BNSF reports drop in Washington oil train shipments
By Phuong Le, The Associated Press, July 7, 2014
SEATTLE — The latest disclosure from BNSF Railway shows a drop in the number of volatile oil train shipments that moved through Washington state in a single week.
BNSF Railway previously reported as many as 19 trains of Bakken crude oil traversed the state during the week of May 29 to June 4. They updated those numbers to show as many as 13 oil trains during the following week.
State officials released the updated information Monday in response to a public records request from The Associated Press.
While the actual weekly counts fluctuated, the average high and low reported by BNSF remained the same.
On average, as many as 18 trains move through Washington state. The trains traversed 16 counties, with Lincoln County topping the list with an average weekly high of 18 and a low of 15. King County, on average, sees as many as 13 and as few as 8 a week.
The railroad had sought to keep information about oil train shipments from the public, but the state declined to sign a confidentiality agreement and provided it under the state public records law.
BNSF spokeswoman Courtney Wallace said freight traffic can fluctuate daily or weekly. “There are ebbs and flows. It depends on the market demand and the needs of our customer,” she said Monday.
Kerry McHugh, a spokesman for the Washington Environmental Council, said the oil shipments pose a risk to communities and waterways.
“If you think about the amount of oil traveling through Washington versus in 2010, it’s a dramatic change. You have to look at it as an overall change, not on a week-by-week basis.”
A lot of information is coming out, but it’s only a start, McHugh added.
Gov. Jay Inslee last month directed state agencies to the risk of accidents along rail lines, assess the relative risk of Bakken crude oil compared to other forms of crude oil, and begin developing oil-spill response plans for affected counties. The Department of Ecology is expected to come up with budget recommendations and initial findings by Oct. 1.
In May, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency order requiring railroads to notify state officials about the volume, frequency and county-by-county routes of trains carrying 1 million or more gallons of crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada.
The order requires railroads to tell state emergency managers if oil train traffic increases or decreases by 25 percent, which prompted BNSF’s latest notification.
For the week of June 5 to June 11, 13 oil trains passed through BNSF tracks in eight counties: Adams, Benton, Clark, Franklin, Klickitat, Lincoln, Skamania and Spokane.
June 26–Peak oil? Not yet. Like it or not, the United States now is among the world’s leading oil producers, pumping around 9 million barrels a day and rising. That’s not far behind Saudi Arabia, and makes a lot of sheikdoms look puny. And like it or not, this compressed energy will be burned to turn the economic wheels of the world. To get from producer to customer, however, it has to go somewhere.
Just not here.
The information reluctantly released Tuesday shows that in the absence of pipelines the railways of the northern tier have become, not exactly pipelines on wheels, but getting closer. Information on oil shipments by rail was provided to states and emergency responders by order of the Department of Transportation earlier this month, with the expectation that it be kept confidential for security reasons. Then DOT ruled there really weren’t any security reasons, and so the train data hit the wires on Tuesday.
The report from BNSF detailed one week of shipments late in May of light crude from the Bakken field of North Dakota. It showed not what rail lines were used, but where trains traveled by county. These are loaded trains of at least 1 million gallons of crude, but often around 3 million gallons. Around 18 such trains a week enter Washington, mostly through Spokane, and apparently traveling south through the Tri-Cities and down the Columbia Gorge. Some then make their way north.
Spokane County saw 16 trains for the week; Lincoln, 17; Adams, Benton, Franklin, Skamania and Clark, 18; Pierce, 15; King, 11; Snohomish, 10; Skagit, 9; Whatcom, 5. Kittitas, Grant, Douglas and Chelan — 0.
So as expected, no heavy oil trains make the heights of Stevens Pass, although we have seen empties headed east.
The mounting news makes it look likely that we will see more and more tank cars passing through. Just this week is was announced that the Commerce Department had agreed to allow two Texas companies to export small amounts of lightly refined oil, possibly creating a tiny fracture in the 40-year-old ban on U.S. oil exports. The Obama administration and experts were quick to downplay this, saying it didn’t constitute an end to the embargo, which would require congressional approval. But it was a big enough crack in the door to raise Texas crude prices and drop oil stocks.
No one still alive can recall exactly why the United States forbid its oil to be exported, except that the people in government are always excessively paranoid about gasoline prices rising for reasons other than increased taxation. Also, at its peak the United States imported 60 percent of its oil needs. Now that’s down near 40 percent. The experts say a full-fledged end to the export embargo would raise crude prices at home, and make world markets less volatile. All that just increases the incentive to hunt, drill, frack and pump.
