Tag Archives: Washington State

Marine transport, Maritime emergencies, Pipeline transport, Spill, Washington State, Water contamination

Oil tanker spill in English Bay (Vancouver BC) – wake-up call for port…and for us all

Repost from CBC News
[Editor: Spokesperson John Hill has publicly stated that Valero Benicia Refinery shipped Bakken crude on a barge through our beautiful Carquinez Strait.  Presumably this barge came from the Pacific Northwest.  Canadian dilbit and North Dakota Bakken crude are increasingly making their way to the Pacific, either for refining or for transfer to ships bound for more southerly destinations.  Marine transport is clearly an expanding threat for bringing dangerous and dirty North American crude to Northern and Southern California.  English Bay in Vancouver this year; is San Francisco Bay next?  Oh, and imagine if you will: volatile Bakken crude spilled and burning in our waters.  – RS]

Toxic fuel spill in English Bay is wake-up call for port, says marine expert

Critics of pipeline expansion say response proves Vancouver isn’t ready for heavy tanker traffic
By Jason Proctor, Apr 10, 2015 9:10 AM PT
Critics say the response to an oil spill in English Bay raises serious questions about proposed pipeline expansion increasing tanker traffic.
Critics say the response to an oil spill in English Bay raises serious questions about proposed pipeline expansion increasing tanker traffic. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Joe Spears calls it a wake-up call.

An international shipping expert, Spears says Canada is supposed to be a world leader at dealing with maritime emergencies.

But he says the response to an oil spill into Vancouver’s English Bay on Thursday [April 9, 2015] was anything but world class.

“We’ve got to do better,” he said.

“We’re Canada’s largest port. We’ve lost our way.”

Expansion fears

Spears joined a chorus of critics who said the spill reinforces fears about proposed pipeline expansion, which could bring increased oil tanker traffic into the B.C.’s coastal waters.

The City of Vancouver has repeatedly questioned the potential impact of a proposal by Kinder Morgan to twin the TransMountain pipeline that carries oil to Burrard Inlet.

And the province has set a “world-leading marine oil spill response” as one of five requirements for the approval of any heavy pipeline proposal.

But even as critics pointed to perceived problems, Coast guard assistant commissioner Roger Girouard claimed the response was textbook.

Kinder Morgan protest
Opponents of the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion fear the plan will increase the chance of oil spills in Burrard Inlet. (Greg Rasmussen/CBC)

“From where I sit, from an operational perspective, this has gone in accordance with the doctrine,” Girouard said.

“Port Metro is the largest port in Canada. They have a very solid team. They saw a problem, they called in the partners and we’ve put together a unified command centre to be able to take a look at this and do it the right way.”

‘More than words’

But Spears says responders should have tracked the movement of the spill with buoys and drones within minutes of becoming aware of oil on the water.

He also questions a perceived lack of communications that saw City of Vancouver officials alerted to the spill 13 hours after Port Metro Vancouver first learned about it at 5 p.m. PT Wednesday.

“To make a world-class response means more than words,” said Spears.

“We’ve got to bring all the players together. This is a glimpse of the future. If we can’t handle a small bunkering spill, how are we going to deal with a major tanker?”

Vancouver City Coun. Geoff Meggs raised similar concerns about the failure to notify the city immediately.

Spencer Chandra Herbert
B.C. NDP MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert, Official Opposition environment critic, says citizens were unaware of the dangers posed by the oil spill in English Bay. (CBC)

“What may seem like a small spill to an offshore mariner is very, very significant to the people of Vancouver. These are some of our most precious public assets,” he said.

“So it’s in that context that we probably need to have a further conversation, so that they understand what’s important to us.”

‘It could have been better’

The NDP’s Spencer Chandra Herbert, the Official Opposition’s environment critic, said citizens should be part of that discussion.

The MLA for the Vancouver-West End/Coal Harbour represents a riding that sits directly in the path of the spill.

