Tank car upgrades effective in derailments, Canadian report shows
By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau, June 19, 2015
Tank car improvements required by the U.S. and Canadian governments last month should cut the risk of spills and fires in oil train accidents, Canadian investigators have concluded.
The finding came from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada’s investigation of on a derailment in January 2014 in Plaster Rock, New Brunswick.
While the report pinpointed a broken wheel as the cause, the derailment provided a rare side-by-side comparison of the performance of two different types of tank cars in use for decades on the North American rail system.
A type of tank car called the DOT-112 survived the Plaster Rock derailment with no impact damage, according to the report, released Friday. Four such cars carrying butane derailed.
In contrast, two DOT-111 cars carrying crude oil sustained punctures, spilling more than 60,000 gallons. The spilled oil caught fire.
The DOT-112 cars have features very similar to the new DOT-117 standard unveiled by regulators on May 1. Both include half-inch thick shields that fully protect both ends of the car, thicker 9/16-inch shells and thermal insulation around the tank shell enclosed with an additional layer of steel.
Typically, the DOT-111 cars have 7/16-inch shells and none of the other protections.
As McClatchy reported last year, the DOT-112 was beefed up after a series of catastrophic tank car explosions in the 1970s that killed railroad workers and firefighters and caused extensive property damage. After the 112 was upgraded, the accidents subsided.
But the DOT-111 fleet remained unchanged, even when railroads began hauling larger quantities of ethanol a decade ago, followed by crude oil five years ago.
The Canadian report lists 13 other rail accidents involving crude oil or ethanol since 2005 that illustrate the vulnerabilities of the DOT-111. Three of those derailments took place this year, including two in Ontario and one in West Virginia.
The list also includes the 2013 disaster in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, which resulted in 47 fatalities. The families of the victims and their attorneys earlier this month unanimously ratified a proposed $350 million settlement package.
The U.S. Department of Transportation last month required that new tank cars carrying crude oil and ethanol meet the DOT-117 standard beginning in October. Tank car owners, which are typically railcar manufacturers, financial firms and energy companies, must comply with a series of retrofit deadlines for DOT-111 cars that are spread out over a decade.
The oil industry says the timeline is too short, while environmentalists say it’s too long. Both have since taken the department to court.
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.
[Editor: Liability is a huge – and lingering – issue when it comes to oil train derailments and catastrophic firey explosions. There have been daily updates this past week on an announced settlement in the massive Lac-Mégantic disaster of July, 2013. We watch and wait for potentially precedent-setting decisions. See below. – RS]
(Reuters) — A Quebec judge reserved his decision on Wednesday on whether to grant a motion that would clear the way for a settlement between victims of the 2013 Lac-Megantic oil train disaster and dozens of companies and individuals linked to the crash that killed 47 people. Read More >
In this July 6, 2013 file photo, smoke rises from railway cars carrying crude oil after derailing in downtown Lac Megantic, Que. Paul Chiasson / THE CANADIAN PRESS
(Calgary Herald) — SHERBROOKE, Que. – Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.’s lawyers asked a Quebec judge not to approve a proposed $430-million settlement fund for victims of the Lac-Megantic train derailment because they say its terms are unfair to the company. Read More >
(Globalnews.ca) – WATCH: A settlement to compensate victims of the Lac-Megantic train disaster may be in danger. Lawyers for Canadian Pacific are questioning the legitimacy of the entire process, just two days before a judge was set to approve the deal. As Mike Armstrong explains, the last minute hiccup could mean a delay of months or even years. Read More >
(Montreal Gazette) – A lawyer for the defunct railroad at the centre of the Lac-Mégantic train derailment said Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. is acting deplorably and offensively by attempting to shut down proceedings to distribute more than $430 million to victims and creditors of the 2013 tragedy. Read More >
Repost from the Sarnia Observer [Editor: reading highlighted text for references to the Mayors’ efforts to stop crude oil train derailments, and the importance of local communities banding together on such matters. – RS]
Sarnia convention brings together mayors from Great Lakes region, St. Lawrence River
By Chris O’Gorman, June 18, 2015 8:11:34 EDT AM
Deputy mayor of Quebec City, Michelle Morin-Doyle, speaks about the need for oil transportation regulations at the kick off to a three day conference in Sarnia. The conference will produce a list of resolutions backed by 110 mayors and municipal leaders asking governments and industries to curb harmful environmental practices. (CHRIS O’GORMAN, Sarnia Observer)
The mayors of cities and towns dotting the coast of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence are in Sarnia for a three-day environmental conference where they announced “aggressive targets” for reducing phosphorus in Lake Erie.
A Lake Erie algae bloom last summer made city water unsafe for residents of Toledo, Ohio to unable to use city water for several days.
The event served as a “wake-up call” for all municipalities on the lake to pressure governments and industries to reduce phosphorus run-off, David Ullrich, the executive director of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, said Wednesday
“In the minds of the mayors, this was really a game changer for us. We couldn’t be complacent anymore about algae blooms,” he said.
Phosphorus is a naturally occurring element is the byproduct of some industries and is found in fertilizers. When it makes it way from farm fields into bodies of water, it feeds toxic algae, sometimes creating blooms.
The city representatives from eight states and two provinces are hoping to introduce a harmonized system for dealing with algae blooms, similar to the one Toledo adopted after the toxic water disaster. They’re calling for a 40% reduction in phosphorus by 2025 in Lake Erie.
There are a number of items on the conference agenda on Thursday, including making oil transportation safer through the Great Lakes region , eliminating micro beads from consumer products, and discussing the future of energy generation and distribution.
“Our collective voice has never been more important. We’re facing a number of challenging issues that we will be discussing at our conference,” said Mitch Twolan, the mayor of Huron-Kinloss.
While it may seem as if initiatives like these involve a lot of policy documents and occasional finger pointing—one mayor said “we do send a lot of letters,” receiving a few chuckles—the collective of mayors has achieved much in just the last year.
At the last conference, the group decided to take action against “micro beads,” small plastic beads found in body washes, toothpastes, and other products. The beads accumulate in waterways and the bodies of animals.
Today, the city initiative has successfully lobbied six companies to stop using the beads in their products. Most recently, Loblaws said it would be phasing out micro bead products from its stores.
The Lac Mégantic disaster will also be a major agenda item. In July 2013, a train carrying crude oil derailed near the rural Quebec town of Lac Méganic and exploded killing 47 people. Deputy mayor of Quebec City, Michelle Morin-Doyle said the group is committed to improving oil transportation safety through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence regions. While the initiatives work may be slow sometimes and alone a city may be able to move faster, working with a larger collective means changes are permanent and far-reaching.
“Because what it all comes down to is we want to make sure our citizens are safe,” she said. “The objective must be zero derailments. We cannot afford another accident like the one in Lac Mégantic.”
From Wisconsin, mayor John Dickert of Racine said the environmental group prefers to speak with, encourage, and sometimes demand industries that create these contaminants stop, rather than dealing with aftermaths like Lac Mégantic.
“The reason these are not small issues is… because businesses deal with these disasters on the day it happens. If their train derails, they’ve lost a financial commodity. Our people have lost their lives,” he said.
“We are going to be very aggressive on these issues so that we don’t have to deal with it after the fact or deal with a parent who’s saying they just lost a loved one.”
Tank car improvements required by the U.S. and Canadian governments last month should cut the risk of spills and fires in oil train accidents, Canadian investigators have concluded.
