Oil Train Derails, Explodes in North Dakota – Rally for Benicia Awareness and Action! CITY PARK, FIRST & MILITARY, BENICIA, 11:45 a.m.
Everyone said it would happen again soon. Well, Wednesday, May 6 was “The Next BIG ONE” … … and one more is one too many!
We heard all-too-familiar news this morning – that an oil train derailed and exploded in North Dakota. Only this time, it was just four days after the Department of Transportation released new rules for trains hauling hazardous crude oil. Residents of the town of Heimdal, North Dakota were evacuated and warned about smoke inhalation. Thankfully, as of this writing, no one was injured or killed, but lives are upset, the land and air are fouled, and rainwater is gathering in an intermittent nearby waterway known as the Big Slough, which feeds into the James River 15 miles downstream.
At 11:45 a.m. Thursday, join us in City Park, First & Military in Benicia to protest the growing presence of explosive Bakken crude oil trains in the U.S. and Canada. Together, we will call attention to the role that Benicia may (or may not) play in future explosions like the one that took place today, should the City permit Valero Refinery to build a crude-by-rail offloading facility here.
Today’s explosion in North Dakota is the fifth explosive derailment that has occurred in the U.S. and Canada this year, including these previous accidents in 2015:
Gogama, Ontario Canada
Mount Carbon, West Virginia
Galena, Illinois and
Another one in Gogama, Ontario, Canada.
Since July of 2013, when a train carrying explosive Bakken crude oil from North Dakota derailed causing the deaths of 47 people in Lac Mégantic, Quebec, there have been four additional explosive derailments of Bakken crude in North America:
Aliceville, Alabama in November, 2013
Casselton, North Dakota in December of 2013
New Brunswick, Canada in January of 2014, and
Lynchburg, Virginia in April of 2014.
Because Valero plans to bring Bakken crude oil to Benicia, this same disaster could happen here, or anywhere along the way to our small city.
Benicia’s great opportunityin coming months is to say a firm NO THANKS to our friends at Valero, and to wish them well in our shared future of clean and renewable energy.
At noon today, on the sidewalk in front of the Governor’s mansion on Eagle St., citizens will be calling for a ban on the trains carrying crude oil by rail in New York. Yesterday marked the fifth fiery derailment this year and the tenth explosion since 2013 when 47 people died and the town of Lac-Megantic Canada was destroyed. In chronological order the explosions are:
• July, 2013 – Lac Megantic, Canada
• November, 2013 – Aliceville, AL
• December, 2013 – Casselton, ND
• January, 2014 – New Brunswick, Canada
• April 2014 – Lynchburg, VA
• February 14, 2015 – Timmins, Ontario, Canada
• February 16, 2015 – Mount Carbon, WVA
• March 5, 2015 – Galena, IL
• March 7, 2015 – Gogama, Ontario Canada
• May 6, 2015 – Heimdal, ND
During the protest we will sign a letter asking Governor Cuomo to take all necessary steps to halt the oil trains which may include using summary abatement for receipt and storage of the oil at the Port of Albany. Under the Environmental Conservation Law, summary abatement can be invoked if an activity is deemed to be an imminent hazard.
Dominick Calsolaro of PAUSE states “It is time for Governor Cuomo and Commissioner Martens to take drastic action and ban crude oil-carrying trains from traveling through New York State. There is no way to evacuate the whole city of Albany and the additional 70,000 daily workers who commute to our Capital City should one of these trains derail and catch fire downtown.”
What we do – or don’t do – in New York also impacts those south of us in New Jersey. Rosemary Dreger Carey of 350NJ states “In New Jersey, we’re very concerned about the news of another oil train explosion in North Dakota. That makes five explosions this year. Trains carrying Bakken crude run through our major cities and suburban communities day and night. A similar accident here in the most densely populated state in the country would be unthinkable.” Paul Rogovin, also from New Jersey with the Coalition to Ban Unsafe Oil Trains, remarks “We are glad to hear that no one was injured in today’s explosion in North Dakota, but I’m not sure we’d be safe from a similar blast in New Jersey. The new rules issued by the DOT this week give the industry three to five years to improve their cars, and several years more to upgrade their breaks. That’s unacceptable. Accidents don’t wait to happen. People are in danger now. Trains carrying highly volatile Bakken crude oil should be banned.”
