Category Archives: Crude By Rail

Bakken Crude, Bridge safety, Crude By Rail, Decommissioning, Fracking, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Oil prices, Rail Safety, Tank car design

Trains plus crude oil equals trouble down the track

January 2, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from McClatchy News
[Editor: Once again Curtis Tate has produced an incredible wide-ranging and deep analysis of current issues and developments around crude by rail in the US. This article can serve as a must-read primer on crude by rail. Note that the presentation below is only a rough copy – much better viewing on McClatchy’s website. – RS]

By Curtis Tate, December 31, 2014

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Every day, strings of black tank cars filled with crude oil roll slowly across a long wooden railroad bridge over the Black Warrior River.

Decaying track and bridge conditions on the Alabama southern railroad could pose a risk to Tuscaloosa, Ala., population 95,000. Above, video of trains crossing the bridge.

Curtis Tate / McClatchyDecaying track and bridge conditions on the Alabama southern railroad could pose a risk to Tuscaloosa, Ala., population 95,000. Above, video of trains crossing the bridge.

The 116-year-old span is a landmark in this city of 95,000 people, home to the University of Alabama. Residents have proposed and gotten married next to the bridge. Children play under it. During Alabama football season, die-hard Crimson Tide fans set up camp in its shadow.

But with some timber pilings so badly rotted that you can stick your hand right through them, and a “MacGyver”-esque combination of plywood, concrete and plastic pipe employed to patch up others, the bridge demonstrates the limited ability of government and industry to manage the hidden risks of a sudden shift in energy production.

And it shows why communities nationwide are in danger.

“It may not happen today or tomorrow, but one day a town or a city is going to get wiped out,” said Larry Mann, one of the foremost authorities on rail safety, who as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill in 1970 was the principal author of the Federal Railroad Safety Act, which authorized the government to regulate the safety of railroads.

Almost overnight in 2010, trains began crisscrossing the country carrying an energy bounty that included millions of gallons of crude oil and ethanol. The nation’s fleet of tens of thousands of tank cars, coupled with a 140,000-mile network of rail lines, had emerged as a viable way to move these economically essential commodities. But few thought to step back and take a hard look at the industry’s readiness for the job.

It may not happen today or tomorrow, but one day a town or a city is going to get wiped out.

Larry Mann, principal author of the Federal Railroad Safety Act

In a series of stories, McClatchy has detailed how government and industry are playing catch-up to long-overdue safety improvements, from redesigning the tank cars that carry the oil to rebuilding the track and bridges over which the trains run.

Those efforts in the past year and a half may have spared life and property in many communities. But they came too late for Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, a Canadian lakeside resort town just across the border from Maine. A train derailment there on July 6, 2013, unleashed a torrent of burning crude oil into the town’s center. Forty-seven people were killed.

“Sometimes it takes a disaster to get elected officials and agencies to address problems that were out there,” said Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, a member of the House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees railroads, pipelines and hazardous materials, who’s leaving Congress after six terms.

Other subsequent but nonfatal derailments in Aliceville, Ala., Casselton, N.D., and Lynchburg, Va., followed a familiar pattern: massive fires and spills, large-scale evacuations and local officials furious that they hadn’t been informed beforehand of such shipments.

The U.S. Department of Transportation will issue a set of new rules in January regarding the transportation of flammable liquids by rail.

“Safety is our top priority,” said Kevin Thompson, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration,“both in the rule-making and through other immediate actions we have taken over the last year and a half.”

Nevertheless, McClatchy has identified other gaps in the oversight of crude by rail:

The Federal Railroad Administration entrusts bridge inspections to the railroads and doesn’t keep data on their condition, unlike its sister agency, the Federal Highway Administration, which does so for road bridges.
Most states don’t employ dedicated railroad bridge inspectors. Only California has begun developing a bridge inspection program.
The U.S. Department of Transportation concluded that crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale region posed an elevated risk in rail transport, so regulators required railroads to notify state officials of large shipments of Bakken crude. However, the requirement excluded other kinds of oil increasingly transported by rail, including those from Canada, Texas, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.
While railroads and refiners have taken steps to reserve the newest, sturdiest tank cars available for Bakken trains, they, too, have ruptured in derailments, and Bakken and other kinds of oil are likely to be moving around the country in a mix of older and newer cars for several more years.

We anticipate that crude by rail is going to stay over the long term

Kevin Birn, director of IHS Energy

Staying power

American railroads moved only 9,500 cars of crude oil in 2008 but more than 400,000 in 2013, according to industry figures. In the first seven months of 2014, trains carried 759,000 barrels a day – that’s more than 200,000 cars altogether – or 8 percent of the country’s oil production, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

The energy boom, centered on North Dakota’s Bakken region, was made possible by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a horizontal drilling method that unlocks oil and gas trapped in rock formations. It was also made possible by the nation’s expansive rail system.

Crude by rail has become a profitable business for some of the world’s richest men. Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor, bought BNSF Railway in 2009. It’s since become the nation’s leading hauler of crude oil in trains. Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and philanthropist, is the largest shareholder in Canadian National, the only rail company that has a direct route from oil-rich western Canada to the refinery-rich Gulf Coast.

Amid a worldwide slide in oil prices in recent weeks, crude by rail shows few signs of slowing down. The price per barrel of oil has dropped nearly 50 percent since last January. Still, the six largest North American railroads reported hauling a record 38,775 carloads of petroleum the second week of December.

“We anticipate that crude by rail is going to stay over the long term,” said Kevin Birn, director at IHS Energy, an energy information and analysis firm, and a co-author of a recent analysis of the trend.

Regulatory agencies and the rail industry may not have anticipated the sudden increase in crude oil moving by rail. However, government and industry had long known that most of the tank cars pressed into crude oil service had poor safety records. And after 180 years in business, U.S. railroads knew that track defects were a leading cause of derailments.

To be sure, railroads are taking corrective steps, including increased track inspections and reduced train speeds. They’ve endorsed stronger tank cars and funded beefed-up training for first responders.

Ed Greenberg, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, the industry’s principal trade group, said railroads began a “top-to-bottom review” of their operations after the Quebec accident.

“Every time there is an incident, the industry learns from what occurred and takes steps to address it through ongoing investments into rail infrastructure, as well as cutting-edge research and development,” he said. “The industry is committed to continuous improvement in actively moving forward at making rail transportation even safer.”

But the industry continues to resist other changes, including calls for more transparency. The dominant Eastern railroads, Norfolk Southern and CSX, sued Maryland to stop the state from releasing information to McClatchy about crude oil trains.

