Category Archives: Crude By Rail

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Keeping Watch on Earth News, Oil trains, US Department of Transportation, Vapor pressure

The federal government’s repeated failure to address the volatility of the oil moving by rail in America

Repost from DeSmog

Federal Government Foot-Dragging Helps Oil Industry Delay Oil-by-Rail Rules

By Justin Mikulka, April 5, 2019 – 13:18

In an attempt to reduce the risk of fiery oil train accidents, the state of Washington is working to pass a bill that would limit the vapor pressure of oil on trains to below 9 pounds per square inch (psi). Vapor pressure is a measure of the volatility of flammable liquids and correlates to their likelihood of igniting. Higher vapor pressure means an oil is more volatile and more likely to ignite and burn when a train derails.

“If the federal government won’t act to protect public safety and adopt a safer nationwide standard, we will adopt our own,” state Sen. Andy Billig (D-Spokane) said of the bill he sponsored. “There is just too much to lose — for people and our environment.”

Billig’s comments point to the federal government’s repeated failure to address the volatility of the oil moving by rail in America.

The Obama administration specifically left this issue out of the Department of Transportation’s 2015 regulations on moving oil by rail. In May 2017, half a dozen state attorneys general petitioned the federal government to regulate vapor pressure, which resulted in a proposed rule at the end of the Obama administration.

This oil train vapor pressure rule has gone nowhere in the Trump administration.

As DeSmog reported in 2016, the American Petroleum Institute has said that even having these discussions about regulating oil vapor pressure is “dangerous.”

Exploding oil train fireball in Casselton, North Dakota
The fireball that followed the derailment and explosion of two trains, one carrying Bakken crude oil, on December 30, 2013, outside Casselton, North Dakota. Credit: U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration

Unsurprisingly, the state of North Dakota, where much of the highly volatile crude oil moved by rail in America is produced, opposes Washington state’s rule and is preparing to sue the state over it.

However, in a surprising moment of honesty, North Dakota’s top oil regulator didn’t bother pretending this opposition was about safety and instead revealed the real motivation: money.

Lynn Helms, director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, said that taking the steps to stabilize the crude oil (remove its volatile natural gas liquids) and achieve a vapor pressure of less than 9 psi would “devalue the crude oil immensely.”

The crude coming out of oil fields like North Dakota’s Bakken Shale is rich in natural gas liquids such as propane and butane, which make the oil more dangerous to transport but also more valuable. A value the industry and its allies in government aren’t willing to relinquish.

However, this isn’t really news. I wrote about a similar message from a North Dakota oil producer in 2014 when he too was opposing regulations to reduce the vapor pressure of Bakken oil before rail transport.

“The flammable characteristics of our product are actually a big piece of why this product is so valuable. That is why we can make these very valuable products like gasoline and jet fuel,” said Tony Lucero of oil producer Enerplus.

North Dakota Using Federal Government Delays to Avoid Regulation

Once trains carrying volatile oil from the Bakken Shale started blowing up on a regular basis in 2013, it became clear that the oil itself was part of the problem. Its high amounts of natural gas liquids make the oil more volatile and therefore more likely to catch fire and explode.

After the deadly oil train accident in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people, there was confusion about the associated explosions and intense fires that burned for days. As the Wall Street Journal reported at the time, an oil executive said, “Crude oil doesn’t explode like that.”

Which is true. But crude oil mixed with lots of propane and butane, such as the Bakken’s crude oil, does explode like that. And trains carrying oil from the Bakken continued to explode like that after derailing again and again.


Rainy Day Train Message/Oil Train Protesters. Credit: Joe Brusky, CC BY–NC 2.0

The Obama administration argued that it couldn’t regulate oil vapor pressure because the issue was disputed scientifically and required more study. More than three years ago, I wrote that this was simply a delay tactic and that claiming the oil industry didn’t understand the fundamental science of crude oil was absurd:

“The oil industry and the government regulators in charge of regulating the industry don’t understand the basic science of oil. This is the core of the argument used to justify why they continue to run dangerous trains filled with Bakken oil through communities across North America. Do you believe them?