Charley Bowen of the Western New York Peace Center in Buffalo agrees “We are glad no human life was lost. However, the residents of every house, village, town and city living nearby a rail line carrying explosive Bakken crude oil remain at risk of loss of life, limb and property. It’s a shame that public policy continues to support expensive fossil fuels to the detriment of humans and the environment when cheaper and infinitely safer renewable sources of energy are readily available. Gov Andrew Cuomo should act immediately to protect NY State residents, its environment and its increasingly precious aquifers. He should immediately invoke his summary abatement powers to stop the transport of dangerous Bakken crude oil in New York State. ”
Sandy Steubing of PAUSE concludes “At this rate the people of New York cannot wait another month, let alone years. There will always be human error and mechanical failures. There will always be train derailments. However, there can be no margin for error with a substance that is this volatile. Fortunately, world class scientists have proven we can rapidly phase out all fossil fuels.”
An energy feasibility study from Stanford and Cornell concludes that New York can derive 100% of its energy needs including transportation from the renewable sources of wind, water, and solar. Dr. Robert Pollin from the Political Economy Research Inst. of UMass Amherst has found that for a million dollar investment we can achieve five oil/gas jobs or thirteen solar jobs. Let us move away from a 19th century mode of transportation, carrying a 20th century energy source, into the 21st century of renewables.
Fiery train derailment prompts evacuation of Heimdal, N.D.
By Herald Staff Report, May 6, 2015 8:52 a.m.
Train derailment and tanker fire by Heimdal. Pic courtesy of Jennifer Willis.
HEIMDAL, N.D. — The small North Dakota community of Heimdal and surrounding farmsteads were evacuated after an oil tanker train derailed Wednesday morning.
The BNSF Railway oil tanker train derailed about 7:30 a.m. about a mile and half east of Heimdal. Heimdal is about 80 miles southeast of Minot, said Wells County Emergency Manager Tammy Roehrich.
Cecily Fong, public information officer for the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services, reported there were 10 tanker cars on fire, though Roehrich reported six cars on fire.
BNSF spokesman Michael Trevino could not confirm the number of cars burning.
Fong and Trevino said the engine and cars not on fire have been decoupled and moved to safety.
No injuries or fatalities were reported, Fong said.
Roehrich said she couldn’t get close enough to the train to see whether it was exploding or just burning. “It looks a lot like Casselton,” she said, referring to the fiery train wreck of oil tankers near Casselton in December 2013.
Trevino said 107 tank cars were carrying crude, with two buffer cars loaded with sand between the crude cars and locomotives.
Trevino said he did not know the origin or destination of the train, which was using a two-person crew.
Wells County 911 Director and Deputy Sheriff Janelle Pepple said the the sky was black with smoke near the derailment site.
Everett Johnson, whose farm is 1.5 miles east of Heimdal, said he drove to within half a mile of the site earlier Wednesday and saw heavy black smoke pouring from the wreck. Although his home is close to the derailment, a hill blocks his view of the site.
“The wind’s blowing from the southwest to the northeast, so it’s not affecting the town of Heimdal,” he said. “It’s drizzling and raining, so that’s a good thing.”
The cars that derailed were toward the rear end of the train, he said. The decoupled section was pulled to the east.
“It’s kind of a slough area,” Johnson said.
Fong said about 40 people were evacuated from Heimdal.
The North Dakota Department of Health is monitoring air quality near the town of Heimdal.
A statement from the Health Department said the primary concern at this time is particulate matter contained in the smoke generated from the fire. The smoke plume is not dispersing well because of current weather conditions. Much of the smoke is remaining close to the ground, where it has greater potential to exacerbate breathing problems.
The 2010 Census reported 27 people living in Heimdal and 21 residents in Hamburg, about 19 miles to the east. Both are in northeastern Wells County.
A statement from BNSF Railway said the tank cars involved in the incident are the unjacketed CPC-1232 models, which are targeted for phase-out by 2020 under new federal safety rules announced last Friday.
Trevino said “unjacketed” means the cars can be retrofitted with ceramic thermal wrapping to conform with the new regulations.
A statement from Sarah Feinberg, acting Federal Railroad Administrator, said the agency has deployed a 10-person investigation team to the site.
“Today’s incident is yet another reminder of why we issued a significant, comprehensive rule aimed at improving the safe transport of high hazard flammable liquids. The FRA will continue to look at all options available to us to improve safety and mitigate risks,” Feinberg said in the statement.
Trevino could not say definitively that the new rules would have prevented a fire.
“The new rules would have a safer tank than the ones involved in this incident. So the new rules are moving toward a safer set of circumstances,” he said in an interview.
Ron Reimche, a school bus driver for the Harvey School District, said he crossed the same train tracks a few miles away from the scene shortly before the crash was reported. He was on his way to Esmond to pick up his first student of the day.
“I meet the trains every so often at that crossing,” said Reimche, adding that he makes sure to stop well back from the train tracks on his route. “In my opinion, they ought to hurry and get that pipeline in.”
Trevino said a cause for the derailment has not been determined. Responders are still attempting to contain oil at scene.