The industry also seeks affirmation from the courts that only the federal government has the power to regulate railroads. The dominant Western carriers, BNSF and Union Pacific, joined by the Association of American Railroads, sued California over a state law that requires them to develop comprehensive oil spill-response plans.

From North Dakota by rail

In response to an April derailment and oil spill, the Department of Transportation began requiring railroads to notify states of trains carrying 1 million or more gallons of Bakken crude. Smaller loads, and oil from other deposits, are not included — but this gives an idea of how the country’s rail lines are being used as a makeshift pipeline.

McClatchy has received reports from 22 states that include estimate weekly ranges of oil shipments by county. You can see the higher end of those ranges mapped out below and can select a state and county (or click on a county) to get more details. Nine states that Bakken crude is shipped through refused to provide data on the shipments.

Click on the image to go to McClatchy’s page. Then scroll down for the Interactive Map, “From North Dakota by rail”

Need to know

After a CSX crude oil train derailed in downtown Lynchburg, Va., on April 30, spilling 30,000 gallons of Bakken crude into the James River, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued an emergency order: Railroads carrying more than 1 million gallons of Bakken crude, or about 35 tank cars, were required to begin notifying state emergency-response commissions where and how often such shipments moved so that communities could prepare better in case of accidents.

The railroads, used to keeping such information close to the vest, asked state officials to sign nondisclosure agreements treating the reports as confidential and limiting their release to those with “a need to know.”

Some states initially agreed, and the Transportation Department voiced no objections. Others, however, declined to sign the agreements, finding no reason to exempt the oil train reports from their open-records laws.

Since June, McClatchy has obtained full or partial Bakken train reports from 22 states. The reports show an estimated range of how many Bakken trains pass through each county each week, and the routes they use. Some states, such as Virginia and New York, released all the details. Illinois, however, didn’t reveal the routes. Alabama and New Jersey disclosed only the counties, not the routes or frequency.

Having lost the fight in California, Washington state and elsewhere, some railroads continued to press their case in other states that the reports were security and commercially sensitive. After the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency denied McClatchy’s request in July, McClatchy appealed the decision to the state’s Office of Open Records.

In October, the open records office ordered the emergency management agency to release the records. Days later, the agency posted them, in full, on its website.

In July, the Maryland Department of the Environment was about to release the Bakken reports to McClatchy when two railroads, Norfolk Southern and CSX, sued the state to block the release.

The Federal Railroad Administration all but put the issue to rest in October. In guidance published in the Federal Register, the agency said no federal law protected the Bakken train reports from public disclosure and that the information they contained was neither security nor commercially sensitive.

Delaware, West Virginia, Idaho and Tennessee, which denied McClatchy’s requests outright, haven’t reconsidered since the federal guidance. Texas has made no decision on how much information, if any, to release.

Greenberg, of the Association of American Railroads, said the industry remained concerned that publicly releasing the information “elevates security risks by making it easier for someone intent on causing harm.” The reports “should remain with local, state and federal emergency responders,” he added.

Mapped out, the reports show concentrated streams of Bakken traffic radiating from North Dakota to the Mid-Atlantic, Gulf Coast and Pacific Northwest. The reports do not, however, show smaller quantities of Bakken or any quantity of other kinds of crude oil shipped by rail. Individual railroads may be notifying emergency responders of such cargoes, but at least for now, they aren’t required to do so.

The Federal Railroad Administration has sought comment on whether the reporting threshold should be lower and include other types of crude oil.

Thompson, the railroad administration spokesman, said the May emergency order was meant to be “a powerful but narrowly constructed tool to address an imminent hazard,” the one presented by Bakken crude.

“It was and remains an interim step in our ongoing effort to ensure the safe transport of crude by rail,” he said.

Risk on the rails
The U.S. government’s failure to anticipate potential problems with transporting highly flammable crude oil along aging railways has resulted in deadly and dangerous derailments from Quebec to Alabama.

In the dark

In March, emergency response officials in Sacramento, Calif., were stunned to learn that the decommissioned McClellan Air Force Base on the city’s northwest side had become a transfer point for crude oil.

After a McClatchy reporter told him about the facility, the city’s interim fire chief sent his battalion chief and a hazardous materials inspector to the site, where they found 22 tank cars loaded with crude oil. The facility had been operating for several months, without the knowledge of local fire chiefs or the county emergency manager. It had also been operating without a permit from the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, apparently in violation of California’s strict environmental laws.

The same week McClatchy’s Sacramento Bee published a story in late March revealing its existence, the facility received a permit to transfer 11 million gallons of crude oil a month from trains to trucks.

In September, EarthJustice, a San Francisco-based environmental group, sued the air quality management district, challenging its decision to issue the permit without public comment or an environmental impact review.

In October, Sacramento County’s top air-quality official rescinded the permit, acknowledging that its approval was a mistake. The McClellan transfer operation shut down in mid-November.

Two or three Bakken trains a month are moving through California’s capital to other destinations, and area officials are bracing for a big increase: The California Energy Commission projects that rail could deliver 22 percent of the state’s petroleum needs in a few years.

In response to growing concern about emergency preparedness amid the rise in crude by rail, the industry established a special training program at its research and testing facility in Pueblo, Colo.

Since classes began in July, the nation’s largest railroads have spent $5 million to train 1,500 emergency response personnel at the school. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., persuaded the Federal Emergency Management Agency to contribute another $5 million to continue the program.

“Our emergency responders are often our first line of defense – and they usually do it without pay,” Heitkamp said Monday in a statement. “It’s on all of us to make sure they have the training and resources they need to protect our families and communities.”

Individual railroads also bring training to many communities along their routes. CSX, for example, just concluded an 18-city tour with its Safety Train, a mobile classroom that educates first responders on the basics of responding to rail accidents. The railroad said 2,200 personnel from 350 departments had participated.

But the training may have its limits.

The National Fire Protection Association estimated that in 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available, there were about 1.1 million firefighters spread across 30,000 departments. More than 800,000 of them were volunteers. Nationwide, volunteer departments have turnover rates of 20 percent to 50 percent.

Steve LoPresti, the hazmat chief for Montgomery County EMS in suburban Philadelphia, said his department was all-volunteer. The department has a “robust” training schedule, he said, and has worked with other agencies as well as railroads hauling crude oil through the county.

But it can be tough for volunteers to take the time off for training, even if someone else pays for it.

“They have full-time jobs, maybe part-time jobs,” LoPresti said. “They’re family men. They have other responsibilities.”

