major metropolitan areas such as Seattle, Chicago and Philadelphia. Most of that oil comes from the Bakken region of North Dakota, Montana and Canada.
“Why do we let trains with this volatility pass through every day? Why are we letting these guys get away with that?” U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington state Democrat, said in an interview last week after federal regulators unveiled the braking and tank car rule.
BNSF vice president Mike Trevino did not immediately know how much of the oil in Heimdal burned, how much spilled and how much was left in the cars after the fire was extinguished.
The railway was working to remove the derailed cars and repair the track Thursday. It planned to re-open the line Friday afternoon, Trevino said.
The line runs next to an intermittent waterway known as the Big Slough, which drains into the James River about 15 miles downstream. Oil got into the slough, but it was contained and was being recovered, state Emergency Services spokeswoman Cecily Fong said early Thursday.
The tank cars that burst into flames were a model slated to be phased out or retrofitted by 2020 under a federal rule announced last week. It’s the fifth fiery accident since February involving that type of tank car, and industry critics called for them to be taken off the tracks immediately to prevent further fires.
For residents of Heimdal and surrounding Wells County, which oil trains cross daily, the disaster was the realization of something they always feared might happen, County Commission Chairman Mark Schmitz said.
“It’s definitely been in the back of everybody’s minds,” he said.
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