Category Archives: Derailment

Bakken Shale, Derailment, Rail Safety, Spill prevention and response

Yet another derailment – in central Philadelphia

January 22, 2014 Roger Straw

Repost from Philadelphia-based Protecting Our Waters. Pay close attention to paragraph 2 … “Unlike in previous U.S. explosions, this is a densely-populated area…in close proximity to large institutions, among them Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania medical complex, including Children’s Hospital; and the University of Pennsylvania.”

A Near Miss from Disaster: Oil Train Derails in Philadelphia

January 20, 2014

by Coryn S. Wolk

Bakken Shale oil train derailed over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia on January 20th, 2014. Photo: NBC Chicago/SkyForce

Philadelphia’s wake-up call is here. A few months ago, Protecting Our Waters started warning people about the dangers of the fracked oil trains coming to Philadelphia from the Bakken Shale formation out west. We’ve reported on multiple oil train explosions and derailments across North America, one of which, in Lac Megantic, Canada killed 47 people. As of this morning, the threat of an accident here in Philadelphia is no longer hypothetical.

Just after 1 a.m. this morning, seven cars of a 101-car CSX train from Chicago derailed on the Schuylkill Arsenal Railroad bridge over the Schuylkill River. Six were carrying crude oil, and one was carrying sand. ABC 6 Action News and Fox Philadelphia have short videos on the derailment, although the AP story they include incorrectly states that the accident occurred around 1 p.m. The bridge runs just south of the South Street Bridge from University City to Grays Ferry. It also runs over the heavily-trafficked Schuylkill Expressway, which was shut for two hours following the derailment. Unlike in previous U.S. explosions, this is a densely-populated area. It’s also in close proximity to large institutions, among them Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania medical complex, including Children’s Hospital; and the University of Pennsylvania.

As the trains were carrying oil from out west and following a route we know that the Bakken oil trains take on their way to the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in South Philadelphia, it’s a safe bet that these were the same trains that have derailed and exploded four times in the last eight months and whose construction and contents are becoming notorious for their safety hazards. Of course, it doesn’t help that the trains were crossing a 100-year-old bridge that now sees two mile-long oil trains each day. Fortunately, none of the cars fell off the bridge, nor have authorities found any leaks. News photos show the cars almost dangling from the narrow two-track bridge, precariously close to falling into the river. As of 9 a.m. this morning, they were still there.

As with pipeline explosions and leaks, it seems like oil train derailments and explosions are becoming business as usual. Also as usual, authorities aren’t sure what may have caused the train to derail. That’s a question that needs to be answered before any more of these trains run. Will it be? That’s partly up to us– and to you.

So Philadelphians, or anyone else living in the path of these “bomb trains”: write and call your elected officials and ask them if they have an evacuation plan for if disaster occurs. Urge them to make sure the trains are stopped to ensure residents’ safety; join our regional letter-writing campaign (contact powinquiries@gmail for fact sheets and more information), and tell your neighbors about the threat chugging right through our backyards.

Derailment

Coal train derails in Caledonia, Wisconsin

January 19, 2014 Roger Straw

Repost from Fox6Now, Milwaukee

Train derails in Caledonia, 19 cars affected and rail damaged

Posted on: 7:59 am, January 19, 2014, by Cary Docter, Jenna Sachs and Katie DeLong, updated on: 10:42pm, January 19, 2014

CALEDONIA (WITI) — A Union Pacific train derailed in Caledonia just east of the intersection of 5 Mile Rd. and Nicholson Rd. on Sunday morning, January 19th.

It happened around 5:50 a.m. — according to Union Pacific. The Caledonia Fire Department says it was notified around 7:00 a.m. — when an off-duty firefighter drove beneath an overpass and noticed a dangling train car.

19 cars went off the rails as a result of the incident. You can view pictures taken by the Caledonia Fire Department and FOX6 News crews below. The train had three locomotives and 135 coal cars from Wyoming headed for Sheboygan.

Officials say debris from the derailment is spread over a thousand feet, and 500 feet of track is destroyed.

As a result of the derailment, 5 Mile Rd. between Nicholson Rd. and Highway 38 will be closed indefinitely.

“It’s quite a mess!” Gerry Olley said.

Olley’s property runs right up to the scene of Sunday’s derailment. Olley and his nephew came in for a closer look.

“Just train cars piled on top of each other,” Nick Olley said.