Lac-Mégantic showed the enormous risk that even the best-trained firefighters might face. In Senate testimony last April, Tim Pellerin, a Maine fire chief whose department assisted its Quebec neighbor, said it had taken 1,000 firefighters from 80 departments on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border 30 hours, a million gallons of water and 8,000 gallons of firefighting foam to bring the massive blaze under control.

Rick Edinger, assistant chief of the Chesterfield County, Va., Fire and EMS department and a hazardous materials expert who testified on oil train fires at the National Transportation Safety Board in April, said in an interview that most departments were capable of responding to an incident involving a 9,000-gallon gasoline tanker truck. But one rail car can hold as much as 30,000 gallons. A 100-car oil train could contain 3 million

“Once you reach that point of no return,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what the volume is.”

A common thread runs through the Lac-Mégantic, Aliceville and Casselton derailments: the workhorse DOT-111 tank car. The NTSB has been warning about it for decades.

The car is minimally reinforced and has a well-documented tendency to puncture or rupture in derailments.

A series of explosions from the late 1960s to the late 1970s killed dozens of people, including railroad workers and first responders, prompting an overhaul of the pressurized tank cars then used to haul flammable and toxic gases with many of the same features under discussion now.

The problems subsided by the early 1980s. But unlike those cars, the DOT-111 wasn’t similarly retrofitted. And it continued to fail catastrophically in derailments that involved flammable or poisonous liquids, as three decades of NTSB accident reports reviewed by McClatchy demonstrate.

Many of those accidents – from Newark, N.J., in 1981 to Dunsmuir, Calif., in 1991 to Baltimore in 2001– were caused by track defects or human error. But in report after report, the NTSB warned that the design of the DOT-111 tank car increased the severity of these accidents.

About a decade ago, railroads began transporting large volumes of ethanol, a renewable, highly flammable alternative fuel. Rail transportation of ethanol grew over several years, peaking at 360,000 carloads in 2011. At least seven fiery derailments from 2006 to 2012 involving ethanol transported in DOT-111 cars sent another warning.

In June 2009, a Canadian National train derailed on washed-out track at a road crossing at Cherry Valley, Ill. Multiple DOT-111 tank cars punctured, spilling more than 300,000 gallons of ethanol. A woman was killed when the massive blaze engulfed her vehicle at the crossing.

The Association of American Railroads petitioned the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration in March 2011 for an improved tank car design. About a year later, then-NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman wrote Cynthia Quarterman, who was then the head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, pleading for improvements to the DOT-111. In her reply, Quarterman concurred with Hersman but expressed concerns about the cost.

Two months after Lac-Mégantic went up in flames in July 2013, Quarterman’s agency released its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the first step in the usually lengthy process.

Last July, the Transportation Department proposed a 2017 deadline to phase out or retrofit the DOT-111 fleet. But for now, the car is ubiquitous in crude oil and ethanol trains nationwide.

Among other steps taken by the department this year, the Federal Railroad Administration’s Thompson noted that it had “issued a safety advisory requesting companies to take all possible steps to avoid using DOT-111 tank cars when transporting Bakken crude.”

That wasn’t enough to satisfy environmental groups, which petitioned the Transportation Department for an immediate ban on DOT-111 cars hauling Bakken crude oil. When the department denied the petition, the groups sued.

Railroads generally don’t own the tank cars used to transport oil by train.

Since the more recent high-profile accidents, many refiners have opted to go with the higher standard the rail industry adopted voluntarily in 2011, with thicker shells and extra shielding on the ends of the cars, as well as features that protect top and bottom valves in case of a derailment.

BNSF and Canadian Pacific, two of the biggest Bakken haulers, have imposed surcharges on crude oil shippers who use pre-2011 tank cars.

However, the oil and rail industry’s principal trade groups have requested that regulators give them more time to phase out the cars. Under both government and industry proposals, the cars with the fewest protections could remain in crude oil service through 2020.

The $1.1 trillion spending bill Congress approved in December contains a requirement that the DOT issue its final rule by Jan. 15.

Even the newer cars have vulnerabilities. Post-2011 cars involved in a derailment last January in New Augusta, Miss., spilled 50,000 gallons of heavy Canadian crude.

So did at least one newer car in Lynchburg, which released its entire contents of Bakken crude into the James River, most of which burned. The city’s downtown was spared.

Some of the most vocal advocates for a more aggressive timeline for retrofitting or retiring the DOT-111 fleet are elected leaders in cities and towns. Karen Darch, the village president of Barrington, Ill., a Chicago suburb, has testified on Capitol Hill and submitted comments to regulators. Two busy rail lines intersect in her community, and trains carrying crude oil and ethanol pass within feet of homes, businesses and schools.

“We have people who are, quite literally, sitting ducks,” she said.

The repairs I see them making right now are more like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound

John Wathen, environmentalist

Curtis Tate / McClatchyOn April 30, 2014, a CSX train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed in downtown Lynchburg, Va. No one was injured or killed but three tank cars went into the James River spilling 30,000 gallons of oil and igniting a fire. Above, video of trains outside Lynchburg on a normal day.

Repeated violations

In Tuscaloosa, repairs are underway on the century-old bridge. But its condition had received less attention from local, state and federal authorities, and the railroad that maintains it, before crude oil trains began rolling over its rotting timbers in 2013.

The local industrial development authority gave $785,000 in tax abatements to the Hunt Refining Co. to build a two-track rail terminal capable of unloading 600,000 gallons of crude oil a day at its Tuscaloosa refinery.

Mike Smith, a lawyer for the agency, said its jurisdiction didn’t extend beyond the refinery and that it had no authority to evaluate the condition of, or require repairs to, the rail infrastructure that leads to it. A spokeswoman for Hunt, based in Houston, declined to comment.

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management quickly approved Hunt’s permits to build and operate the terminal, with no public comment or review. A spokesman for the department didn’t return multiple phone calls seeking comment.

The Federal Railroad Administration doesn’t inspect bridges. That responsibility rests with the railroad.

The Alabama Southern Railroad, which is owned by Watco, a company headquartered in Pittsburg, Kan., maintains the Tuscaloosa bridge and the track that runs across it. Regulators have cited the company many times over the years for safety violations. Federal Railroad Administration inspection reports obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that inspectors recommended penalties for Alabama Southern 15 times from January 2006 to September 2013.

In June, an Alabama Southern train carrying crude oil derailed in Buhl, Ala., about 12 miles west of Tuscaloosa. Though nothing spilled, seven battered tank cars remained on the ground for the next two months, a short distance from people’s front porches.