“People were out there last night, playing with their dogs, having fun in the water. Meanwhile, we were having bunker fuel oil — they still can’t tell us what it is — in our water, potentially causing harm,” he said.

“I think it’s a huge wake-up call.”

Girouard acknowledged the public’s concerns.

“In an absolute sense, it could have been better,” he said.

“One of the challenges with this many jurisdictions and partners is, ‘Who’s got what piece?’, and it took us a little while to get through that.”

Crude By Rail, Hazmat notification, Refinery security

Washington State bill: Report volume, contents of oil trains

Repost from SeattlePI.com

State House bill: Report volume, contents of oil trains

By Joel Connelly, April 14, 2015

A bill that would require “comprehensive reporting” of the volume and specific contents of oil trains crossing Washington was passed on a bipartisan vote by the state House of Representatives on Tuesday.

Oil tanker cars derailed under the Magnolia Bridge. No harm done, but not the case elsewhere.
Oil tanker cars derailed under the Magnolia Bridge. No harm done, but not the case elsewhere.

The legislation goes to the Republican-run state Senate, where key committee chairs enjoy much closer relationships with railroads and oil refiners.

“The House has passed these urgently needed policies with bipartisan support, twice. Delay on the part of the Senate is unacceptable,” said Joan Crooks, CEO of the Washington Environmental Council and Washington Conservation Voters.

(Washington Conservation Voters tried in 2014 to defeat several oil industry allies in the Senate, but lost every high-profile race.)

The legislation, passed on a 58-40 vote, requires that shippers and receivers give cargo data to first responders, but goes further and establishes a website for members of the public to access the information.

Washington Fire Chiefs, in letters sent last month to railroads, asked BNSF, Union Pacific and Canadian National to supply “Comprehensive Emergency Response Plans” and “Worst Case Scenarios” on an oil train accident.

BNSF has responded by offering the chiefs a meeting.

If there is such a response plan or plans, “I haven’t seen it,” new Seattle Fire Chief Harold Skoggins told a news conference with Sen. Maria Cantwell and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray last week.

“It would be nice were there a system created where we would be notified when this material is traveling through our city,” Skoggins added.

The railroads have been reticent about releasing cargo information, citing national security concerns and privately voicing fear of protests.

A fire burns Monday, Feb. 16, 2015, after a train derailment near Charleston, W.Va. Nearby residents were told to evacuate as state emergency response and environmental officials headed to the scene. (AP Photo/The Register-Herald, Steve Keenan)
A fire burns Monday, Feb. 16, 2015, after a train derailment near Charleston, W.Va. Nearby residents were told to evacuate as state emergency response and environmental officials headed to the scene. (AP Photo/The Register-Herald, Steve Keenan)

BNSF has, however, released information on the upgrading of tracks and investment in newer, safer oil tanker cars.

The House legislation goes further, directing rule making for such measures as tug escorts when hazardous cargoes are transported by water.  It directs the state to inspect rail crossings and push for repairs.

And it would require oil companies to pay for increased oil spill prevention, preparedness and response.

Just two and a half years have passed since the first oil train, carrying Bakken crude oil from North Dakota, passed through Seattle en route to refineries in northern Puget Sound.

The state now sees about 19 oil trains a week.  At least a dozen pass along the Seattle waterfront, through a mile-long tunnel, and past the stadium homes of the Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Mariners and Seattle Sounders.

The BNSF has trained Seattle firefighters on oil tanker cars brought to a site in Interbay.  But any serious fire would require a major response from numerous fire departments.

The legislation in Olympia has been inspired, in part, by the long delay in getting new oil train safety rules — such as getting old, unsafe tanker cars off the tracks — out of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The U.S. and Canada have seen a series of oil train fires in recent months.  A runaway train wiped out the center of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people.  A train blew up near New Casselton, North Dakota, luckily in an unpopulated area.  In February, there were major accidents and fires in West Virginia, Illinois and Ontario.