Exports are, almost always, good for a nation’s economy, and so oil transport will have a future on the West Coast. We will see. Remember that rail shipments of oil in Washington were zero as recently as 2011. The state estimates they hit 17 million barrels in 2013, and some say that could triple.
Remember, it will be burned. Some 25 years ago, the International Energy Agency estimated that fossil fuels provided 82 percent of the world’s energy consumption. After decades and billions invested in renewable energy, the IEA announced in February, that of all the world’s energy consumption, fossil fuels provide … 82 percent.
By Jerry Cornfield, June 12, 2014
A placard with the number 1267 indicates that a tank car along West Marine View Drive in Everett carries crude oil. Mark Mulligan / The Herald
OLYMPIA — BNSF Railway doesn’t want civilians to know how often it transports large shipments of Bakken crude oil through Snohomish County, but a mathematician from Everett can give you a pretty good estimate.
Dean Smith, 71, a retired researcher for a federal agency, isn’t on the “need-to-know” list, but he’s got a darn good idea of the frequency and routes of oil trains.
He organized the Snohomish County Train Watch, and he and 29 volunteers monitored train traffic in Edmonds, Everett and Marysville for a week in April. Crude-oil tank cars can be identified by their red, diamond-shaped hazardous-material placards that bear the number 1267.
They tried to keep track around the clock but missed a few shifts. Even so, they counted 16 shipments of oil and 20 of coal, Smith said. They also tallied another 96 trains, including those of Amtrak, the Sounder commuter run between Seattle and Everett and other freight during the period.
Smith presented the results at a meeting Monday and posted them online. He’ll share them with U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., in a meeting Friday.
“What motivated me was noticing the oil trains. I saw them and thought, ‘What’s going on?’” he said.
Three railroads in the state insist what’s going on should be released only to emergency responders and not the general public. State officials disagree and consider the reports to be public records but aren’t releasing them yet.
BNSF and the two other railroads have complied with a federal order and given the state government an idea of the volume, frequency and routes along which they move the highly flammable North Dakota crude in Washington.
But the BNSF, Tacoma Rail and the Portland and Western Railroad have until the end of next of week to obtain a court order preventing disclosure. If they don’t, the state will hand over records to those requesting them, including The Herald.
“We continue and will continue to work with the railroads to address their concerns and still meet the requirements of the state’s Public Records Act,” said Karina Shagren, spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management Division.
The shipment of crude oil by rail has greatly increased in recent years, and notable serious accidents in the U.S. and Canada, including a deadly crash in Quebec, have drawn attention to tank-car safety. Such incidents prompted the federal rule requiring railroads to disclose information about shipments.
The state Department of Ecology estimates Bakken crude shipments by rail in Washington rose from zero barrels in 2011 to nearly 17 million barrels in 2013.
Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday said he wants state agencies to move more swiftly to assess the risks to public safety posed by the increasing number of oil trains traveling through Washington.
Inslee directed the Department of Ecology to analyze the risk of accidents along rail lines, compare the danger of Bakken crude to other types of crude and identify any gaps in the state’s ability to prevent and respond to oil spills from rail tank cars.
These issues are already getting a look as part of a $300,000 study of oil transportation approved by state lawmakers earlier this year. Work on that report will begin this month, and findings due to Inslee and lawmakers in December.
Inslee’s directive seeks some recommendations by Oct. 1, when he will be in the midst of drafting his next state budget proposal.
“It speeds up certain parts of that analysis,” said Inslee spokeswoman Jaime Smith. “There is a lot of increased scrutiny on oil shipments. The public is demanding some answers. The sooner we get the information, the sooner we can act.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation in May ordered railroads carrying more than 1 million gallons of Bakken crude in a single train – about 35 tank cars – to tell state authorities how many such shipments they expect to move through each county each week and on what routes. They were not required to provide the days and times of the shipments.
BNSF Railway, the dominant carrier north of Seattle and to points east, averages one-and-a-half to two trains loaded with Bakken going to “facilities in the Pacific Northwest in a 24-hour period,” according to company spokesman Gus Melonas.
He wouldn’t reveal how much oil those trains carry to refineries in Anacortes and Ferndale or which routes they travel.