Tracie VanBecelaere, a Watco spokeswoman, said the company would invest as much as $17 million over three years in new rail, ties and ballast on the 62-mile Alabama Southern line between Tuscaloosa and Columbus, Miss.

In late October, bundles of new crossties lined the track near a road crossing in Northport, across the river from Tuscaloosa. Tie replacements “will continue for several months,” VanBecelaere said.

She said the track was inspected more than federal law required and was checked ultrasonically for internal defects twice a year.

The old bridge is getting a $2.5 million overhaul as part of the same project, VanBecelaere said. She said it had passed an inspection over the summer.

John Wathen, an environmentalist who’s been monitoring the condition of the rail infrastructure around Tuscaloosa for the past year, wonders whether it’s enough.

“The repairs I see them making right now are more like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound,” he said .

Nothing would have survived within the fire footprint. We’ve seen that already.

John Wathen, environmentalist

Potential for disaster

October is a busy time in Tuscaloosa, with Alabama football season in full swing. One home-game weekend this year, there were no hotel rooms available within 50 miles of the city. Tuscaloosa’s population expands on home game days. The university’s Bryant-Denny Stadium can hold more than 100,000 fans.

The railroad bridge is perhaps more than a mile from the stadium, as the crow flies. Across the river in Northport, a whole encampment of recreational vehicles owned by football fans sits just 50 feet from the structure. The city council allows the tailgaters to park their campers there for the season’s duration.

The 7,500-seat Tuscaloosa Amphitheater, which recently hosted Mary J. Blige and the Doobie Brothers, sits near the bridge on the opposite bank. The Oliver Lock and Dam, a popular fishing spot, is about half a mile downriver.

Thousands more people descend on Northport in October for the annual Kentuck Festival of the Arts.

Most Tuscaloosa residents know about the bridge and some have stories about how it intersects with their lives. But few know about the hazardous cargoes that creep across it in slow-moving trains, and with them the potential for disaster.

And Tuscaloosa knows disaster. On April 27, 2011, a powerful tornado, with winds of 190 mph, ripped through the city, chewing up neighborhoods, schools and shopping centers. Of the 65 Alabamians killed by the tornado that day, 52 were in Tuscaloosa.

For Wathen, a big worry is that if an oil train derailed on or near the bridge, it wouldn’t take long for the spilled cargo to reach the Black Warrior River. Once it reached the dam, Wathen said, it would be virtually impossible to clean up, no matter what kind of oil it was.

“It would be an environmental catastrophe,” he said.

Wathen has other fears, as well. In addition to the 47 fatalities, the derailment and fire in Lac-Mégantic destroyed 50 buildings, consuming the heart of the city’s business district.

“Lay that footprint over Tuscaloosa or Northport,” Wathen said. “Nothing would have survived within the fire footprint. We’ve seen that already.”

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Rail Safety, Tar sands crude, Valero Benicia Refinery

Vallejo Times-Herald: Valero’s controversial crude oil plans ranked 4th in top 10 stories of 2014

January 2, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from The Vallejo Times-Herald

Times-Herald’s Top 10 local stories of 2014

By Times-Herald staff report, 01/01/15

Two wake-up calls by Mother Nature, the passing of a father-figure icon, and a longtime symphony conductor’s surprising ouster were among this year’s news stories in Vallejo.

From a devastating earthquake to the drought, controversial one-year’s notice to Vallejo Symphony maestro David Ramadanoff, to a school board election that isn’t over to a new police chief, a horrific fire truck accident that avoided a fatality, and Valero’s crude oil plans, the 2014 Top 10 Stories list is presented below in its crowning, year-end glory by the Times-Herald staff.

10. The drought

Gov. Jerry Brown declared a statewide drought and the state announced cities would get only 5 percent of their allotment from the State Water Project.

In February, American Canyon council members declared a Stage 1 Drought Emergency and asked all customers to reduce water consumption by 20 percent.

The situation’s seriousness engendered unprecedented cooperation between Napa and Solano counties, with ways considered for Solano to share its reasonably stable Lake Berryessa water source with Napa County in what officials were by March calling a natural disaster. The problems especially impacted American Canyon because it relies most heavily on the State Water Project’s North Bay Aqueduct, which nearly had to be blocked by rocks to prevent falling water levels to allow salt water into the Delta. These plans were abandoned in May.

Stage one drought conditions persisted, however, and by July the state adopted emergency water regulations, and American Canyon officials declared a Drought Emergency Stage 2 mandatory compliance water alert. Authorities enforced a list of prohibited water uses including hosing down driveways, watering lawns, washing cars during the day and filling swimming pools.

Solano County water providers also took action in August to comply with the state’s first-ever emergency regulations mandating water conservation. Benicia mandated outdoor watering restrictions and Vallejo limited landscape watering to three days per week. By October, Benicia had reduced its water use by 18 percent.

9. North Mare Island plans

The future of North Mare Island became a hot-button issue as the city council began a “request for qualifications” process in July for proposals on how to develop more than 150 acres north of G Street.After dismissing three projects for “falling short if the city’s expectations,” the council In November heard information on eight proposals, which include three Indian casino projects, each along the lines of the $800 million Graton Casino & Resort that opened last year in Sonoma County. Other proposals involve industrial parks or mixed-use hotel and conference center projects on the city-owned land between Azuar Street and the Mare Island Strait.

The push to redevelop North Mare Island moved forward in early July when the city council approved the approval a $893,000 contract to demolish three former Navy buildings. The project is part of the city’s overall plan to accelerate the removal of up to 30 abandoned former Mare Island Naval Shipyard structures. Since the base closed in 1996, the buildings have been considered eyesores and an impediment to redevelopment activities.

8. Measure E and the school board election.

The name “Richard Porter” became well know in the city of Vallejo during 2014, as the school teacher early on in the fall sought election to the Vallejo City Unified School District Board of Education, only to change is mind and cancel his campaign.

Porter — who filed candidacy papers in August — suspended his campaign in early September to teach math and science at the Mare Island Health & Fitness Academy. Despite halting his campaign, more than 7,000 Vallejo voters decided to elect him, placing him second out of three available seats.

Due to state law, Porter can not serve on the board of education and teach in the district at the same time. Porter opted to stay as a teacher at the academy — refusing to be seated as a trustee — creating a vacancy on the board.

The board recently decided to seek a provisional appointment to fill the vacancy, while several community members have asked the board to appoint fourth place finisher Ruscal Cayangyang to fill the empty seat.