Despite the audacity of this position, it is being used to delay any new regulations and to support the idea that the mystery of why Bakken crude oil explodes must be studied for years before it would be possible to make any regulatory decisions.”

Meanwhile, as I’ve also been writing for years, if you ask an oil expert like Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston, you learn that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“The notion that this requires significant research and development is a bunch of BS,” Krishnamoorti wrote in an email response to Al Jazeera. “The science behind this has been revealed over 80 years ago, and developing a simple spreadsheet to calculate risk based on composition and vapor pressure is trivial. This can be done today.” [emphasis added]

The Departments of Energy and Transportation announced the start of a study that was supposed to resolve this issue — four years ago — in April of 2015. At the time, regulators referred to it as a two-year study.

In late 2016, at the Energy by Rail Conference in Arlington, Virginia, Suzanne Lemieux of the American Petroleum Institute gave a presentation on crude oil volatility and stabilization. While arguing once again that there wasn’t clear evidence that stabilizing oil reduces its volatility and risk, Lemieux noted that the federal study on the issue had been delayed. She said now it was expected to conclude sometime in 2018.

The explanation for the delay was that the researchers at Sandia National Laboratories were still collecting samples of the oil in late 2016 — almost a year and a half after the “two-year” study was announced.

And now, four years later, according to The Bismarck Tribune, North Dakota oil regulator Lynn Helms “encouraged [Washington] legislators to wait for the results of a Sandia National Laboratories study that was commissioned by the U.S.Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Energy.”

Four years later. The federal government is unable to complete a two-year study in four years on a question which oil experts already know the answer to.

A very effective delay tactic that means no one can “devalue” the oil implicated in multiple explosions and 47 deaths.

Main image: Screen shot of McClatchy article combined with Justin Mikulka’s oil train photo and text. Credit: Justin Mikulka 

Crude By Rail, Federal deregulation, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazardous materials emergencies, Health and safety impacts, Keeping Watch on Earth News, Marine transport, Rail accidents, Rail Safety, U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads Pipelines and Hazardous Materials

Government deregulation without limits – FAA comes under criticism

Repost from The Register-Guard, Eugene, OR
[Quote: “When something bad happens, the government will take action — but over time those regulations and requirements wind up being dropped, reduced or delayed. The 2017 fatal Amtrak derailment near Tacoma, the 2016 oil train derailment in the Columbia River Gorge, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2008 financial crisis and countless other events could have been prevented.”]

Deregulating? DeFazio’s watching

Posted Mar 27, 2019 at 12:01 AM

The Boeing 737 jet crashes raise troubling questions that go far beyond one company’s safety record and one federal agency’s watchdog role.

The history of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft suggests it is an example of how the government’s regulation-and-oversight pendulum has swung too far. The Federal Aviation Administration has lacked both the money and the inclination to adequately oversee aircraft development, instead relying heavily on companies to do their own testing.

Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio is demanding answers. The Springfield Democrat chairs the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The committee’s investigative staff is doing research, and DeFazio then plans to hold hearings.

“This is really, really raising questions about the FAA as a watchdog,” he said in a meeting with The Register-Guard editorial board.

A faulty sensor is being investigated as one cause, and Boeing is working on a software fix. The two-sensor system was developed as a safety feature to prevent a plane from stalling. But it appears the failure of just one sensor can send the aircraft into a powerful, possibly irreversible dive unless the pilots override the system within 40 seconds, according to a New York Times report this week.

DeFazio promises a tenacious investigation. Among the questions are why the system was designed this way, whether the aircraft was unsafely rushed to market, and why the FAA and Boeing did not require extensive retraining of pilots.

