Union Pacific Railroad’s J.R. Davis Yard in Roseville is the the largest rail facility on the West Coast, and a major train staging area. The Roseville Yard would be the location for receiving and dispatching crude oil trains in Northern California if approved by Benicia’s City Council.
A few alert citizens from Roseville have written letters and attended hearings in Benicia to oppose Valero’s dangerous and dirty crude by rail proposal. Perhaps this training exercise (from 7AM to 1PM on May 18) will be another wake up call for the people of Roseville to the danger of transporting crude by rail to Benicia.
Mass casualty exercise planned for May 18 in Roseville
Low flying helicopters, scores of first responders, various emergency vehicles, sirens and other loud noises, and dozens of people made up to look like accident victims can be expected in Roseville May 18, as firefighters and law enforcement officers from throughout Placer County will team up to practice and ensure preparedness for a mass casualty incident.
Placer County’s Office of Emergency Services is holding the training exercise to give first responders from various agencies the opportunity to practice working together and test how well they can come together in a crisis. It is also a great chance to test the county’s recently finalized oil-by-rail response guide, which was developed to aid our first responder fire and law enforcement community and specialized response teams in the unlikely event an oil train disaster were to occur here.
“We want to get the word out now to as many people as possible about this exercise to avoid causing any panic on the day of the drill,” said John McEldowney, program manager for Placer County Office of Emergency Services. “The opportunity for all of these various groups to get hands-on experience in a safe but realistic-as-possible practice setting is crucial to making sure we are ready for whatever disasters come our way. But that does, unfortunately, come with some disturbance to the neighborhood.”
Anyone in the area of PFE Road and Hilltop Circle in Roseville between the hours of 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. can expect to see a significant amount of activity that could appear very realistic, including a simulated train accident, a simulated hazardous materials spill, many accident ‘victims’ made up to appear injured, and helicopters transporting people to hospitals. People are encouraged to avoid this area, if at all possible, due to the large volume of emergency vehicles responding to this area for the exercise.
“We also hope that anyone who lives, works or plays in Placer County will take this opportunity to register for our Placer Alert system,” McEldowney added. “Placer Alert will notify you by either a phone call, text or email – whatever your preference is – in the case of an actual emergency.”
Repost from EarthJustice [Editor: What it’s like to live near oil trains. Imagine this in your town! Great photos – well done, EarthJustice! – RS]
Watching The Rails: One Community’s Quest For Safety
By Kathleen Sutcliffe. Published May 11, 2016
WHEN FOSSIL FUEL POLLUTERS NEED A PLACE TO DO THEIR DIRTIEST AND MOST DANGEROUS WORK, they tend to locate their operations in places where they believe people have less power, often in low-income communities or communities of color. Faced with a deadly new threat, residents in one predominately African-American community are organizing their neighbors and allies from far and wide—building the power to take on a Fortune 500 company and complacent regulators.
Units at the Ezra Prentice Homes on Saturday, May 7, 2016, in Albany, New York. The apartments are located next to the railroad tracks where oil tank rail cars travel. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Ezra Prentice Homes, in Albany, New York, is a community where people look out for one another.
Be Be White, a resident for 12 years, takes that responsibility seriously. Each morning he wakes at 5 am, helps his son Brayton into his school uniform and takes his post at the nearby crosswalk to usher Brayton and his neighbors’ children safely from one side of the busy road to the other to catch the school bus.
School crossing guard and Ezra Prentice Homes resident, Be Be White, stops traffic on South Pearl Street for children, including his son Brayton and Sanaiya , both six years old, to cross over to the apartments on May 9, 2016. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Perhaps taking a cue from his father, Brayton spent an early May afternoon concerned about the well-being of a garden snail he found crossing the sidewalk. He and his cousin named the snail “Thomas.”
Brayton (left) and Jahcere, both six years old, watch a snail crawl across the sidewalk. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
As they marveled at the creature named after the friendly “Thomas the Tank Engine” character they adore, looming above them was another, decidedly less innocuous, train—the kind that hauls 1.8 billion gallons of crude oil past their home each year.