While receiving over 60 percent approval from the Vallejo electorate during the November election, Measure E — the school district’s $239 million general obligation bond, which would have helped to renovate various school district sites —failed to receive the required 66 percent approval to pass.

7. Vallejo Symphony gives notice to David Ramadanoff

The Vallejo Symphony Orchestra board of directors, citing stagnant season ticket sales and attendance, proclaimed David Ramadanoff’s 31st year leading the VSO as his last, upsetting many musicians and classical music supporters.

The symphony’s Jan. 25 concert at Hogan Auditorium and April 12 at Touro University’s Lander Hall will end Ramadanoff’s tenure in Vallejo while the board seeks a replacement.

6. New police chief Andrew Bidou

Benicia and Vallejo police departments swapped chiefs this year. Andrew Bidou took the Vallejo’s helm in October, replacing Joseph Kreins who led the department for more than two years.

Kreins, who retired from the position, then took over Benicia’s police department as an interim until a permanent chief is hired.

While in Vallejo, Kreins implemented many changes to the department, including community outreach, technology upgrades and policy overhaul.

Bidou, 45, was among 37 candidates for the job. His education and familiarity with the area were cited as reasons he was picked.

5. Fire truck rolls over

The Vallejo Fire Department’s tiller truck was involved in a violent traffic collision in August with three other vehicles, which began in the intersection of Maine Street and Sonoma Boulevard.

“The fire truck was responding to a code 3 (emergency) when a collision occurred with the fire truck and at least another vehicle in the intersection,” said Michael Nichelini, a sergeant with Vallejo Police, hours after the collision. “The (VFD) truck rolled down the street, at least once, after the collision.”

The ladder truck, when rolling, took out various street signs along Sonoma Boulevard finally coming to a rest in the intersection of Pennsylvania Street and Sonoma Boulevard after striking a fire hydrant and crushing another vehicle.

The crushed vehicle was flipped on its roof and the driver in the crushed vehicle required extraction.

Much of Sonoma Boulevard looked like a war zone, as glass and pieces from at least three vehicles and the fire truck were scattered in a two-block radius, while the fire truck was twisted into two directions after the collision and rollover. Firefighters Walter Trujillo, Mitchell Stockli, Frederick Taylor and Daniel Saballos, along with those in the other vehicles, survived the collision.

4. Valero’s crude oil plans

The Valero Benicia Refinery’s controversial proposed rail terminal project fueled debates in the community over crude-by-rail safety issues. If approved, the project would allow Valero to import up to 70,000 barrels of Bakken or Canadian tar sands oil daily by train. In June, the city released the project’s environmental impact report, leading to packed public hearings over the summer. People as far away as Roseville attended to voice opposition or support for the project, which would increase oil train traffic through the Sacramento Valley.

The city also received letters from state and local officials — including State Attorney General Kamala Harris — criticizing the project safety analysis as inadequate.

3. Homeless fires

A series of wild and structure fires were attributed to the homeless population in Vallejo this year.

The blazes destroyed several abandoned buildings on Mare Island, the now-razed “Badge and Pass Office” on Tennessee Street, and acres of vegetation along State Route 29. One of the structure fires also claimed the life of a Benicia man in October at a garage next to 1117 Florida St., which is known to be used by squatters.

Vallejo Fire Chief Jack McArthur said the department is working with police and city to design a reaction to the issue concerning homeless-related fires, and the safety concerns of the homeless population in the city.

2. Philmore Graham dies

Vallejo lost a legend this year. Philmore Graham, founder of the Continental of Omega Boys and Girls Club, died in June. Graham was 75.

He founded the club in 1966 with just five boys in his garage, and later churned out high school and college graduates who brought pride to their hometown, including ballplayer CC Sabathia, former pro football player Bobby Brooks, scriptwriter Gregory Allan Howard, and most recently Denver Broncos running back C.J. Anderson.

“Everything that we are and everything that we do is because of him,” Superior Court Judge Robert Rigsby, who is also an Omega alumnus, said in a June interview.

Graham suffered from Alzheimer’s in his last years, and had moved to Southern California several years ago to be closer to his daughter, Diedre.

1. South Napa earthquake

The magnitude 6 temblor — the strongest to hit the Bay Area in 25 years — rattled walls and nerves at about 3:10 a.m. Aug. 24, causing damage mostly in Napa and Solano counties.

Centered four miles northwest of American Canyon and six miles south-southwest of Napa, the quake caused brick chimneys to crumble all over the area and did particular damage to many of the older, non-reinforced masonry buildings in downtown Napa and Vallejo, including some on Mare Island.

While few and only minor injuries were reported in Vallejo, nearly 200 were hurt in Napa, two seriously, including a child who was critically injured by a collapsing chimney.

The 400 block of Vallejo’s Georgia street was closed for weeks following the partial collapse of a brick building, the repairs to which remain unfinished at year’s end.

There were a few reports of looting in Vallejo, but in American Canyon officials told of residents replacing items that had fallen out of broken store windows.

The governor issued an emergency proclamation extending relief to Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties. In Napa, some 69 buildings were red tagged. In Vallejo, 155 buildings were yellow-tagged for partial use, and 11 were red-tagged as unsafe to occupy. On Mare Island, crews demolished quake-damaged chimneys on historic officers’ mansions on Walnut Avenue.

The Napa Valley wine industry alone suffering estimated losses of $80,300,000.

Crude By Rail, Environmental Impacts, Phillips 66, Union Pacific Railroad

The pros and cons of a controversial California oil-by-rail project

January 1, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from NewTimes, San Luis Obispo, California

A crude proposal: The pros and cons of a controversial Phillips 66 oil-by-rail project

By Rhys Heyden, December 31, 2014

When viewed from the proper angle, the central conflict here bears a peculiar type of poetic symmetry: A local refinery would like to transport much of its crude oil into San Luis Obispo County via train, while opponents would prefer such plans to be driven out of the county on a rail.

Many stakeholders adamantly support the project, while many locals virulently oppose the proposed rail spur that would allow this transportation method to materialize. There are plenty of lawyers involved and lots of money tied up in each side of the issue, and the project itself reaches far beyond the borders of SLO County.

Originally proposed in mid-2013, the Phillips 66 rail spur extension project has remained largely unchanged: Succinctly put, the company wants to begin construction of a rail spur at its Santa Maria Refinery in Nipomo, thereby giving the facility the newfound ability to receive oil via rail.

It’s a project that appears simple on the surface, but gains layers of complexity the closer one looks. It also touches on several national issues: railroad safety, energy independence, and regulation vs. free enterprise, to name a few.

