The falling price of oil has made Bay Area railways and highways a little more safe for the time being.
Kinder Morgan has halted shipments of volatile Bakken crude to its oil transfer station in Richmond. Kinder Morgan had been receiving shipments of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota several times a month on 100-car trains. One such train travels through Martinez along Highway 4. Trucks would then send that Bakken crude to Tesoro.
However, last November those shipments stopped as the freefall drop in the price of a barrel of oil made transporting Bakken crude by rail economically unviable.
“There is a cost of transporting crude. When demand is reduced and price will be reduced, it becomes not economically viable to ship (by rail),” said Martinez Councilmember Mark Ross.
Ross, a member of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, said the cost of transporting the light Bakken crude is approximately $12 a barrel.
“We have to find a way to reduce demand for oil,” Ross said. “And when we do that, other good things happen. Cleaner air, less dangerous trains coming through our communities.”
The last train carrying Bakken crude oil passed through the Bay Area on Nov. 22. The oil was transported via rail from Stockton to Richmond.
A train carrying more than 3 million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale derailed in a snowstorm in an unincorporated area near Mount Carbon, West Virginia, on Feb. 16, shooting flames into the sky and evacuating hundreds of nearby residents from their homes.
The train, which was carrying crude to an oil depot in Yorktown, Virginia, derailed in a small town 33 miles southeast of Charleston, causing 20 tank cars to catch fire. All the oil tank cars on the 109-car train were CPC 1232 models, CSX Corp. said.
The CPC 1232 is the newer, supposedly tougher version of the DOT-111 car manufactured before 2011, which was faulted by regulators and operators for a number of years. U.S. and Canadian authorities, under pressure to address a spate of fiery accidents, are seeking to phase out the older models. The U.S. Transportation Department has recommended that even these later models be updated with improved braking systems and thicker hulls.
The fires, which destroyed one house and resulted in the evacuation of two nearby towns, were left to burn out, CSX said in a statement. No serious injuries were reported.
U.S. has seen a 400 percent increase in crude oil transportation. So why don’t we have rail cars that are designed to carry it?
By William Herkewitz, Feb 20, 2015 @ 9:06 AM
The Register-Herald, Chris Jackson
On Monday, a train hauling 100 tankers of crude oil derailed in West Virginia. The violent crash punctured several of the tankers. Eventually 19 were engulfed in flames. Now, more questions are swirling about whether these tankers are safe enough to carry crude.
Old cars, new crude
Initially, the crash had many pointing to a seemingly similar accident in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec in 2013, in which crude oil tankers also ignited following a derailment. In the Quebecois crash, many of the tanker cars involved were DOT-111s—a train car not designed to transport flammable crude oil, but that regularly does so on North American rail lines.
Since 2005, the U.S. has seen a 400 percent increase in crude oil transportation
In 2009, four years before the Quebecois crash, the DOT-111 had been flagged by U.S. National Transportation Safety Board as inadequate to carry ethanol and crude oil, chiefly because of its inability to prevent a puncture in the event of a crash. But the NTSB’s recommendations are not legally binding anywhere in North America. More than 100,000 DOT-111s were transporting crude across American and Canadian rails when the Quebec accident occurred, and still are today.
TWITTER – The Hill ✔ @thehill Fires are still burning three days after the West Virginia oil train crash: http://ow.ly/Jlmlk 12:40 PM – 19 Feb 2015
The CSX Corporation, the railway company that owns Monday’s crashed tankers, was quick to point out that the tankers in use in the West Virginia crash were not DOT-111s, but CPC-1232s. But the fact is that a CPC-1232 tanker is just a reinforced, purportedly tougher version of the DOT-111—a redesign put in place after the NTSB’s 2009 warning. The biggest difference between the DOT-111 and the CPC-1232 is that the head shields (the puncture-prone ends of the cylindrical tankers) are more heavily protected.
Enough shielding?
These CPC-1232s are being increasingly used for crude oil transportation, and are planned to eventually phase out the older DOT-111 models. But as the West Virginia accident is shows, the CPC-1232 is also far from disaster-proof.