Antonio, 5 years old, runs through the complex with a friend. Antonio’s mother said that late at night when the train cars are uncoupling or coupling they create a loud noise and the whole apartment can shake, scaring Antonio and his older sister who come running to get into their mom’s bed. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Ezra Prentice Homes, a public housing complex that is home to 179 families and 288 children, borders an industrial railyard. And since 2012, there has been a spike in trains carrying crude oil through the community to the railyard. The oil trains are the same type that have been derailing and exploding their cargo with unnerving frequency across the country.
After Exxon Mobil sold the property to Global Companies LLC, New York state officials quietly approved a quadrupling of the amount of crude oil transported to the site by rail.
Railroad tank cars in the Kenwood Rail Yard near the Port of Albany and Interstate 787. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Be Be and his neighbors were never informed about the proposal.
Smoke and fire from a crude oil tank car explosion in Casselton, North Dakota, in 2013. DAWN FAUGHT VIA NTSB
They weren’t told that the tankers, which line up just 20 feet from the community’s playground, were hauling a type of crude oil that is highly flammable and toxic. They weren’t notified that the fumes released during the tank car unloading operations at the Global facility included cancer-causing chemicals.
The seemingly endless parade of tankers that began rumbling past their homes served as their official notice.
More than half the residents of Ezra Prentice live within 100 feet of the railyards. And they worry if one day they might meet the same fate as those who lived in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where an oil train derailment and explosion killed 47 people in 2013.
“I can’t rest at night, knowing those tankers are right there, worrying we could be blown up,” says Be Be. (SEE MAP OF OIL TRAIN ACCIDENTS)
Be Be White and his son Brayton stand along the fence that separates the railroad tracks from the apartments. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Be Be’s not alone. Many of his neighbors carry the same fears and raised them in meetings of the Ezra Prentice Tenants Association.
Since 2011, the Tenants Association has been headed up by Charlene Benton. Charlene’s soft voice belies the power she carries in her community. From making sure each child at Ezra Prentice gets Christmas presents to compelling local elected officials to meet with concerned residents, Charlene is determined and persistent. “Health and safety are the most important,” she says of the threat posed by the oil trains. “The more informed we are, the more questions we ask, the better. A squeaky wheel gets heard.”
Led by Charlene, the Ezra Prentice Tenants Association decided to take on Global Companies LLC, the Fortune 500 company that had pushed its way into their lives, and the state officials who had let it happen.
Charlene Benton is the president of the Ezra Prentice Tenants Association. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTOStorage tanks at the Global Partners facility. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Charlene Benton and Be Be White didn’t know it at the time, but state regulators had violated their own policies by approving the expansion of crude oil shipments without consulting Ezra Prentice residents and others in Albany’s South End community.
Under state policy, low-income and communities of color that have been overburdened with environmental pollution are designated as ‘environmental justice’ communities.
The Albany County, South Wastewater Treatment Plant is located near the Port of Albany. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Albany’s South End—where polluters like the Port of Albany, a county sewage treatment plant, and the Global facility are all located—was declared an environmental justice community by state regulators.
When Global proposed a plan to quadruple their shipments of toxic crude oil to facility, state officials were required to inform the community and provide them with any information concerning Global’s expansion. They did neither.
The tanker cars that rumble past Ezra Prentice homes are carrying oil drilled from the Bakken shale deposit in North Dakota, mainly using the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking.’
Lakisha Thompson speaks with Earthjustice attorney Chris Amato in the community room at Ezra Prentice Homes. Thompson’s young cousins live at the apartments. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Upstate New York is home to one of the country’s most impassioned anti-fracking movements. When the groups who’d fought to ban fracking in New York—including Earthjustice, Riverkeeper and Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter—learned their state was becoming a transport hub for fracked oil, they allied with Ezra Prentice residents in the fight.
In 2013, Earthjustice Staff Attorney Chris Amato, while poring through state records of environmental permit applications, noticed that yet another expansion was planned at the Global facility.
Global executives were training their sights beyond North Dakota, to the tar sand oils of Alberta, Canada. Global wanted to ship the tar sands by rail to Albany. It applied for a permit to heat the thick, gooey crude in railcars so that the oil could be loaded onto Hudson River barges and sent to refineries along the Eastern seaboard.
