Category Archives: Derailment

Civil penalties, Criminal negligence, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Federal pre-emption, Federal Railroad Administration, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Local Regulation, Oil trains, Public permitting, Rail accidents, Rail infrastructure, Rail inspection, Rail routing, Rail Safety, Risk Assessment, U.S. Department of Transportation

Inspector General Cites Failure of Federal Railroad Administration on Oil Train Safety

Repost from The Root Word, ForestEthics Blog
[Editor:  See also the earlier Associated Press story: Railroad Regulators Fail to Pursue Criminal Prosecution of Hazardous Cargo Safety Violations.  – RS]

News Analysis: Inspector General Cites Failure of Federal Railroad Administration on Oil Train Safety

By Matt Krogh, March 2, 2016
2015 Paul K. Anderson

In a scathing critique, the US Department of Transportation Inspector General called out the Federal Railroad Administration (which is an agency within DOT) for failing to adequately evaluate or reduce the risks of a catastrophic oil train accident to the American public. The conclusion: The FRA is failing to provide adequate oversight and policing of oil trains, and FRA fails to enforce the rules or prosecute violators when they find dangerous violations.

Oil trains are too dangerous for the rails. The Inspector General makes this point in the first sentence of the review, citing the fatal Lac Megantic oil train disaster. But we’ve heard from far too many local, county, and state officials around the country who believe the federal government is overseeing oil trains and guaranteeing public safety. It’s true that century-old railroad law puts railroads under federal control. That makes sense because a continental railroad system would grind to a halt if it was regulated by thousands of different local and state government entities. But no one should let “pre-emption” or federal-control get in the way of local permitting decisions, especially when it comes to public safety. Especially when it comes to preventing a calamity that could reduce another town to ashes.

This Inspector General report makes it clear the FRA is failing the American people with a good cop/good cop approach when it comes to mile-long oil trains carrying millions of gallons of toxic, explosive crude through US cities and towns.

Here’s some key quotes from the DOT IG report, reviewed in an excellent article by AP reporter Joan Lowy:

the Agency has no overall, national understanding of the risk environment and cannot be sure that the regions consider all appropriate risk factors

This points to a key flaw in FRA oversight: they assume that region-based inspection systems are all that are needed, and fail to look nationally, comprehensively, at the risks of moving oil by train.

…do not take into account risk factors such as the condition of transportation infrastructure, the shippers’ compliance histories, or the proximity of transportation routes to population centers.

This begs the question, what does the FRA look at in risk assessment? Track conditions, how good the individual railroads are at safety, and how close people are living to oil train routes seem pretty important.

FRA issues few violations, pursues low civil penalties, and does not refer possibly criminal violations to the office of inspector general

The FRA turns a blind eye to criminal violations, settles for low fines, and fails to bring in the Office of Inspector General when criminal investigations are warranted. We need a bad cop, folks.

One inspector noted that the Office of Chief Counsel has effectively “numbed” a large portion of inspectors into not writing violations and stated that some inspectors have preconceived notions that violations will not get through the process.

It’s true that the FRA does have inspectors — but the FRA’s buddy culture with the railroads means that hard-working inspectors on the ground have lost faith in the agency’s willingness and ability to regulate railroads.

respondents just smile and cut the check

By respondents the Inspector General means railroads. They don’t argue with miniscule fines, but then why should they? They are happy to pay small fines as a normal operating expense, and get back to moving vast quantities of explosive, toxic crude oil through America’s population centers.

While the specific circumstances of all of these violations may not have warranted maximum penalties, FRA settled for 5.1 percent of the roughly $105.6 million dollars in penalties it could have levied…

No, seriously, the fines are miniscule. FRA is only issuing 5% of the fines they could levy under the law. Wouldn’t it be nice if the highway patrol took the same approach to speeding tickets? It would, but then, the Wild West of our highways would be littered with the smoking wreckage of souped-up Camaros.

By applying the same penalty to all violations of a regulation, FRA is distancing its enforcement actions from the context of the behaviors they are meant to rectify, thus weakening penalties’ deterrent effect. Furthermore, by bundling violations, FRA’s settlement process removes penalty enforcement from the context of each violation and low penalties diminish the potential deterrent effect of the penalties set in the guidelines and the regulatory maximums.

