OLYMPIA, Wash. – Rail safety regulators in Washington state submitted comments today expressing concern about the proposed Grays Harbor Rail Terminal (GHRT) in response to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) scoping.
The Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) sent a letter to GHRT addressing specific concerns and requesting rail safety evaluations during the EIS process.
GHRT has proposed to construct a new rail facility at the Port of Grays Harbor. The facility would accommodate an average of 45,000 barrels per day of bulk materials, primarily, various types of crude oil for export.
The UTC recommends that the EIS require comprehensive track and safety evaluations and appropriate upgrades be implemented prior to any operation of trains hauling crude oil on this line.
The letter states:
“In the UTC’s view, the EIS should evaluate the potential impact of the GHRT on the safety of the public on and around all railroad lines and crossings that would be used to deliver crude oil to the facility. Currently, up to six trains per day serve the Port of Grays Harbor. Increasing the train traffic could potentially require upgrades to the rail infrastructure, including upgrading track, new crossings, or new or expanded sidings or upgrades to existing crossings.”
The letter also references three derailments of train cars that occurred during a 16-day period along the rail line between Centralia and the Port of Grays Harbor earlier this year. The frequency of the derailments is a significant concern, and the UTC recommends that the EIS require comprehensive track and safety evaluations, along with appropriate updates, before any operations of trains hauling crude oil on this line.
The commission addresses the issue of blocked crossings due to increased train traffic. Blocked crossings pose an inconvenience to the public and can also increase public safety risks by preventing emergency response vehicles from reaching emergencies on the other side. The UTC recommends that the EIS evaluate and offer mitigation strategies for blocked crossings along the line between Centralia and the GHRT.
Finally, the UTC recommends the EIS include an in-depth analysis of all railroad crossings between Centralia and Hoquiam. The analysis should review whether there are grade crossings along all routes that require additional warning devices; supplemental safety devices; modification of existing warning devices; crossing closures/consolidation or grade separation. UTC staff should be involved in the analysis.
The UTC regulates railroad safety, including approving new grade crossings and closing or altering existing rail crossings, investigating train accidents, inspecting public-railroad crossings, approving safety projects, and managing safety education through Operation Lifesaver.
The University of Illinois Fire Service Institute introduces a new awareness-level course on Crude Oil by Rail. The class is in response to increase crude oil rail traffic from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and Montana, as well as the 2013 train explosion disaster in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.
The class is being offered through IFSI’s Cornerstone program that provides no-cost training to Illinois firefighters at their local fire department or regional training site.
The Crude Oil by Rail Awareness class introduces students with the recent increase in crude oil shipments by rail. This course covers the basic chemical and physical properties of the types of crude being transported. In addition, students learn about basic railcar design features, unit vs. manifest trains, common railroad terminology, and techniques for contacting and working with the railroad. The course will touch on tactics and strategies for handling crude oil train derailments, but will not teach the student how to employ these tactics. Lastly, the course will look at case studies of recent crude train derailments and discuss lessons learned.
Fire departments are encouraged to contact their IFSI regional representative to learn more and to schedule a class. The regional representatives are listed on IFSI’s web site at www.fsi.illinois.edu.
The Illinois Fire Service Institute is the statutory State Fire Academy for Illinois. In addition to training provided at its Champaign campus, the Institute offers one-day hands-on classes for fire departments at Regional Training Centers and local fire stations across the State. The mission of the Illinois Fire Service Institute is to help firefighters do their work through training, education, information and research.
Repost from the Billings Gazette [Editor: This is not a fluffy human interest story, but an important offering on the oil industry and regulators in North Dakota. Significant quote: “‘If you want to fix a problem, you go to the source of the problem,’ he said. ‘You don’t prepare for something that doesn’t have to happen.’” Another good quote: “Pressure to make North Dakota crude oil safe for interstate shipment is mounting on several fronts.”– RS]
North Dakota man relentless in push for safer oil by rail shipping
November 02, 2014, by Patrick Springer, Forum News Service
Ron Schalow of Fargo has been an outspoken advocate of stabilizing Bakken oil to remove volatile gases before it is shipped by rail. | David Samson / Forum News Service
FARGO, N.D. — Ron Schalow isn’t bashful about expressing his caustic opinions. He once wrote a book scolding President George W. Bush for failing to prevent the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Part of the title can’t be printed here, but the subtitle read, “The 9/11 Leadership Myth.”