Sen. Cantwell is sponsoring federal legislation that would require railroads and oil companies to disclose routes and vapor content of trains to first responders.

Eventually, the senator warned last week, Puget Sound population centers could see up to 16 trains a day.

California, Cap-and-trade, Climate Change, Fossil fuels, Greenhouse gas emissions, Ontario CA, Quebec

Ontario confirms it will join Quebec, California in carbon market

Repost from San Francisco Chronicle, SFGate

Ontario backs California’s carbon market

By David R. Baker, April 13, 2015 3:59 pm

Ontario plans to join California’s cap-and-trade market for reining in greenhouse gases and fighting climate change, the Canadian province’s premier, Kathleen Wynne, said Monday.

If the country’s most populous province follows through, it would greatly expand the size of the market, which California launched on its own in 2012. Quebec joined last year.

“Climate change needs to be fought around the globe, and it needs to be fought here in Canada and Ontario,” Wynne said.

Cap and trade puts a price on the greenhouse gas emissions that the vast majority of climate scientists agree are raising temperatures worldwide.

Companies in participating states and provinces must buy permits, called allowances, to pump carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the air. The number of permits available shrinks over time, reducing emissions. Companies that make deep cuts in their emissions can sell spare allowances to other businesses.        California officials always wanted other states and provinces to join the market. In 2008, six other states and four Canadian provinces (including Ontario and Quebec) agreed in principle to create a carbon market, one that could possibly expand to cover all of North America.

But one by one, California’s potential partners dropped out, and congressional efforts to create a national cap-and-trade system collapsed in 2010. California officials decided to go it alone.

Wynne gave few details Monday about Ontario’s effort. Instead, she signed an agreement with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard to   collaborate on crafting Ontario’s cap-and-trade regulations. For Ontario to join the market, officials with the California Air Resources Board would need to certify that the province’s cap-and-trade rules mesh with California’s. Gov. Jerry Brown would also have to approve.

Brown on Monday welcomed Wynne’s announcement.

“This is a bold move from the province of Ontario — and the challenge we face demands further action from other states and provinces around the world,” Brown said. “There’s a human cost to the billions of tons of carbon spewing into our atmosphere, and there must be a price on it.”

Much like California, Ontario has a significant clean-tech industry, estimated   to employ about 65,000 people.

While Quebec and now Ontario have pursued cap and trade, British Columbia chose another route to pricing greenhouse gas emissions. The province in 2008 established a carbon tax on fuels, using the revenue to cut other taxes.

Alberta, home to Canada’s controversial oil sands, also has a carbon   tax on large emitters, although critics consider it too limited and low to be effective. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee last year proposed a carbon tax on heavy emitters, only to meet with resistance from both political parties.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Environmental review, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Public permitting

Environmentalists play ‘Whac-A-Mole’ to stall crude-by-rail projects

Repost from Environment & Energy Publishing (EEnews.net)

Environmentalists play ‘Whac-A-Mole’ to stall crude-by-rail projects

By Ellen M. Gilmer and Blake Sobczak, March 20, 2015
(Second of two stories. Read the first one here.) [Subscription required]

When an oil company’s expansion plans for Pacific Northwest crude by rail suffered a major setback last month, environmentalists spread the news just as quickly as they could Google “Skagit County Hearing Examiner.”

The little-known local office about an hour north of Seattle holds the keys to land use in the area, and environmental attorneys saw it as the best shot to stall a rail extension considered critical for the delivery of crude oil to a nearby Shell Oil Co. refinery, but potentially disastrous for nearby estuaries and communities.

The effort was successful: After environmental groups appealed a county-level permit for the rail project, Skagit County Hearing Examiner Wick Dufford sent the proposal back to the drawing board, ordering local officials to conduct an in-depth environmental impact statement to consider the broad effects of increased crude-by-rail throughout the county.