“This is the first time Boeing has put in a system that took over the plane automatically,” he said. “And they didn’t think they needed to tell people about it — because it’s different from any other Boeing plane ever made?

“Obviously, maybe not the best idea.”

For years, the FAA has lacked sufficient inspectors and has outsourced much of that responsibility to the manufacturers. But the FAA is not unique. We now have a government that relies on the honor, integrity and self-supervision of the industries it regulates.

When something bad happens, the government will take action — but over time those regulations and requirements wind up being dropped, reduced or delayed. The 2017 fatal Amtrak derailment near Tacoma, the 2016 oil train derailment in the Columbia River Gorge, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2008 financial crisis and countless other events could have been prevented.

“It’s repeated time and time again,” DeFazio said. “There are limits to deregulation, which in many cases have been exceeded.”

Oregon has its own history of unwatchful eyes. The Cover Oregon health insurance fiasco could have been averted through closer, more-knowledgeable oversight and insistence on stronger testing of the technology throughout its development. Better oversight — not to mention much-better planning in the first place — might have saved the state from wasting millions of dollars in the Highway 20 reconstruction between the valley and the coast.

Each time, government and the public vow to learn from these lessons. Then we relax and we forget.

When DeFazio and his congressional colleagues find the answers they are seeking, our government should heed them.

Canadian oil production, Crude By Rail, Electronically controlled pneumatic braking (ECP), Oil trains, Phillips 66 Nipomo Mesa refinery, Positive Train Control, San Luis Obispo County, Tar sands crude

Updates On The Threat Of Crude-By-Rail In California

Repost of an email…
[Editor: The email came with this March 2019 Mesa Refinery Watch Group Newsletter.  For much more, see mesarefinerywatch.com.  – R.S.]

——–
From: Martin Akel, March 22, 2019
Subject: Updates On The Threat Of Crude-By-Rail In California

Dear [            ]:

There’s no denying it — there are deliberate attempts to overturn regulations and policies that protect our environment, health and safety.  Therefore, regardless of the rejection of Phillips 66’s crude oil trains, we must remain educated about potential threats.  Click on the link below to read the latest MRWG newsletter, which includes …

► How Kern County followed in SLO County’s footsteps … saying “NO!” to crude oil trains.

► How the federal government used flawed data when canceling improved brakes for trains.

► How railroads have yet again missed the deadline for installing new safety technology.

► How Canada is expanding their production of dangerous tar sands and investing in crude oil trains.

► Why Phillips’ former claim of needing oil trains to gain “energy independence” was simply misleading.

► Plus — dozens of recent examples of serious railroad and oil industry safety problems.

Respectfully,
The Mesa Refinery Watch Group
www.mesarefinerywatch.com

Crude By Rail, Keeping Watch on Earth News, Oil trains

As oil trains roll into Portland, city residents keep watch

Repost from High Country News

As oil trains roll into Portland, city residents keep watch

Without state oversight, activists step up to monitor the traffic in their own backyards.

By Carl Segerstrom March 13, 2019

Oct. 3, 2018: No train cars. Reuters reports that oil shipments to China have “totally stopped” as a casualty of escalating trade tension.

October 30: Twelve train cars behind the wall; 15 waiting just outside to the south. Placard number 1267: Crude oil.

November 26: No trains.

Jan. 16, 2019: Yes. More than 20 cars. Placard on side of train cars reads: “Toxic Inhalation Hazard.”

At Zenith Petroleum’s Portland Terminal in Oregon, multi-story oil drums rise along the banks of the Willamette River. Backhoes scratch dirt into a dump truck as sparks fly from welders building a metal structure behind walls topped with razor wire. Trucks rumble through on the last day of February, while black cylindrical oil-train cars line the rails. To the activists who fear they will remote detonate the global carbon budget — or even explode in their community — they look like rows of bombs.