More recently, the Fargo man, a frequent writer of letters to the editor, has focused his attention on explosive Bakken crude oil and rail safety – an issue that has drawn national attention after a series of fiery train derailments, including an accident that killed 47 people in Canada and one late last year near Casselton.
Schalow launched a petition drive originally called the “Bomb Train Buck Stops in North Dakota,” which he renamed the “Coalition for Bakken Crude Oil Stabilization,” a reference to the process for removing volatile gases.
Improbable activist
Schalow’s background makes him an improbable activist. His early career was spent managing restaurants and bars, with a stint as a minor league baseball manager.
More recently, he worked for software companies including Microsoft in Fargo, but said he grew weary of corporate culture and office politics and turned to freelance work.
He has assembled a loose network of people concerned about the crude oil stabilization issue, including local officials in Minnesota and other states, but laments he has found little support for his crusade in North Dakota.
Still, North Dakota leaders have been under pressure from the federal government and other states, including Minnesota, to treat crude oil before shipping it around the country by rail to refineries.
The North Dakota Industrial Commission is preparing new standards, likely to take effect Jan. 1, to “condition” crude oil before transport to address safety concerns. Separately, federal officials are drafting more stringent safety standards for tanker cars.
“I think we have to take some responsibility over what’s going over the tracks into Minnesota and the rest of the country,” Schalow said. “It has a lot to do with this is a product that’s coming out of my state.”
By his own admission, 59-year-old Schalow is not a consensus builder. A freelance writer for marketing clients, he isn’t a joiner by nature. Bespectacled, with a goatee, he is soft-spoken but adamant in expressing his views.
He has peppered North Dakota officials, including petroleum regulators and the three-member Industrial Commission, with emails calling for action and asking who is in charge of what he sees as a vital issue of public safety.
“I’ve badgered them relentlessly,” he said.
He is dismayed by what he regards as a sluggish state response, even after an official “tabletop exercise” last June that estimated 60 or more casualties if an oil train derailed and exploded in Fargo or Bismarck.
The exercise simulated a disaster similar to the blast that killed 47 and destroyed much of the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in July 2013.
For Schalow, the key to ensuring the oil is safe is to remove the volatile gases before shipping. Anything else, in his view, is passing along a potentially deadly problem for others to face.
“If you want to fix a problem, you go to the source of the problem,” he said. “You don’t prepare for something that doesn’t have to happen.”
Derailments costly
Dealing with an explosive derailment can be costly. New York officials estimated, for example, it would take $40,000 in foam to extinguish one tanker car.
In the rail accident near Casselton last December, 20 tanker cars derailed, 18 of which were breached, unleashing a series of explosions and an enormous fireball. Intense heat kept the firefighters far from the flames, which they had to allow to burn out.
No one was seriously injured or killed in the crash.
“They can’t be prepared for combat explosions,” Schalow said, referring to the explosive fires that Bakken crude derailments have produced. “What would they do?”
North Dakota officials in the governor’s office and Department of Mineral Resources declined to talk about Schalow’s advocacy, but said the state is moving ahead to improve the safety of crude oil transportation.
“Gov. (Jack) Dalrymple takes rail transportation safety very seriously and he believes it’s important to have the public weigh in on this important issue,” said Jeff Zent, a spokesman and policy aide for the governor, the highest-ranking member of the Industrial Commission.
“That’s why the Industrial Commission will announce further regulations aimed at improving the safety of oil rail transportation,” he added.
“Our goal has always been to make crude oil as safe as possible for transport, within our jurisdiction,” said Alison Ritter, a spokeswoman for the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, which regulates oil and gas production.
The department is also working with “the appropriate federal agencies to better communicate our role to make crude oil as safe as possible for transport,” Ritter said.
In contrast to North Dakota, most crude oil in Texas is stabilized before shipment. Pipeline companies routinely require stabilization before accepting shale oil.
“How hard is it to stand up and say I’m against trains blowing up in my town?” Schalow asked, referring to public officials’ initial reluctance to impose tougher standards.