“The environmental review done in this case assumes that the whole big ball of federal, state and local regulations will somehow make the trains safe. And that if an accident happens, the response efforts described on paper will result in effective clean up, so that no significant adverse effects are experienced,” Dufford wrote. “There is no proven basis for such conclusions.”

The decision was an incremental but significant victory for environmental groups, sending a signal to industry that its increasing reliance on railed-in crude could face formidable hurdles.

Skagit County is just one piece of a larger plan to expand crude-by-rail across the country to better connect refineries and ports with prolific oil plays like North Dakota’s Bakken Shale. The use of rail to deliver crude oil has skyrocketed in recent years, rising from 9,500 tank cars of crude in 2008 to nearly 500,000 carloads in 2014, according to industry data. Projects in Washington and other refinery hubs aim to expand facilities and extend rail spurs to handle even more crude deliveries.

Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said the company is “confident that we can satisfy any remaining issues associated with the project” to add rail capacity to its Puget Sound Refinery in Skagit County.

“This project is critical to the refinery, the hundreds of employees and contractors who depend on Shell, and the regional economy,” he said. “We do not feel it should be held to a different standard than the crude-by-rail projects of the neighboring refineries that have been approved.”

Smith added that “we all share the top priority of safety.”

But the new reality of crude-by-rail traffic has environmentalists on edge. Oil train derailments in Illinois, West Virginia, North Dakota and other places have led to fires, spills and, in one case, lost lives. A 2013 crude-by-rail explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killed 47 people, prompting regulators in the United States and Canada to review the inherently piecemeal rules governing crude-by-rail transportation.

The federal government has authority over certain details, such as standards for tank cars used to haul crude. But most expansion plans and related environmental concerns are left to local agencies situated along oil routes. The result is a hodgepodge of permitting decisions by local authorities following varying state laws, while a team of environmental lawyers challenges expansion projects one by one.

“It’s a little bit like Whac-A-Mole because there isn’t a big permitting scheme,” said Earthjustice attorney Kristen Boyles, who represented six environmental groups in the Skagit County appeal. “It makes it difficult and makes it frustrating for the public.”

State laws in play

So far, the Whac-A-Mole approach is working well for environmentalists.

After three oil refineries in Washington went unopposed in building facilities to receive rail shipments of crude oil, Boyles said environmentalists and community advocates began tracking local land-use agencies more closely.

Earthjustice and the Quinault Indian Nation successfully challenged two proposed crude projects in Grays Harbor County, southwest of Seattle, leading a review board to vacate permits and require additional environmental and public health studies. A third Grays Harbor project is also preparing a comprehensive environmental review.

The next project on environmentalists’ radar is in Vancouver, Wash., just across the Columbia River from Portland, Ore., where Savage Cos. and Tesoro Refining and Marketing Co. have proposed building a new terminal to transfer railed-in crude oil to marine tankers bound for West Coast refineries. The Sierra Club, ForestEthics and several other groups earlier this month moved to intervene in the state agency review process for the project, citing major threats to the Columbia River and public health.

The key to all of these challenges is Washington’s State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA). Similar to the National Environmental Policy Act, SEPA requires government agencies to conduct a broad environmental impact statement for any major actions that may significantly affect the environment.

For projects in Skagit County, Grays Harbor and now Vancouver, state and local officials considering challenges look to SEPA to determine how rigorous environmental review must be, based on whether projects are expected to have major impacts. To Dufford, the Skagit examiner, the answer is plain.

“Unquestionably, the potential magnitude and duration of environmental and human harm from oil train operations in Northwest Washington could be very great,” he wrote.

Down the coast in California, environmentalists have an even stronger tool: the California Environmental Quality Act. Considered the gold standard in state-level environmental protection laws, CEQA has already proved useful in halting a crude-by-rail expansion project in Sacramento.

In Kern County, a team of environmental attorneys is also relying on CEQA to appeal construction permits for the Bakersfield Crude Terminal, a project that would ultimately receive 200 tank cars of crude oil per day. The local air quality board labeled the construction permits as “ministerial,” bypassing CEQA review, which is required only for projects considered discretionary. A hearing is set for next month in Kern County Superior Court.