“There’s a lot of coal cars and the coal is spilled out,” Gerry Olley said.

“There was one just hanging off a bridge,” Nick Olley said.

Officials say there are no injuries and no hazardous materials were spilled in the wreck. That’s why Union Pacific officials say it wasn’t necessary to notify the Caledonia Fire Department right away.

“It does surprise me, obviously, an event of this magnitude occurring in our community — we’d like to be made aware of it. Certainly the courtesy of a phone call just to let us know that this event was occurring would have been beneficial,” Caledonia Fire Battalion Chief Jeff Henningfeld said.

The Caledonia Fire Department eventually agreed with Union Pacific’s assessment that the scene was stable.

The Wisconsin DNR was notified and an environmental containment crew was called to the scene to monitor the cleanup.

A spokesman with Union Pacific says four teams are working this investigation.

The first team is looking into whether there are any human factors that may have caused the derailment.

The second team is looking at mechanical factors.

The third team is looking at the railroad tracks and their condition.

The fourth team is handling other factors that could have caused the incident.

That spokesman says heavy machinery has been brought in to remove the rail cars — and cleanup of coal spilled is taking place simultaneously.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Railroad Commissioner Jeff Plale says there is no official word as to what caused this incident — but he says when the weather gets cold, it can cause fissures and fractures in the rails.

“Extreme weather is difficult for railroads. If you have very cold weather, even the smallest fissure in the steel can turn into a break, into a crack,” Plale said.

Crews will work around the clock until the work is completed.

Bakken Shale, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Derailment, Spill prevention and response

Letter from Kamala Harris, California Attorney General

January 17, 2014 Roger Straw

The California Attorney General office has weighed in on the failures of the Pittsburg WesPac recirculated EIR. This could be important for us in Benicia. See Ltr to POLLOT 1-15-2014 date revised

Marilyn Bardet writes that this letter “gets at the lack of cumulative analysis of emissions impacts and other potentially catastrophic risks to Pittsburg residents in the immediate vicinity of WesPac’s proposed terminal, but also, the ‘cumulatively considerable’ impacts (the fallout, including exponentially increasing risk to public health and safety) of delivering increasing quantities of ‘extreme crudes’ for processing at Bay Area refineries.”

The Attorney General’s letter is useful to us in Benicia as we prepare our remarks and comments for the Draft EIR on the Valero Crude by Rail proposal.

Marilyn also pointed out another example of a discussion of how to account for cumulative impacts, an excerpt from a DEIR review of “Grizzly Bluff Natural Gas Field Development Project” in Humbolt County: http://co.humboldt.ca.us/planning/smara/docs/fg-section-4-5-6.pdf

Thanks, Marilyn!

Bakken Shale, Derailment, Spill prevention and response

Cities Grapple With Oil-Train Safety

January 15, 2014 Roger Straw

Repost from The Wall Street Journal

Recent Derailments Raise Concerns Over North Dakota Crude Traveling by Rail Through Cities

By RUSSELL GOLD and LYNN COOK

Jan. 14, 2014 11:02 p.m. ET

A train carrying crude oil collided with another train and caught fire on Dec. 30 near Casselton, N.D. The Forum/Associated Press

Every day, a train more than a mile long travels alongside a highway in Albany, N.Y., a half-mile from the state capitol building and even closer to houses. Its cargo is crude oil from North Dakota, which federal regulators and railroads fear is more explosive than other oils.

In the past year, Albany has become an unlikely hub for the U.S. oil business, taking in shipments by rail and sending them out by ship down the Hudson River to refineries. Now officials there are trying to get up to speed on how to handle a potential oil-train accident, as are their peers from Chicago to Denver to New Orleans.

Bakken crude, which has been involved in three major explosions after rail accidents in the past seven months, is traveling to every corner of the country: west into Washington state and then south to refineries near Los Angeles; south to Gulf Coast refiners; north into Canada; and east to refineries in New Jersey and Philadelphia.

Railroads and oil shippers wouldn’t detail oil-train movements through their networks, citing security concerns. The Wall Street Journal identified routes through investor presentations and industry marketing material, as well as interviews with industry officials and experts.

The four major freight railroads involved— Union Pacific Corp. , BNSF Railway Co., Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. and Canadian National Railway Co. —all said they were sharing information about hazardous shipments with local emergency responders. Crude oil is classified as a hazardous substance.

