Category Archives: Crude By Rail

Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, Crude By Rail, Valero Benicia Refinery

FOX40 News: Valero Tries to Sway Public Opinion at Crude by Rail Meeting

Repost from FOX40 News, Sacramento / Stockton / Modesto
[Editor: Video coverage of Valero’s meeting, including background footage of crude by rail explosions and an interview with Andrés Soto, spokesperson for Benicians For a Safe & Healthy Community.  – RS]

Valero Tries to Sway Public Opinion at Crude by Rail Meeting

By Doug Johnson, 6/30/14


BENICIA – Valero Energy is building its case to transport highly flammable crude oil through northern California, and held a public meeting Monday night in Benicia.

Critics of the plan are worried about the worst-case scenario of a derailment and potential explosion, much like incidents in North Daktoa, Virginia and a deadly disaster in Quebec in 2013.

More than a hundred people came to Monday’s meeting. Valero says the benefits outweigh the risks, but others aren’t sure.

“We believe that there’s sufficient flaws with this draft instrument impact report,” Andres Soto, with Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, said.

Valero’s plan is to transport crude oil through Roseville, Sacramento and Davis to its refinery in Benicia. Soto says Valero isn’t saying how ready first responders would be if a derailment were to happen.

“There’s no real response to the question about the insufficient  capacity of the Benicia Fire Department,” Soto said.

The energy company argues that its own, private fire department will train other departments in cities the trains pass through.

Valero said only four trains a day would pass through Benicia, 20 new, local jobs would be created and there’s an environmental benefit to using trains.

“Having crude delivered by rail versus marine deliveries today will result in lower emissions in the Bay Area and California,” Valero’s Benicia Refinery Safety Director Chris Howe said.

The company also wants rail inspections increased and speeds through populated areas to be lowered.

Soto says that’s not enough.

“Their window looked at a 40 year period when this stuff has only been on the rail for the past two years,” he said.

The City of Benicia will hold a vote once a 45-day public comment  period is up on Aug. 1.

Civil disobedience, Crude By Rail, Take Action

Civil disobedience train protest in Maine: “competing harms defense” fails in court ruling

Repost from The Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal, Lewiston, Maine

Judge denies competing harms defense to couple charged in Auburn train protest

Christopher Williams, Lewiston-Auburn |Saturday, June 28, 2014

AUBURN — Two protesters who said they sat on railroad tracks last year in an effort to stop an approaching train carrying dangerous crude oil won’t be allowed to argue at trial that their actions were justified because those actions would have prevented a more serious harm from occurring.

Justice Joyce Wheeler wrote in a nine-page decision this week that Jessie Dowling of Unity and Douglas Bowen Jr. of Porter are barred from using a so-called “competing harms” defense.

The two had argued at a May hearing in Androscoggin County Superior Court that they considered the act of criminal trespass to be of lesser harm than allowing a train hauling explosive cargo to pass through an urban area.

County prosecutors had filed a motion aimed at blocking that defense tactic.

Wheeler wrote that the defendants failed to show the four elements needed to successfully argue that defense at trial.

The defendants had testified that they feared another explosion in Auburn similar to that which occurred at Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in July 2013. They said they didn’t have time to pursue legal avenues to stop the train from passing through Auburn.

Although they believed that would create a risk of harm to people there, the two defendants were required to show “as fact that such physical harm is imminently threatened,” Wheeler wrote in her court order.

They were unable to show that because “their action was weeks in planning and they had no idea whether the train was even in Maine at the time of their action,” Wheeler wrote.

Bowen had testified that had he “actually believed there was an imminent threat, he would have gone to police and rescue, which he did not do, thereby undermining his claim of an imminent threat,” Wheeler wrote.

Dowling had said in court that she believed there was a high probability that the train would explode that day, but she didn’t call police or rescue, “undermining her concern of catastrophic danger,” Wheeler wrote.

The two defendants “failed to demonstrate that there were no other alternatives” to sitting on the railroad tracks, Wheeler wrote.

The case is expected to be put on the next trial list.

Roughly 70 protesters demonstrated outside the Androscoggin County Courthouse last month before and during the hearing.

Dowling and Bowen were arrested Aug. 28, 2013, by local police when they refused to leave the railroad tracks on which they sat.

With the competing harms defense no longer an option, prosecutors will be tasked at trial with proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants trespassed criminally.

Bowen had testified that he had been told the train was traveling through Auburn on its way to Canada from the Midwest and his group had exhausted all legal means to stop it.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Local Regulation

Martinez Environmental Group: Volatile crude by rail IS a concern

Repost from The Martinez Gazette, Letters

‘Volatile crude by rail IS a concern’

June 26, 2014

Dear Editor,

The front page headline of the June 14-15 edition of the Martinez News-Gazette read: “Crude by rail not a local threat, CAER director says.”   The article covered the recent City of Martinez Public Safety Committee, which convened to examine the Bakken crude by rail issue. The meeting was dominated by CAER director Tony Semenza, who is also principal of a consulting firm that serves a number of major local refineries.