A tar sands operation in Alberta, Canada. DRU OJA JAY / DOMINION / CC BY 2.0
Tar sands oil, made infamous during the battle against the Keystone XL pipeline, is one of the dirtiest fossil fuels on earth. At each step in the process—from drilling to shipping to processing to burning—the air, water, and climate pollution is devastating.
The crude also contains high levels of benzene—a known carcinogen. Global’s plan to cook tar sands oil on site, in tankers and storage tanks at its Albany facility, threatened to expose Ezra Prentice residents to even more toxic air pollution.
This new planned expansion would not go through without a fight.
A sign in one of the windows at Ezra Prentice Homes. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Chris Amato met with tenants association President Charlene Benton, Be Be White and other community members. State officials had, again, ignored their environmental justice policy and failed to inform the community of Global’s tar sands application.
The state also claimed the tar sands proposal would have no impact on the surrounding community—the same conclusion they’d drawn about the quadrupling of rail traffic. It looked a lot like the environmental racism the state’s environmental justice policies were designed to prevent.
“It’s an absolute injustice what is taking place,” said Chris. “I guarantee that this would not be happening in a middle class white community.”
Earthjustice attorney Chris Amato, background right, speaks with concerned community members in the Ezra Prentice Homes community room. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
In June 2014, Chris filed a state court lawsuit against Global and the state on behalf of the Ezra Prentice Tenants Association, along with Riverkeeper, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Waterkeeper Alliance challenging Global’s proposal to handle tar sands at the Albany facility. And in January, he filed a separate lawsuit in federal court challenging the illegal 2012 expansion of crude oil shipments at the Global facility.
To date, this coalition has managed to keep the tar sands proposal at bay. Local elected officials have also taken notice, imposing a moratorium on further expansions at the facility.
Promising steps. But state officials have still failed to protect residents.
Railroad tank cars, on the track adjacent to Ezra Prentice Homes. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
In the years since Charlene Benton and Be Be White began mobilizing their community to demand accountability from state officials, a worldwide mobilization was also taking place. Climate activists are pushing national and international leaders to speed our transition from fossil fuels to 100 percent renewable energy. And, from the Paris climate treaty to state-level community solar pilot projects, they are gaining ground.
The fossil fuel industry is resisting, bent on maximizing short-term profits. Global has made no secret of its desire to make the Port of Albany the largest oil transport hub on the East Coast.
When national opposition stopped the Keystone XL pipeline, Global had even greater incentive to bring tar sands oil into Albany by rail. But the same forces that defeated Keystone XL are now taking on dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure projects, such as the Global facility expansion, and organizing solidarity protests and demonstrations.
Be Be White, with his son Brayton (left) and Jahcere, walk through the Ezra Prentice complex. Be Be and Brayton live in an apartment right next to the railroad tracks where the railroad tank cars travel on. White has lived in the complex for 12 years. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTOSanaiya, six years old, often visits her grandmother at apartments. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
If the litigation is successful, it could force state regulators to complete a full environmental and public health review of the tar sands oil proposal or push them to reject the proposal altogether.
Antonio, outside his apartment. EARTHJUSTICE PHOTO
Just as Be Be takes seriously his responsibility of looking out for the children in his community, our leaders must take their responsibilities seriously—to communities bearing the brunt of fossil fuel industry pollution and to future generations facing the threat of catastrophic climate change.
And when our leaders delay and equivocate between protecting people and protecting profits, we all have a role to play in pushing them to choose wisely.
The choice should be clear, says Be Be White. “This is our life. It’s worth more than a tank of oil.”
Lac-Mégantic sends sympathy, donations to Fort McMurray
Ingrid Peritz, May 05, 2016 2:59PM EDT, Last updated May 05, 2016 7:48PM EDT
An ever-changing, volatile situation is fraying the nerves of residents and officials alike as a massive wildfire continues to bear down on Fort McMurray. (JASON FRANSON/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
In their time of need, the people of Lac-Mégantic got support from across Canada to help cope with the disastrous aftermath of a deadly train derailment. Now the Quebec town wants to give back, by helping the victims of the Fort McMurray wildfires.
The mayor of Lac-Mégantic says his town of 5,900 will make a donation to support residents whose lives have been upturned by the devastating blazes in Alberta.