BNSF has dispatched its environmental response team and local operations team to the site.
Emergency crews from several fire departments in the region and hazardous materials teams from Devils Lake and Grand Forks responded to the derailment.
In addition to HAZMAT teams from Devils Lake and Grand Forks, the state Highway Patrol and firefighters from Harvey, Fessenden, Hamburg and Devils Lake were dispatched.
Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said the FRA has deployed 10 people to the scene to investigate what caused the accident.
This is a developing story. Please check back for details. Reuters contributed information to this story.
Crude Oil Rail Shipments Sabotage Freedom of Information Act
By James Conca, May 5, 2015 @ 4:40 AM
New regulations from the U.S. Department of Transportation declare that details about crude oil rail shipments are exempt from public disclosure (Tri-City Herald).
This ends DOT’s existing regulations that required railroads to share with state officials, and the public, information about shipping large volumes of dangerous crude oil by rail. These disclosure requirements were put in place last year after a Bakken crude oil train-wreck in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Now, railroads will only have to share this information with emergency responders who will be mum. And the information will be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act as well as public records and state disclosure laws (SSI).
True, the new regulations do cover critical oil train operations in terms of “speed restrictions, braking systems, and routing, and adopts safety improvements in tank car design standards and a sampling and classification program for unrefined petroleum-based products.” All good things long needed to address the growing dangers in rail transport of crude.
But after the Lynchburg derailment and inferno, the feds required railroads to notify emergency response agencies if shipments over a million gallons crude oil were going through their states. Railroads complied, but asked states to keep that information confidential.
Since then, the industry argued that details about the crude oil rail shipments were sensitive from a security and customer protection standpoint and should not be available to the public, although it’s more likely they just don’t want to get hassled by a public trying to restrict shipments from going through their towns, across their rivers and along their coasts.
At first, the Federal Railroad Administration disagreed with the industry (Federal Register), saying that information about the shipments was not sensitive from any standpoint.
But they seemed to have quietly caved to industry pressure.
The twin forces of the new North American energy boom and the lack of pipeline capacity have combined to suddenly and dramatically increase crude oil shipping by rail. The energy boom is not going away, and the XL pipeline is on hold indefinitely, so the increase in rail will continue.
Crude is a nasty material, very destructive when it spills into the environment, and very toxic when it contacts humans or animals. It’s not even useful for energy, or anything else, until it’s chemically processed, or refined, into suitable products like naphtha, gasoline, heating oil, kerosene, asphaltics, mineral spirits, natural gas liquids, and a host of other products.
Thus, the need to get it to the refineries that can handle it, mostly along the coasts. Without new pipelines, it’s going to go by rail.
But fiery derailments of crude oil trains in North America are becoming almost frequent, along with many simple spills (dot111). Every minute of every day, shipments of two million gallons of crude are traveling over a thousand miles in hundred-tank-car trains (PHMSA.gov), delivering as much oil as is expected by the Keystone XL Pipeline.
A clear example of this danger came on July 6, 2013, when a train carrying 72 tank cars, and over 2,000,000 gallons of Bakken oil shale crude from the Williston Basin of North Dakota, derailed in the small town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Much of the town was destroyed and forty-seven people were killed.
According to billionaire Warren Buffett, these new federal standards for shipping crude oil by rail will definitely slow-up the industry, and as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway’s BNSF railroad and its Union Tank Car business, he should know (Tri-City Herald).
Buffett says railroads are critical for transporting potentially dangerous products across the United States, and he thinks it makes more sense for railroads to haul them instead of trucks or pipelines, a controversial stand given the historical data (Pick Your Poison).
So what is the safest way to move crude oil?
The short answer is: truck worse than train worse than pipeline worse than boat (Oilprice.com). But that’s only for human death and property destruction. For the amount of oil spilled per billion-ton-miles, it’s truck worse than pipeline worse than rail worse than boat (Congressional Research Service). Even more different is for environmental impact, where it’s boat worse than pipeline worse than truck worse than rail.
But the accident frequency trend is against rail. Oil trains are getting bigger and towing more and more tanker cars. From 1975 to 2012, trains were short and spills were rare and small, with about half of those years having no spills above a few gallons (EarthJustice.org). Then came 2013, in which more crude oil was spilled in U.S. rail incidents than was spilled in the previous thirty-seven years.
The danger seems to be centered in the rail tank cars themselves (The Coming Oil Train Wreck). If these new regulations makes the rail cars safer, makes them go slower and routes them around environmentally sensitive or vulnerable areas, that’s wonderful.
But I don’t see why we aren’t allowed to know when the crude oil trains are near us.
Today’s explosion in North Dakota is the fifth explosive derailment that has occurred in the U.S. and Canada this year, including these previous accidents in 2015:
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