Mr. Semenza was quoted “… there is one train, with up to 100 tanker cars, that originates in Stockton every 7-10 days and ends up at the Kinder Morgan facility in Richmond, traveling via the tracks that parallel Highway 4.” In other words, this train is going right through Martinez! It rolls over the (rusty) Alhambra trestle carrying 3,000,000 gallons of Bakken crude, the same oil that has been exploding all over North America and that killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.  According to maps recently released by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an explosion by an oil train on that track would threaten thousands of Martinez residents and endanger five schools located within the zone of impact.

Minimizing the issue by only focusing on the one present train ignores recent trends and projections for the near future. Only one train now. There were none this time last year.  Next year, if the refineries have their way, there very well could be a drastic increase of oil train traffic through our town. Nationally, crude oil train traffic is skyrocketing, from 9,500 carloads in U.S. in 2008 to 434,000 in 2013.  California crude-by-rail rose an incredible 506 percent just from 2012 to 2013, with a further 24-fold increase expected by 2016. Accidents have also increased across the country.

Just in the past 11 months, there have been nine major derailments of oil trains, involving explosions, evacuations and spills. These trains spilled over a million gallons of crude oil, more than spilled by railroads in the past 37 years combined. And with crude-by-rail projects pending all around Martinez in Benicia, Pittsburg, Rodeo and Santa Maria, we will  see more than just one train every 7-10 days. So, let’s not minimize the risk. Volatile crude by rail IS something we need to be concerned about here in Martinez.

The disappointing part of the Martinez Public Safety Committee meeting was the decision by Mike Menesini and Anamarie Avila Farias to not immediately elevate the issue to the full City Council, despite the current threat to our health and safety. If you live anywhere near the tracks, check out www.mrtenvgrp.com for more information, and write or call your city council to ask them to do something meaningful on this issue quickly. Other Bay Area cities have passed resolutions opposing the passage of crude by rail. Martinez needs to do the same.

Signed,

Martinez Environmental Group Members Aimee Durfee, Tom Griffith, Bill Nichols, Jim Neu, Kathy Petricca, Guy Cooper, Nancy Peacock, Karen & Arnie Wadler

Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Hazmat notification, Short-line railroads, Tank car design

Canada Announces Rules for Transporting Dangerous Goods by Rail

Repost from The Wall Street Journal

New Measures Mandate Tank Cars That Carry Crude Oil to Be Built with Thicker Steel Walls

By David George-Cosh, June 27, 2014

TORONTO—Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced new rules Friday aimed at bolstering safety measures for transporting dangerous goods, such as crude oil, over the country’s railway networks.

The new measures include updating safety-reporting requirements for rail companies operating in Canada, mandating tank cars that carry volatile crude be built with thicker steel walls, and improving data-reporting requirements for railways.

Canadian and U.S. regulators have urged the rail industry to improve safety measures after several recent accidents involving trains carrying crude, including last year’s derailment of a crude-carrying train in rural Quebec in July, which killed 47 people.

“Our government is committed to railway safety and the safe movement of dangerous goods,” Ms. Raitt said in a statement. “The upcoming regulations will further strengthen safety in Canada’s already robust transportation system.”

A spokesman for Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.  said the company was reviewing the announcement and that it has a “strong” set of existing safety measures it discloses to the federal government.

Jim Feeny, a spokesman from Canadian National Railway Co. said that its position on safety disclosure “largely aligns” with the federal government’s proposals, but it was also reviewing the announced measures.

The new rules announced Friday will include amendments to legislation to require DOT-111 tank cars to abide by new standards such as thicker steel walls and better top protection to reduce spills in a derailment.

The ministry will also require the country’s short-line railroads to upgrade their safety-management disclosure by providing Transport Canada with the same reports on safety risks that the country’s major rails provide. The proposal affects 35 railways in Canada, Transport Canada said.

Transport Canada is also requesting that Canada-based railroads provide measurable data such as maintenance and repair records to the federal government that could better address safety risks before they occur.

Friday’s measures follow a series of steps Ms. Raitt announced in April to improve rail transport in response to recommendations made by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada after its investigation of last year’s Lac-Mégantic tragedy.

The federal government also ordered older DOT-111 tank cars to be phased out or retrofitted in three years, and added a requirement that all crude oil shipments include emergency response plans.

It is unclear how many DOT-111 cars operate in Canada, but the Association of American Railroads and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association says that there are 228,000 general-purpose tank cars in service in the U.S. known as DOT-111s.

The U.S. has adopted tougher classification standards for shipping crude-by-rail that but hasn’t curbed the use of older DOT-111 tank cars on the country’s tracks despite last year’s deadly accident in Quebec and more recently, a fiery derailment in Lynchberg, Va.