Earthjustice attorney Elizabeth Forsyth, who is representing environmental groups in the Bakersfield case, said the state environmental law has been powerful in slowing down the rapid rise of crude-by-rail operations.

“In California, we have CEQA, which is a strong tool,” she said. “You can’t hide from the law. You can’t site your project out in some town that you think won’t oppose you.”

Unified strategy?

Still, the one-at-a-time approach to opposing crude-by-rail growth is undoubtedly slow-going, and progress comes bit by bit.

Boyles noted that Earthjustice attorneys from Washington to New York frequently strategize to “unify” the issues and make broader advances. On tank cars, for example, environmental groups have come together to press the Department of Transportation to bolster safety rules.

“That at least is some place where you could get improvements that could affect every one of these proposals,” she said.

But for expansion projects, the effort must still be localized.

“You have this giant sudden growth of these sort of projects, and that’s the best we can do at this point to review each of them and comment,” said Forsyth, the California lawyer, who said the end goal is to empower local agencies to control whether proposals move forward and to mitigate the impacts when they do.

Though labor-intense, advocates say the approach has paid dividends. Projects that would have otherwise flown under the radar are now under rigorous review, and industry players no longer have the option of expanding facilities quietly and without public comment.

“If you hadn’t had these citizens challenging these projects,” Boyles said, “they’d be built already; they’d be operating already.”

The delays have set back refiners seeking to use rail to tap price-advantaged domestic crude — particularly in California.

“The West Coast is a very challenging environment,” noted Lane Riggs, executive vice president of refining operations at Valero Energy Corp., which has faced staunch environmentalist opposition at a proposed oil-by-rail terminal in Benicia.

Riggs said in a January conference call that “we’re still pretty optimistic we’ll get the permit” for the 70,000-barrels-per-day unloading terminal at its refinery there, although he added that “timing at this point is a little bit difficult.”

Facing pressure from concerned locals and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Benicia officials last month opted to require updates to the rail project’s draft environmental impact review, further delaying a project that was originally scheduled to come online in 2013.

A Phillips 66 crude-by-rail proposal in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., has encountered similar pushback. If approved, the project would add five 80-car oil trains per week to the region’s track network. The potential for more crude-by-rail shipments has drawn opposition from several local city councils and regional politicians, despite Phillips 66’s pledge to use only newer-model tank cars (EnergyWire, Jan. 27).

Some town leaders have also separately taken action against railroads bringing oil traffic through their neighborhoods, although federally pre-emptive laws leave cities vulnerable to legal challenges (EnergyWire, March 19).

‘Business as usual’

Local, often environmentalist-driven opposition is seen as “business as usual” within the refining industry, according to Charles Drevna, president of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.

“This is just another extension of the environmental playbook to try to obfuscate and delay,” said Drevna, whose trade group represents the largest U.S. refiners. “We’ve been dealing with that for years, and we’re going to continue to be dealing with it.”

While Drevna said he doesn’t see lawsuits “holding up any of the plans” for refiners to improve access to North American oil production, environmentalists chalk up each slowdown to a victory.

In New York, a plan to expand a key crude-by-rail conduit to East Coast refiners has been held in limbo for over a year at the Port of Albany, owing to an environmentalist lawsuit and closer public scrutiny.

The proposal by fuel logistics firm Global Partners LP would have added a boiler room to an existing facility to process heavier crude from Canada. But advocacy groups including Riverkeeper have challenged the company’s operating air permit, calling for more review by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (EnergyWire, Jan. 13, 2014).

“All of the actions we’ve taken with Earthjustice and others have really ground to a halt DEC’s repeated approvals of these minor modifications,” said Kate Hudson, watershed program director for Riverkeeper. “We have not seen tar sands. … The river has been spared that threat for a year-plus, at this point.

“We certainly have no regrets,” she said.