America needs a crude oil tanker that will not puncture in a crash
Why? Although the CPC-1232 boasts sturdier head shields, both it and the DOT-111 suffer from a much more basic problem: they simply aren’t thick enough overall. Both train cars have a steel shell that measures 7/16 inch thick. That width falls short of the 9/16 inch steel shell that U.S. regulators say would significantly reduce the likelihood of puncture during a derailment. (Granted, the regulators came to this conclusion in January 2014—long after the CPC-1232 redesign.)
TWITTER – Matt Heckel @WSAZmattheckel Another explosion just happened here at the train derailment: 8:29 PM – 16 Feb 2015
A real crude oil tanker
Rather than relying on insufficiently beefed-up old-style tankers — which, when first created, were not designed for crude oil anyway — America needs a crude oil tanker that will not puncture in a crash. It’s more important now than ever: Since 2005, thanks to a glut of oil production, the U.S. has seen a 400 percent increase in crude oil transportation. And that number looks to be rising.
Derailments are rare, and railroad techs and transporters do an impressive job of almost always avoiding them. But they will never be completely unavoidable.
By The Editorial Board, Thursday, February 19, 2015 6:00 am
Tanker cars carrying Bakken shale crude oil burn Monday after a derailment in West Virginia. The Associated Press
Monday afternoon, as Central Virginia was bracing for its first blast of winter weather, an event Lynchburgers are all too familiar with was unfolding in the tiny town of Mount Carbon, W.Va.
Situated on the Kanawha River in the southcentral part of the state, there are only 428 people in the town, at least according to the 2010 U.S. Census. But Monday, Mount Carbon became a dateline known across the country.
You see, a CSX rail line passes through Mount Carbon — and Clifton Forge, Covington, Lynchburg, Richmond and Williamsburg — with a final destination of Yorktown. And on this rail line travel four to six trains each week, pulling hundreds of tanker cars headed to the Plains Marketing transfer terminal in Yorktown. In each one of those tanker cars? More than 30,000 gallons of Bakken shale crude oil from North Dakota.
On Monday, one of those CSX train derailed. In a huge explosion, more than 20 tanker cars caught fire. A massive fireball shot into the sky, burning one house to its foundation. Oil leaked into the Kanawha River, threatening the water supply of thousands of West Virginians.
It was eerily reminiscent of April 30, 2014, when another CSX oil train derailed on the banks of the James River in downtown Lynchburg, just yards away from the Depot Grille restaurant and the Amazement Square children’s museum. More than a dozen tankers jumped the track, and three landed in the James. One ruptured and erupted into flames, with up to 31,000 gallons of oil either burning or flowing into the river.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which is on the scene today in Mount Carbon, investigated the Lynchburg derailment but has still to determine its official cause. A defect in the track near the site of the derailment had been detected April 29, but NTSB officials don’t know if it played a role in the derailment.
In the wake of the Lynchburg derailment, the White House and Transportation Department fast-tracked new regulations and safety standards for trains carrying Bakken crude and for the tanker cars used. Rail companies were told to alert local governments when hazardous shipments would be coming through their communities, as well as exactly what those shipments were. Old, single-hulled tankers were to be phased out and replaced by new, double-hulled cars designed to be safer and puncture-proof. But in Mount Carbon as in Lynchburg, the cars that ruptured and caught fire were the newer models.
The upshot is simple. Domestically produced crude is fueling an energy revolution in the United States, but federal regulators and the rail industry must make its transport as safe as possible, regardless of the cost. After near-miss disasters in Lynchburg and now Mount Carbon, we may not be so fortunate the next time.
W.Va. oil train derailment was 1 of 3 with safer tank cars
By John Raby & Jonathan Mattise, Feb 18, 2015, UPDATED Feb 18, 2015 1:33pm ET
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. THE REGISTER-HERALD, STEVE KEENAN — AP Photo
MOUNT CARBON, W.Va. — The fiery derailment of a train carrying crude oil in West Virginia is one of three in the past year involving tank cars that already meet a higher safety standard than what federal law requires — leading some to suggest even tougher requirements that industry representatives say would be costly.