A recent Forum Communications poll found that 60 percent of respondents were concerned about the safety of shipping crude oil by rail, but there has been no real clamor from residents, Schalow said.
“It’d be nice if someone stood up and defended me once or twice,” he said. As for holding a meeting of supporters, well, “Who would I call and who would dare show up? There’s no political will in this state except for that anonymous 60 percent.”
In Minnesota, Gov. Mark Dayton has urged North Dakota to stabilize oil before loading crude onto trains. An estimated 50 North Dakota oil trains roll through Minnesota each week, many with 100 tanker cars.
Pressure to make North Dakota crude oil safe for interstate shipment is mounting on several fronts.
Other states, including New York and California, where refineries take Bakken crude, are considering safety requirements.
“There’s a lot more angst across the country than there is here,” Schalow said, adding that most of his contacts are from other states, including New York, California and Washington state.
“I think he’s a pretty straight shooter,” said Tim Meehl, mayor of Perham, Minn., who is concerned about oil trains traveling through his town. “I think everything he says has a lot of merit to it.”
Meehl has not met Schalow, but saw him at a meeting in Moorhead earlier this fall attended by Dayton and local officials, and has exchanged emails with Schalow.
“They don’t want to step on toes out there,” Meehl, a native of Oakes, N.D., said of North Dakota officials’ deference to oil interests. “We need the oil. We just need to do it in a safer way.”
In North Dakota, residents and politicians seem reluctant to do anything that risks discouraging energy production, a powerful economic engine, Schalow said.
‘Quiet acceptance’
“You can’t say anything that might impact business, no matter what,” he said, describing what he regards as North Dakota’s curious culture of quiet acceptance.
Regulators aren’t alone in singling out oil tanker cars. BNSF announced last week that it will charge a $1,000 fee for each older crude oil tank car, more prone to puncture than newer models. By one estimate, that would add about $1.50 a barrel to the transportation cost.
In Texas, energy companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to make crude safer to handle. The cost of stabilizing crude oil could trim potential revenue by perhaps 2 percent, according to the estimate of an unidentified industry executive interviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Schalow has been an outspoken critic of the Bush presidency and North Dakota leadership, but said he really has no allies in either political party.
A conservative blogger once described him as a “truther” for his criticisms of Bush, whom he castigated for failing to take pre-emptive action against al-Qaida despite warning signs of their terrorist ambitions. Schalow dismisses the “truther” label as unfair, saying he offered no conspiracy theories in his book.
He said the paperback sold 4,000 or 5,000 copies after it came out in 2006. No book is forthcoming on the issue of Bakken crude safety, but Schalow is unlikely to stop writing his letters, emails and Facebook posts.
“I don’t think it’s a political issue,” he said. “I think it’s a public safety issue.”
Richmond residents, leaders warn of danger from Bakken crude by rail shipments
By Phil James, November 1, 2014
Kinder Morgan’s Richmond depot takes in dozens of DOT-111 train cars laden with Bakken crude oil from North Dakota every week. (Phil James/Richmond Confidential)
If you go to the website explosive-crude-by-rail.org and zoom in on Richmond, what you’ll find is disconcerting. According to the 1-3 mile buffer zone on the map, the entire city and its 107,000 residents are in danger if trains carrying crude oil explode.
Such is the concern of several Bay Area environmental groups in Richmond who have drawn the City Council into an escalating dispute with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and Kinder Morgan, which operates a local crude by rail transfer station.
“The health and safety of the community is at stake here,” Mayor Gayle McLaughlin said during a City Council meeting. “We are encouraging the air district to review the process.”
Richmond City Council on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution to “review” and “if feasible, revoke” the permit given to Kinder Morgan – the 5th largest energy company in the United States — to take in crude oil by rail. Based in Texas, the company was founded in 1997 by two former Enron executives.
The crude, from the Bakken Shale of North Dakota, ignites and explodes more easily than more traditional crudes. On the heels of a major oil boom, transportation of crude by rail in the North America increased by 423 percent between 2011 and 2012, and more crude shipped by rail was spilled in 2013 than in the four previous decades combined.