Some critics worry about local preparedness. The growth in crude moving on railroads “came out of the blue,” said Peter Iwanowicz, a former head of New York state’s environmental agency and now executive director of a watchdog group called Environmental Advocates of New York.

“We’re not an oil-patch state,” he said. Officials may be aware of the oil trains, he added, “but are they prepared? I don’t believe so.”

John Layton, a captain in the Albany County Office of Emergency Management, said his agency recently met with Canadian Pacific and Global Partners LP, the storage and distribution firm that is shipping North Dakota crude through New York state.

“The crude trains are very big and carry a lot of potential fuel,” Mr. Layton said. “It has the potential to burn a long time.”

Global Partners, a public company based in Waltham, Mass., declined to comment.

Two local officials said Chicago, the largest rail hub in the U.S., might not be prepared for an oil-train accident. On Monday, Chicago Aldermen Edward Burke and Matthew O’Shea proposed levying a fee on every oil-filled railcar that passes through the city, to build up a fund that could be tapped in case of a derailment or fire in the city. Local officials can’t bar oil trains, which are regulated by the federal government.

Some cities say they are ready for the oil-train influx. One is Tacoma, Wash., where the fire department says it has a plan, personnel and equipment, but worries about suburban and rural fire departments.

The three explosions stemming from recent oil-train derailments include a July accident in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that incinerated the downtown and left 47 people dead. An oil train caught fire in Alabama in November, and a Dec. 30 accident in rural North Dakota sent towering flames into the sky. Neither of those two caused injuries.

Concerns about emergency responders helped prompt the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, to warn that Bakken oil appeared to be more volatile than other crudes, which can burn but seldom have exploded. Dominique Dostie, a firefighter who fought the Lac-Mégantic blaze, said it took 30 hours of applying special foam to extinguish it.

“When emergency responders look at crude, they are thinking of a heavy crude that just sits there and is hard to ignite,” said Cynthia Quarterman, head of the federal agency, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The PHMSA is investigating whether Bakken crude might contain large amounts of gases and related liquids such as butane, propane and ethane.

At the American Petroleum Institute, “We look forward to reviewing PHMSA’s findings as part of a continuing effort to improve the safety of rail transportation,” said a spokesman, Brian Straessle.

New regulations that could require the industry to improve, phase out or retrofit tank cars used to haul some crude oil are over a year away, according to a schedule the Transportation Department published Tuesday.

The U.S. and Canada both have large refineries on their coasts to handle imported crude oil. Over the past five years, U.S. companies began pumping more oil from the landlocked midcontinent, and the industry has developed new ways of moving it to refineries.

The most common new mode is rail, which is handling about 750,000 barrels a day from North Dakota—more oil than comes out of the giant Alaska North Slope oil field.

New crude-by-rail projects have been proposed across the country. In New York, state officials said they have received applications from Global Partners to build another rail-to-river facility capable of handling one train a day in New Windsor, N.Y., about 65 miles up the Hudson from New York City.

In Vancouver, Wash., refiner Tesoro Corp. and logistics firm Savage Cos. have proposed building a railroad terminal that could handle 360,000 barrels a day, twice the size of the oil terminal in Albany.

Barry Cain, lead developer of Columbia Waterfront LLC, a $1.3 billion real-estate revitalization project in Vancouver with space 100 feet from the tracks, said he supports robust U.S. oil production but fears the trains would endanger residents. “What if one derails?” he asked. “There is no margin of error with these things.”

The general manager of the proposed new rail terminal, Jared Larrabee, said it and waterfront development can co-exist. “We believe the region can and should have both,” he said.

Vancouver Fire Dept. Battalion Chief Steve Eldred said hazardous-materials response plans are in place for existing train traffic, but would need to be studied and probably require additional resources to handle more oil trains.

Others say while the liquid cargo is labeled as crude, it is exploding like jet fuel. The North Dakota crude “has a tremendous amount volatility and puts out a lot of heat,” said Dennis Jenkerson, the fire chief for St. Louis.

“We train for this every year, and you prepare for the worst,” he said. “My biggest concern is that this crude is coming through the area and we really don’t know what it is.”

—Chester Dawson, Ben Kesling and Betsy Morris contributed to this article. Write to Russell Gold at russell.gold@wsj.com and Lynn Cook at lynn.cook@wsj.com