Ultimately, SLO County officials will likely be making vital yea or nay decisions about the Phillips 66 rail spur extension project in the next few months.

New Times spoke with many stakeholders and experts; examined documents, reports, and public comments; and traveled to Nipomo, all in the interest of answering the basics: What is this project, and why should SLO County residents support or oppose it?

The project

The primary thrust of the rail spur project is fairly simple: construction of a rail spur facility that would allow the refinery in Nipomo to receive crude oil via rail. Currently, the facility receives oil only by pipeline.

NIPOMO JUNCTION

The rousing debate over a proposal to bring crude oil by rail to the Phillips 66 Santa Maria Refinery in Nipomo (pictured) looms large on the national and local political stages.

PHOTO BY KAORI FUNAHASHI

According to the most recent environmental impact report (EIR) for the project, the trains arriving at the refinery would be capped at five per week, or 250 per year. Each train would consist of three locomotives, two buffer cars, and 80 tank cars, and total oil capacity per train would be between 49,670 and 53,532 barrels.

Averaged out over seven-day weeks, the daily oil delivery by rail would be between 35,478 and 38,237 barrels. To contextualize, each barrel of oil is equivalent to 42 gallons.

Precisely how this oil would arrive to SLO County is anyone’s guess. The EIR posits that the oil trains could enter California at any one of five different locations, and could arrive at the refinery from the north or the south on Union Pacific’s Coast Line (which runs from the Bay Area to Los Angeles).

“With this Phillips 66 project, we would deliver crude oil because—as a common carrier—if a customer wants us to move that kind of product, we are federally required to do so,” said Aaron Hunt, a UP spokesman based in Omaha. “It’s a ‘wait and see’ about how we move the oil, though. Nothing is stationary.”

Currently, there’s only one crude oil train that moves through (but doesn’t stop in) SLO County, running from San Ardo to Los Angeles two to three times per week.

“Rail traffic on the UPRR Coast Line through San Luis Obispo County is relatively light,” the project EIR notes. “The average number of freight trains running the length of the Coastal Route is about two per day.”

Another significant component of the project is the physical spur itself. Proposed in the project is the construction of five parallel tracks and an unloading rack extending eastward from the facility, but staying entirely within the boundaries of the refinery property.

The project EIR estimates that the process of arriving, unloading, and departing from the refinery would take between 10 and 12 hours per train, contingent upon Union Pacific scheduling.

Although a great deal of oil would arrive at the refinery via rail were this project approved, the refined product would continue to leave the facility as it currently does—by pipeline to Phillips 66’s linked Rodeo facility in the Bay Area.

In addition, the total amount of material processed at the refinery would remain the same, as that level is capped by county authorities.

“Phillips 66 is working to ensure the long-term viability of the Santa Maria Refinery and the many jobs it provides,” said Houston-based company spokesman Dennis Nuss. “Our plans for this project reflect our company’s commitment to operational excellence and safety while enhancing the competitiveness of the facility.”

The review process

Despite an initial push for a speedy turnaround by Phillips 66, the rail spur project has encountered several significant obstacles and delays as it’s rolled through SLO County’s review process.

The project’s initial draft EIR (DEIR) was released on Nov. 27, 2013, to relatively little fanfare, but word spread quickly in environmental activist circles, as well as among Nipomo residents. Soon enough, hundreds of public comments critiquing the project from near and far flooded the SLO County Planning and Building Department.

Murry Wilson—an environmental resource specialist and the planning department’s point man on the project—told New Times in March 2014 that his department was overwhelmed by the roughly 800 public comments that had come in regarding the project’s DEIR.

“Many of the comments were really substantive, and the nature of the project has changed enough as a result of those comments that the DEIR could no longer provide an appropriate review for the project,” Wilson said at the time. “Making sure the public has access and a chance to respond to new information is the key thing here.”

Under Wilson’s advisement, the county pushed for recirculating the DEIR to adequately respond to those “substantive” comments, and Phillips 66 (which is funding the review process) agreed to the additional expense and subsequent elongation of the review process on March 24.

At 708 dense pages, that initial 2013 DEIR was no lightweight, but the re-circulated DEIR—which debuted on Oct. 10—weighed in at an even heftier 889 pages.

The public comment period for that second report closed on Nov. 24, and the county and the DEIR consultants have since been sifting through, organizing, and bracketing the nearly 11,000 comments they received on their second go-round.

THE PROPOSAL

This is an aerial map of the rail spur extension project and environs. Outlined in yellow is the boundary of Phillips 66’s property, in black is the Union Pacific mainline railroad, in blue is the outline of the proposed rail spur, and in red is where a pipeline would run from the spur to the refinery.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SLO COUNTY PLANNING DEPARTMENT

Though the vast majority of the comments came in as individually signed form letters from about five different environmental activist groups, several hundred unique comments from individuals, governmental agencies, organizations, schools, and even Phillips 66 poured in.

The majority of the comments are critical of the project, but there are also many letters that are either neutral or in support of the proposal.

The review process, as Wilson explained to New Times, is in its final stages. Essentially, the project consultants need to adequately respond to all public comments and draft a final EIR including those responses. Wilson had set a mid-January goal for completion of that process, and he said everyone involved is still striving to hit that target.

The first public hearing for the rail spur project—at the SLO County Planning Commission, where public officials will finally get the chance to vote yes or no on Phillips 66’s project—had been slated for Feb. 5, but Wilson said that hearing will likely be bumped.

“The sheer volume of comments we received is probably going to delay the hearing date,” he explained. “Feb. 19 would be the next possible Planning Commission date, and that’s possible; it just all depends on the depth in which our consultants may need to do their responses and/or additional analysis.”

Asked about the potential for yet another DEIR recirculation, Wilson said he’s “pretty confident we’re not going down that path,” adding that he wants to set this project for a hearing and wrap up the review process ASAP.

Pros

So, now that you have a pretty good idea about the nature of this project and what’s happened up until now, you’re probably still wondering why you should—or shouldn’t—support it.

Seeking to understand why many people support the project, New Times reached out to Phillips 66 to get their point of view.

Though New Times requested a tour of the refinery and access to speak with a variety of Phillips 66 employees, the company—working with SLO-based PR firm Barnett Cox & Associates—declined to provide either, instead offering a presentation and interview with two company spokespeople.

In a roughly 90-minute conversation between two reporters, refinery Maintenance Superintendant Jim Anderson, a Barnett Cox rep, and company spokesman Nuss via telephone, Phillips 66 laid out its case for project approval.