In 2012, a train carrying Bakken crude derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people and decimating the small Canadian town. This, among other incidents, has prompted the U.S. Department of Transportation to label Bakken transport by rail as an “imminent hazard”.
Several community groups have rallied to ban the movement of crude shipments through Richmond. Megan Zapanta of The Asian Pacific Environmental Network said she’s worried that a lack of attention could have dire consequences.
“Bakken crude has not been well-documented here,” she said. “If there’s some disaster, how will we get the word out to our immigrant community?”
Evan Reis, a structural engineer for Hinman Consulting Engineers, released a report earlier this year assessing the probability of a crude-laden train derailing in the East Bay.
He estimates there is a six in 10 chance of derailment on the line running from San Jose through Richmond to Martinez within the next 30 years.
“Given the fact that these are highly urbanized places we are going through,” he said by phone, “A 60 percent probability would be of concern to me.”
McLaughlin pledged to support Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) as they consider appealing the air district decision to grant Kinder Morgan a permit to funnel crude through Richmond by rail cars. The city does not have the jurisdiction to revoke any licenses or permits from the company. The permit must go through the air district, where it can be reviewed with respect to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
In March, CBE filed a lawsuit against BAAQMD for failing to publicly disclose the permit to the residents of Richmond. The group only noticed the arrival of crude by rail because a local television station, KPIX, discovered that Kinder Morgan was bringing Bakken crude to its Richmond depot.
The Tesoro refinery in Martinez receives the Bakken shipments by truck after they are transferred from the rail depot in Richmond. Richmond’s Chevron refinery does not take in any of the Bakken crude.
In September, the lawsuit was dismissed on technical grounds because the complaint by the CBE was not filed within 180 days of the permit’s issuance.
The permit, which was filed by BAAQMD staff in 2013, drew ire from environmental groups because it was not subject to an environmental impact report, and was granted without review from the district’s board.
Andres Soto, a representative of Communities for a Better Environment in Richmond, appealed to Richmond leaders to counter the decision.
“Kinder Morgan issued an illegal permit to bring Bakken crude into Richmond without public notice or review,” Soto said.
Ralph Borrmann, public information officer for the BAAQMD, declined to comment until the end of the appeal period. The CBE has considered a challenge of the ruling.
The Kinder Morgan depot has been taking in ethanol by rail since 2010, but they have since diversified their intake to include Bakken crude. Kinder Morgan officials, though, say the concerns are overstated.
“We didn’t feel that the profile of the crude oil arriving was materially different,” Melissa Ruiz, a spokesperson for the Texas-based company, wrote in an email.
Charlie Davidson, a member of the Sunflower Alliance speaking on behalf of CBE, disagrees.
“They’re basically running tin cans on 100 cars,” he told Richmond City Council. “The flash point [of Bakken Crude] is so volatile that it could burn in Antarctica.”
Randy Sawyer, Chief Environmental Health and Hazardous Materials Officer in Contra Costa County, acknowledged the dangers but also downplayed the risk of a major disaster.
“It’s a hazardous material and there’s concern of derailment and fire,” he said in an interview by phone. “But if you put it in relation to other materials, it isn’t as hazardous as chlorine or ammonia. It’s equivalent to ethanol or gasoline.”
“The biggest concern with crude by rail is not so much than the hazard being worse, it’s just the huge amount of quantity that’s being shipped by rail,” Sawyer said.
Since the dismissal of the lawsuit, other municipalities in the North Bay have rallied against crude by rail. In Sacramento, a lawsuit by Earth Justice prompted the local air board to revoke a permit from Inter-State Oil Company on the grounds that they did not disclose the potential public health and safety concerns to local residents.
Suma Peesapati, a member of Earth Justice, drew similarities between Sacramento and Richmond.
“Kinder Morgan’s project in Richmond is virtually identical to the air district issued permits for unloading crude in Sacramento,” she said. “The [Bay Area] Air District made it clear they issued a permit in error, rather than engage in this formal process.”
Despite the resolution passing, Richmond Councilmember Jael Myrick expressed just as much weariness as concern for the issue.
“The frustration that we had the last time we talked about this is it just seems there is so little we can do to combat it.”