Hundreds of families were evacuated and nearby water treatment plants were temporarily shut down after cars derailed from a train carrying 3 million gallons of North Dakota crude Monday, shooting fireballs into the sky, leaking oil into a Kanawha River tributary and burning down a house nearby. It was snowing at the time, but it is not yet clear if weather was a factor.
The fire smoldered for a third day Wednesday. State public safety division spokesman Larry Messina said the fire was 85 percent contained.
The train’s tanks were a newer model — the 1232 — designed during safety upgrades voluntarily adopted by the industry four years ago. The same model spilled oil and caught fire in Timmins, Ontario on Saturday, and last year in Lynchburg, Virginia.
A series of ruptures and fires have prompted the administration of President Barack Obama to consider requiring upgrades such as thicker tanks, shields to prevent tankers from crumpling, rollover protections and electronic brakes that could make cars stop simultaneously, rather than slam into each other.
If approved, increased safety requirements now under White House review would phase out tens of thousands of older tank cars being used to carry highly flammable liquids.
“This accident is another reminder of the need to improve the safety of transporting hazardous materials by rail,” said Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Oil industry officials had been opposed to further upgrading the 1232 cars because of costs. But late last year they changed their position and joined with the railway industry to support some upgrades, although they asked for time to make the improvements.
Oil shipments by rail jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to more than 435,000 in 2013, driven by a boom in the Bakken oil patch of North Dakota and Montana, where pipeline limitations force 70 percent of the crude to move by rail, according to American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.
The downside: Trains hauling Bakken-region oil have been involved in major accidents in Virginia, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Alabama and Canada, where 47 people were killed by an explosive derailment in 2013 in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.
Reports of leaks and other oil releases from tank cars are up as well, from 12 in 2008 to 186 last year, according to Department of Transportation records reviewed by The Associated Press.
Just Saturday — two days before the West Virginia wreck — 29 cars of a 100-car Canadian National Railway train carrying diluted bitumen crude derailed in a remote area 50 miles south of Timmins, Ontario, spilling oil and catching fire. That train was headed from Alberta to Eastern Canada.
The train Monday was bound for an oil shipping depot in Yorktown, Virginia, along the same route where three tanker cars plunged into the James River in Lynchburg, Virginia, prompting an evacuation last year.
The train derailed near unincorporated Mount Carbon just after passing through Montgomery, a town of 1,946, on a stretch where the rails wind past businesses and homes crowded between the water and the steep, tree-covered hills. All but two of the train’s 109 cars were tank cars, and 26 of them left the tracks.
Fire crews had little choice but to let the tanks burn themselves out. Each carried up to 30,000 gallons of crude.
One person — the owner of the destroyed home — was treated for smoke inhalation, but no other injuries were reported, according to the train company, CSX. The two-person crew, an engineer and conductor, managed to decouple the train’s engines from the wreck behind it and walk away unharmed.
The NTSB said its investigators will compare this wreck to others including Lynchburg and one near Casselton, N.D., when a Bakken crude train created a huge fireball that forced the evacuation of the farming town.
No cause has been determined, said CSX regional vice president Randy Cheetham. He said the tracks had been inspected just three days before the wreck.
“They’ll look at train handling, look at the track, look at the cars. But until they get in there and do their investigation, it’s unwise to do any type of speculation,” he said.
By Tuesday evening, power crews were restoring electricity, water treatment plants were going back online, and most of the local residents were back home. Initial tests showed no crude near water plant intake points, state Environmental Protection spokeswoman Kelley Gillenwater said.
State officials do have some say over rail safety.
Railroads are required by federal order to tell state emergency officials where trains carrying Bakken crude are traveling. CSX and other railroads called this information proprietary, but more than 20 states rejected the industry’s argument, informing the public as well as first-responders about the crude moving through their communities.
West Virginia is among those keeping it secret. State officials responded to an AP Freedom of Information request by releasing documents redacted to remove nearly every detail.
There are no plans to reconsider after this latest derailment, said Melissa Cross, a program manager for the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
Contributors include Joan Lowy in Washington, D.C.; Matthew Brown in Billings, Montana; and Pam Ramsey in Charleston, West Virginia. Mattise reported from Charleston.