Essentially, Nuss and Anderson argued that oil production in Santa Barbara County (the refinery’s predominant current source of oil at about 65 to 80 percent of total sourcing) is in decline. Anticipating further falloff, the company wants to diversify how it receives oil and where it receives it from.

This rail spur project and receiving oil by rail, they posit, will allow the Santa Maria Refinery (and the 135 or so local jobs it provides) to stay viable for decades to come.

When asked if Phillips 66 has ever considered shutting down the refinery or if the company would abandon the refinery if the rail spur wasn’t approved, Nuss said such discussions hadn’t occurred, adding that the company “will not speculate about the project.”

Anderson added that “our options would start to become really limited” if the rail spur project doesn’t move forward.

Oil by rail, Nuss and Anderson argued, is already a reality across the nation and even in SLO County (with the established San Ardo to L.A. train), and they pointed out that Union Pacific is doing quite a bit to make sure its tracks are safe for crude oil trains.

Lastly, Nuss and Anderson added that residents have raised legitimate concerns about environmental impacts (noise, lights, emissions, and the potential for spills), but they opined that such impacts will be adequately mitigated wherever they can be.

“The refinery is good for us. It provides high-paying jobs, is a great neighbor, and is a longtime business that needs to keep operating,” Anderson wrote in a letter supporting the project. “The draft EIR spells out the way issues like noise, lights, and particulate emissions can be managed, and with these points taken care of, there is no reason to deny the application.”

“Protecting our people, our environment, and our communities guides everything we do, and those values will be applied to this project as well,” Nuss wrote in a follow-up email to New Times.

It’s worth noting that Phillips 66 employees are not the only ones supporting the company’s endeavor.

“The Phillips 66 Santa Maria Refinery has been quietly doing its job for 60 years, and what I have observed is a business that operates safely and with respect for our community,” Cuesta College President Gil Stork wrote in a Nov. 19 letter supporting the project. “We all have to adapt to changing market conditions to survive, not every one’s changes are subject to the scrutiny the refinery is managing. The draft EIR is long and thorough and addresses every detail of the project.”

This is the crux of the pro-rail spur argument: shouldering a few additional (mitigated) environmental impacts for the sake of keeping well-paying refinery jobs in SLO County and respecting a longstanding community-member.

Cons

If Phillips 66’s measured, cautious, and calculated approach to supporting its own project is at one end of the proverbial spectrum, then the aggressive, kinetic, and fiery opposition to the project is its natural polar opposite.

Project adversaries include prominent environmental groups (the Sierra Club, ForestEthics, and Communities for a Better Environment among them) and city councils as far-spread as Berkeley, Richmond, and Moorpark. But perhaps the most representative group of all is a small, local assembly of project opponents: the Mesa Refinery Watch Group (MRWG).

During a December trip to Nipomo, MRWG steering committee members Martin Akel, Gary McKible, and Laurance Shinderman (as well as MRWG member Paul Stolpman) met with New Times to demonstrate and explain exactly why they’re opposed to the project.

“I think of it in terms of the baseball field in Iowa: If you build it, they will come,” Stolpman said. “In this case, if you don’t build it, they can’t come.

INFORMED DISSENT

Gary McKible (left) and Laurance Shinderman (right) are steering committee members of the Mesa Refinery Watch Group (MRWG), an assembly of local residents opposed to the rail spur extension project.

PHOTO BY KAORI FUNAHASHI

“If you don’t give them a place to park the trains at the end of the line, they won’t be coming down the line at all,” he added.

In conversations and emails with New Times, MRWG members expounded on the multifarious reasons they think the rail spur is ill-advised. Rationales ranged from visual blight to noise pollution to air pollution to the risk of a catastrophic derailment and/or oil spill at any point on the tracks.

Unsurprisingly, MRWG members also disagreed with what they see as “specious” arguments from Phillips 66. They feel that the company has not been a good neighbor and is pursuing the crude-by-rail strategy primarily to enhance profits, not because any refinery jobs or the local oil supply are truly at risk. In fact, they view those rationales as red herrings.

“Phillips wants to make the Central Coast a hub for crude by rail, and I feel like that’s pretty obvious,” Akel said. “That said, our worst enemy isn’t Phillips, it’s an uninformed public. People need to know.”

One larger group working toward that same end is the Sierra Club. Andrew Christie, director of the local Santa Lucia Chapter, told New Times that his organization emphatically objects to the rail spur project.

“There are just no grounds on which to support this project,” he told New Times. “The impacts are understated, the EIR has been deficient from the start, and there are still 11 ‘significant and unavoidable’ impacts in a defective EIR.”

The 11 “significant and unavoidable” project impacts Christie refers to are a touchstone for the MRWG as well—five in the “air quality and greenhouse gases” category and one each in “biological resources,” “cultural resources,” “hazards and hazardous materials,” “public services and utilities,” and “water resources” categories.

All of these impacts are essentially due to the potential for high levels of toxic emissions from the oil trains or the mushrooming consequences of a possible crude oil spill and/or derailment.

Driving a New Times photographer and reporter around Nipomo, McKible and Shinderman—when not kibitzing back and forth—were adept at pointing out which neighborhoods and homes would potentially bear the brunt of noise, light, and pollutant impacts from the spur.

Eventually, they pulled over to the side of Highway 1 near the Mesa Fire Station, where the metallic frame of the refinery can be seen looming over the dunes.

“There is no benefit with this project—we are all subject to collateral damage with what they’ll be doing up and down the rail line,” McKible said, shaking his head. “We derive no benefit, and we take on all the risk.”

The battle for support

As the rail spur project review process wraps up and actual yea or nay votes are looming, indications are everywhere that the war for public opinion (and the favor of elected officials) has kicked into high gear on both sides—but especially on Phillips 66’s behalf.

On Oct. 24, Union Pacific scheduled two “invitation-only” sessions to see a “state-of-the-art interactive training car that will travel the U.S. teaching safety and emergency preparedness.”

In an email sent to many SLO County officials advertising the event, organizers noted that “Phillips 66 Santa Maria Refinery is delighted to invite you to tour the training car, and see a crude oil railcar that we are bringing to San Luis Obispo to help educate community leaders about our proposed rail project.”

On a separate note, in a Dec. 15 letter in the Tribune, SLO resident Amber Johnson took aim at the multitude of form letters from environmental groups responding to the DEIR, castigating them as “out-of-town special interest groups who clearly have their own agenda.

“The only special interest I pay attention to is that of the health and prosperity of San Luis Obispo County by supporting responsible businesses such as Phillips who wish to continue to contribute to our local economy,” Johnson concluded. “This decision needs to be based on what is best for our county, not what outsiders think is best.”