“BNSF believes this type of shipment data is considered security-sensitive and confidential, intended for people who have ‘a need to know’ for such information, such as first responders and emergency planners,” Melonas told The Herald in an email.
Lyn Gross, director of the Emergency Services Coordinating Agency in Snohomish County, is one of those with a need to know and has received the information.
She declined to share details but said what she read didn’t incite her to consider revising the group’s handling of hazardous-material incidents. Her agency handles emergency management for 10 cities in south Snohomish County.
“It doesn’t really change much for us. It gives us more of an awareness of how much of this product is moving through our area that we didn’t know about before,” said Gross, who forwarded copies of the data to the member cities. “We’re going to respond like we would for any hazardous materials incident involving a train.”
Regular citizen Smith wants to repeat the train-watching exercise every two to three months to keep city, county and state leaders informed. He said he hopes that will spur a critical examination of the need for changes in emergency response plans.
Snohomish County residents are not the only ones tracking trains. The Vancouver Action Network is keeping watch and spreading data and photos through online sites and social media. Oil train activists are planning a statewide summit in Olympia in August.
Train monitoring is on the rise because rail transport of all types of crude oil, including Bakken, is multiplying in Washington. Until the federal order took effect last week, railroads did not need to tell anyone about the amount of Bakken they were taking to refineries in Whatcom and Pierce counties.
Tacoma Rail estimated that each week it runs three unit trains of 90 to 120 railroad tank cars apiece, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Herald. Those trains are traveling on tracks in and around the Tacoma Rail train yard in Pierce County.
Union Pacific, which doesn’t have a large presence in Western Washington, told the state it has nothing to report.
That doesn’t mean the Union Pacific isn’t shipping Bakken crude to locations in Washington — only that it isn’t handling quantities large enough to be subject to disclosure, Shagren said.
Grain Car Derailment Could Have Been Oil: Quinault Raise Alarm Again
ICTMN Staff | 5/19/14
KXRO: If this grain were oil…. The third train-car derailment in as many weeks has Pacific Northwest tribes that oppose oil-rail transport on edge.
It has happened again, this time not with oil but with grain.
However, the Quinault Nation pointed out on May 16, the derailment of a grain train in Grays Harbor County is all the affirmation needed to show that transporting something more hazardous, namely oil, in this manner has too much chance of ending badly.
“Another train derailment in Grays Harbor County? Three in three weeks? Rails ripped up, Cars tipped over. Cargo spilled out,” said Quinault Indian Nation President Fawn Sharp in a statement. “That cargo may have been grain this morning, but it might just as well have been oil, and that would have been disastrous.”
Sharp was alluding to a May 15 incident in which seven cars carrying grain tipped over when 11 cars on the train they were part of derailed. It was the third such occurrence in as many weeks on the network of tracks operated by Puget Sound & Pacific Railway in the Grays Harbor area, the Quinault statement said. This came right on the heels of two earlier derailments—one on April 29, when a grain car tipped over in Aberdeen, and another on May 9 in east Aberdeen, when some cars came off their tracks, the Quinault said.
The cargo was different, but the propensity of train cars to derail no matter what they were carrying says that transporting oil via this method is not safe, the Quinault said. Around the country and in Canada, derailments of trains bearing crude oil, much of it from oil sands and deemed especially flammable, have resulted in destruction and even death.
However, Puget Sound & Pacific Railway, a division of Genessee & Wyoming, said it was investigating the cause of the derailment.
“This series of minor derailments is a highly unusual, unacceptable occurrence and subject to a rigorous investigation,” company spokesperson Michael Williams, Genesee & Wyoming, told radio station KXRO on May 16. “The first two derailments were caused by localized failure of railroad ties that were saturated with moisture from recent heavy rains. Other locations experiencing this issue have been identified and are being corrected prior to receiving another train. The cause of yesterday’s derailment is still being determined.”
Several tribes in the Northwest are opposing railroad terminals in or near their territory that would handle oil and coal. Oil traffic in particular has troubled the Quinault.
“Now, one-two-three, it’s as easy as that. Any argument in favor of bringing Big Oil into our region has been knocked out cold,” said Sharp in the statement. “As we have consistently stated, our people and our treaty-protected natural resources are jeopardized by these oil shipments. This danger is real. We have invested millions of dollars to protect and restore the ecological integrity of our region, and we will not allow Big Oil to destroy it.”