Oil train cars park near the Zenith Energy terminal. Communities worry about the lack of documentation of potentially hazardous trains traveling by their homes and rivers.
Samuel Wilson for High Country News

After reports of Canadian tar sands moving through Portland surfaced last March, a small group formed to try to track local oil train shipments by visiting the terminal and writing down what they saw. Since then, the group has watched the terminal expand in front of their eyes, as Zenith adds new rail spurs and retools the facility to increase export capacity. The watchers know about the risks of oil-train spills and explosions across the Northwest. By bearing witness to the trains and their dangerous cargo, they aim to fill the gaps in public knowledge left by limited official information — and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the threats it poses to their communities, and to the climate.

Dan Serres is the conservation director for Columbia Riverkeeper, an organization that works to protect the Columbia River.
Samuel Wilson for High Country News

Natural light filters through a long window as Dan Serres, a train watcher and the conservation director for Columbia Riverkeeper, describes the project. “You would think that we would know how much oil is moving and when,” said Serres, who grew up just outside of Portland. “This is definitely a soft spot in how states are able to address oil-train traffic.”

The public is largely in the dark when it comes to what’s moving through their towns. In Washington, the Department of Ecology issues quarterly reports on oil trains; between October and December of last year, it said, 24,693 oil train cars and more than 16.8 million barrels of crude oil travelled the state’s rails. But that undercounts the total: Trains that merely pass through the state aren’t included. And Oregon has significantly less transparency. While the Oregon Fire Marshall publishes some information on Bakken crude oil train traffic, the state does not share comprehensive quarterly crude oil by train reports with the public. That’s because they are “security sensitive,” according to Jennifer Flynt, an Oregon Department of Environmental Quality public affairs officer.

Since 2016, when an oil train exploded in Mosier, Oregon, along the Columbia River, some state legislators have tried to institute stronger monitoring standards and safeguards, most recently this year. But so far, their efforts have fallen short. State Rep. Barbara Smith Warner, D, who represents communities in northeast Portland, sponsored oil-train safety bills in 2017 and 2018. She said part of the reason Oregon hasn’t regulated the shipments is because, unlike other states, Oregon doesn’t have in-state refineries from which to collect fees or information.

Without comprehensive reporting, Northwest communities look to email lists, Twitter hashtags and smartphone ship-tracking apps to monitor trains. Loosely affiliated groups from Idaho, Washington and Oregon operate on a “see-something-share-something” basis, but are left putting together a puzzle with missing pieces as they try to understand what dangerous materials are rolling past their houses, schools and rivers.

  • Mia Reback, a climate justice organizer, takes pictures of new construction at the Zenith Energy terminal in Portland, Oregon.

    Samuel Wilson for High Country News

1 2 3 4

LOOKING OUT AT THE DOZENS OF TRAINS parked outside Zenith’s terminal in Portland, Mia Reback describes how different the train watching is from her usual climate justice organizing, which she typically fuels by tapping into the energy of community gatherings and street protests. Coming to this industrial zone to bear witness to local fossil fuel infrastructure is lonelier, and isolating.

But for Reback, the chance to have an impact is worth that discomfort. As she takes pictures to document the new construction, she recalls visiting the terminal in the summer of 2015. She had joined a crowd gathered to remember the 47 lives lost a year earlier when an oil train exploded in the town of Lac-Mégantic in Quebec, Canada. Black-and-white placards commemorated the name and age of each person who died in the disaster: “To see the visual of children holding a sign of another child their age next to an oil-train car was incredibly, incredibly powerful.”

Portland politics tend to favor organizers like Reback and Serres. But even in a city that has passed ordinances to prevent new oil infrastructure development, fossil fuel companies seem to have figured out a way to peek through the green curtain the city hopes to close on their industry. Reback said she hopes the watchers’ work will “re-center power in our communities, when fossil fuel companies and other polluting industries have taken power from us.”

Carl Segerstrom is a contributing editor at High Country News, covering Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and the Northern Rockies from Spokane, Washington. Email him at carls@hcn.org  or submit a letter to the editor.