“In 2013, all of Canada helped Lac-Mégantic. Now it’s what we want to do [for Fort McMurray],” Mayor Jean-Guy Cloutier said in an interview on Thursday. “After our catastrophe, a lot of citizens sent us messages of courage, determination and resilience. We want to send them the same thing. They will need it.”
Aid began to pour into Lac-Mégantic in the days and months after a runaway train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in the heart of Lac-Mégantic, killing 47 people and obliterating much of the town centre. Nearly three years later, the Red Cross has collected $14.8-million for the town and aid workers are still present in the struggling community.
To Mr. Cloutier, the “images of horror” in Fort McMurray are darkly reminiscent of the apocalyptic scenes in Lac-Mégantic in the early hours of July 6, 2013, when the tankers burst into flames.
“We can only feel solidarity,” the mayor said.
Mr. Cloutier and the region’s local MP, Conservative Luc Berthold, have joined together to call on people to support Fort McMurray through the Canadian Red Cross.
Mr. Berthold said “all of Canada mobilized for us,” and now, “it’s our turn.”
“These people need us and will need us,” Mr. Berthold, who represents Mégantic-L’Érable, said in a statement. “I want to put all efforts forward so that we respond rapidly to the needs of the citizens of Alberta.”
Residents of Lac-Mégantic are still suffering the economic and health-related after-effects of the disaster.
Through the Red Cross, more than 3,200 people in Lac-Mégantic have received support, including 256 people who lost their jobs, 113 families who have grieved loved ones, and 32 children who lost one or both parents.
“We know that in one year, people in Fort McMurray will still have problems. These are major catastrophes,” Mr. Cloutier said.
On Thursday, the Quebec government also sent four water bombers to Alberta from the province’s forest-fire protection service. Premier Philippe Couillard called the fires in Alberta and forced evacuation of 80,000 people a “cataclysmic” situation.
“Firemen, airplanes, whatever is needed, we will provide. These are fellow Canadians and we want to be there with them,” the Premier said.
What if the wildfires raging in Fort McMurray hit the oil sands?
By Chris Sorensen, May 4, 2016
The Suncor oil sands facility seen from a helicopter near Fort McMurray, Alta. (Jeff McIntosh/CP)
The wildfires ravaging Fort McMurray are well to the south of most oil sands projects, which is why several oil sands operators volunteered to use their work camps as shelter spaces for fleeing residents. But wildfires—and fires in general—are a constant occupational threat for anyone who works in the oil and gas business, and the oil sands are no different.
In their natural state, the oil sands themselves aren’t particularly flammable. Bitumen has the consistency of molasses at room temperature, and is mixed with sand, making it burn at a slower pace if ignited (plus, 80 per cent of it is buried deep underground). But the same can’t be said of all the equipment and chemical processes used to extract and upgrade that bitumen into synthetic crude oil. Companies that mine and upgrade oil sands bitumen rely on massive pieces of machinery, high temperatures and high pressures to do the dirty work—producing fuels and feedstock.
A 2004 article in the U.S. National Fire Protection Association Journal offered a list of the potential fire risks faced by Suncor Energy, one of the oil sands’ biggest producers. It included: “hydrocarbon spill and pressure fires; storage tank fires; vapour cloud explosions; flammable gas fires; runaway exothermic reactions; and coke and sulfur fires.” The list continued by noting the fire potential posed by: “natural gas- and coke-fired electricity/steam generating plants; a large fleet of mining equipment; ore-processing and oil extraction plants; multi-story office buildings; fleets of tank trucks carrying combustible and hazardous commodities; and the wildlands and boreal forests that surround the facility.”
On that last point, Chelsie Klassen, a spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, says oil sands companies have “had production reduced or shut in because of wildfires in the past.” But she said all operators have emergency teams in place to make sure workers are evacuated safely and fires are prevented from spreading beyond the facility.
And those soupy, bird-killing tailings ponds? “They’re not flammable,” Klassen says.
It may well be the only thing about an oil sands operation that isn’t.
Placer County is planning a mass casualty training exercise related to oil train explosions on May 18th in Roseville, California. The exercise will take place at PFE Road and Hilltop Circle in Roseville.
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