Johnson is herself a political strategist who was a regional field director for the oil company-sponsored “No on P” campaign in Santa Barbara County, a former campaign manager for newly-elected SLO County District 4 Supervisor Lynn Compton, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of SLO County.

Lastly, on Dec. 19, Phillips 66 made a splash with a $30,000 donation to the fledgling San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum.

The Paso Robles Daily News quotes Bill Schroll, manager of the Santa Maria Refinery, as saying that, “All of us involved in the oil industry are aware of the role the local railroad played—and continues to play—in keeping our product moving.

“We are delighted to help educate residents and areas visitors about the rich history of the railroads and their role on the Central Coast, including the dynamic partnership that continues between our industries,” he concluded.

Unsurprisingly for a project of this magnitude, many politicos polled by New Times said they saw the rail spur project likely being appealed by one side or the other—from the Planning Commission, to the Board of Supervisors, to the California Coastal Commission (the refinery is in the coastal zone)—and then likely being settled in court in a years-long struggle.

What remains to be seen, however, is precisely which arguments will emerge, and which side of the issue will be fighting an uphill battle.

“Ultimately, it comes down to this: Is what they’re proposing appropriate for the community, or are the impacts just too great?,” said District 3 Supervisor Adam Hill. “It will be interesting to see how that question is answered.”

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Hazmat notification, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail inspection, State regulation

Albany NY: Year in review top news – crude by rail

December 31, 2014 Roger Straw

Repost from The Times Union, Albany NY
[Excellent month-by-month review of CBR developments in New York’s capital region, and an excellent group of 14 photos. – RS]

Albany’s Top 10 stories: Region a hub in oil train surge

Converging lines drove growth in shipment

By Brian Nearing, December 29, 2014

View of the courtyard between the apartment buildings and the rail line that carries oil tankers to the Port of Albany Wednesday, July 16, 2014, at Ezra Prentice Homes in Albany, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union) Photo: Cindy Schultz / 00027815A — View of the courtyard between the apartment buildings and the rail line that carries oil tankers to the Port of Albany Wednesday, July 16, 2014, at Ezra Prentice Homes in Albany, N.Y. (Cindy Schultz / Times Union)

More oil trains kept a-rollin’ last year in Capital Region from the booming Bakken fields of North Dakota, where massive hydrofracking has helped drop national gasoline prices below $3 a gallon.

It was only two days into 2014 in the aftermath of a massive oil train derailment and fire in North Dakota when federal regulators warned that Bakken crude was more likely to catch fire than regular crude. And at year’s end, critics were warning that federal plans to phase out less-sturdy versions of the most common rail tankers during the next two years were too slow.

In between, massive trains pulling dozens of all-black tanker cars — carrying millions of gallons of crude and ominously called bomb trains by opponents — kept coming.

Because of its geographic location, with rail lines converging from all four directions and its access to the Hudson River, Albany has become a major oil shipping hub, which drew little public attention when the oil boom began taking shape some five years ago.

Some oil is unloaded at the port for shipment down the Hudson in barges or tankers, while other oil continues by rail either south along the Hudson River to coastal refineries in New Jersey and Pennsylvania or north along Lake Champlain to Canada.

And there are many more trains than just a couple years ago. For the first 10 months of 2014, more than 672,000 oil-filled tanker cars moved by rail in the U.S., an increase of more than 13 percent from the previous period of 2013, according to federal statistics. That was more than twice as many as the 300,000 rail oil tankers that moved for the same period in 2011.

But for part of the oil train story in Albany, 2014 will end the way it began, with the state Department of Environmental Conservation still weighing plans by an oil terminal operator at the port, Global Partners, to build a facility that heats crude oil to make it easier to pump in cold weather.

Bakken crude doesn’t have to be heated in the cold, leading many to conclude Global wants to begin accepting trains carrying Canadian tar sands oil, a thicker crude that must be heated to be pumped in the cold. Global has never said either way. DEC extended the comment period on the project eight times amid growing community opposition.

Global and another terminal operator, Houston-based Buckeye Partners, have DEC permission to ship 2.8 billion gallons of oil a year that is arriving by rail. By the end of January, Gov. Andrew Cuomo had ordered a state review of safety and spill control plans while also pressing the Obama administration to act faster to toughen rules on the burgeoning energy network.

The governor did not wait for the report to act. By February, he was touting the first rail-safety inspections at the Port of Albany and elsewhere by state and federal regulators. By year’s end, eight such inspection “blitzes” had been done involving nearly 7,400 rail cars, including more than 5,300 oil tankers, and nearly 2,700 miles of track. A total of 840 defects have been uncovered.

In March, Albany County Executive Daniel P. McCoy slapped a county moratorium on Global’s crude heating project. By July, as many as 42 oil trains each week — each holding more than 100 million gallons of Bakken crude — were coming into Albany from North Dakota, according to figures released by the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

This summer, two major rail companies — CSX and Canadian Pacific — revealed information about their shipments under an emergency federal order intended to help inform local emergency workers of potential risks. CSX transports oil through 17 counties on a line that runs upstate from Lake Erie and eastward roughly along the Thruway corridor, while CP runs oil through five counties in the Capital Region and the North Country on the way from Canada.

The region can expect to see trains for a long time. By October, a Canadian Pacific official predicted increased transport of tar sands crude oil from Alberta in coming years would account for about 60 percent of the railroad’s oil revenue. That same month, the DEC rejected oil train opponents’ claims that the state had the power to immediately ban the most common type of tanker cars — called DOT-111s — from entering the port loaded with flammable oil.

Also in October, Global quietly withdrew plans before the DEC for a new oil terminal facility on the Hudson River in New Windsor, Orange County, so that oil could be moved from massive crude oil tanker trains onto vessels to continue downriver to coastal refineries. The company also announced it had voluntarily stopped using the oldest, least sturdy models of DOT-111s.

By December, officials in North Dakota announced new safety rules on Bakken crude oil shipments aimed at reducing its potential explosiveness, but the limits would not affect about 80 percent of oil arriving daily in Albany, leading oil train opponents to criticize the rules as almost meaningless.

And it looks like the surge of oil trains will continue to grow. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, two refineries in Linden, N.J., and Philadelphia are adding crude-by-rail terminals to handle up to 8.8 million gallons a day of incoming shipments.

For oil trains from North Dakota and Canada to reach these refineries, the trip would have to pass through Albany.

The Benicia Independent ~ Eyes on the Environment / Benicia news & views