And there you have it: it doesn’t matter the scale or the number of fines you get, you can talk your way out of it in the settlement process.

The Inspector General audit of the Federal Railroad Administration found an agency that fails to understand and regulate the severe threat to 25 million Americans living in the blast zone. When it comes to oil trains the FRA seems to work for the railroad and oil industry, and not the American people. Local and state officials faced with permitting decisions need to recognize their responsibility to protect the public, just as the FRA now needs to do their job when it comes to deadly oil trains.

Civil penalties, Criminal negligence, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs), Legal action, Rail inspection

Railroad Regulators Fail to Pursue Criminal Prosecution of Hazardous Cargo Safety Violations

Repost from Associated Press & AllGov.com
[Editor:  Significant quote: “Although the agency processes hundreds of safety violations each year, it appears that not a single case has ever been referred for criminal investigation.”  See also Matt Krogh’s News Analysis: Inspector General Cites Failure of Federal Railroad Administration on Oil Train Safety.  – RS]

Inspector General Report: Rail Hazmat Safety Violations should be prosecuted

By Joan Lowy, Associated Press, February 28, 2016
Sarah Feinberg, Federal Railroad Administration administrator

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators are failing to refer serious safety violations involving freight rail shipments of crude oil and other hazardous cargo for criminal prosecution, and are going lightly on civil fines, according to a report released Friday by a government watchdog.

The Federal Railroad Administration routinely applies only modest civil penalties for hazardous materials safety violations, even though inspectors request penalties only for serious or repeated infractions, said the report by the Department of Transportation’s inspector general.

Instead, the agency’s attorneys have made it a priority to process penalties quickly and avoid legal challenges, the report said.

And, although the agency processes hundreds of safety violations each year, it appears that not a single case has ever been referred for criminal investigation, the report said. After examining a random sample of safety violations over five years, the inspector general’s office found 17 cases it said should have referred for criminal investigation.

Based on that sample, the inspector general’s office estimated 20 percent, or 227 out of 1,126 violations, may have warranted criminal referral. The agency’s attorneys told the watchdog that they didn’t make criminal referrals because they didn’t know the procedures for doing so, and they didn’t think it was part of their job.

“As a result, penalties have little deterrent effect, and criminal penalties aren’t being pursued,” wrote Mitchell Behm, assistant inspector general for surface transportation.

Concern about rail shipments of hazardous cargo has been heightened in recent years by a series of fiery oil train explosions in the U.S. and Canada, including one just across the border in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people. More than 400,000 tank cars of oil are shipped across the country annually.

Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the senior Democrat on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the report confirms “that the federal government has failed to provide the necessary oversight to protect communities across the country from serious accidents involving the rail transportation of hazardous materials.”

One case the report said should have been referred for criminal investigation involved a company that produced tank car valves that hadn’t been put through a required design approval process. The valves subsequently leaked hazardous liquids. In another case, a company may have deliberately failed to disclose that a shipment included radioactive containers.

Matt Lehner, an FRA spokesman, said most of the inspector general’s recommendations are being implemented. He noted that the agency collected $15 million in fines for violations in the 2015 federal budget year, a 12 percent increase over the previous year and the most in the agency’s history

The inspector general’s office also found that the agency doesn’t have a complete understanding of the risks of hazardous cargo shipments because the agency makes safety assessments by looking narrowly at operations in specific regions, not the nation as a whole.

The regional evaluations also don’t include an assessment of the risks of transporting highly volatile and hazardous materials like crude oil near cities and major population centers, the report said.

Without an accurate national assessment, the railroad administration can’t be sure that all the appropriate risk factors are being considered when deciding which operations are most in need of inspections, the report said.

The inspector general also faulted the agency’s complex records system, saying it makes difficult for inspectors to access safety information on rail operations outside their region. As a result, the railroad administration and a sister agency, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, don’t share critical and up-to-date information with safety inspectors and investigators in different regions throughout the country.

Benicia Planning Commission, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Oil trains, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

VIDEO: Benicia Planning Commission Hearings Feb. 8-11

By Roger Straw, February 27, 2016

Highly recommended: two brilliant outtakes

Benicia’s own videographer, Dr. Constance Beutel, is reducing the 20 hours of Planning Commission hearings into watchable shorts. I understand that she has winnowed the 20 hours down to 4, and has produced these two beautiful outtakes.  (If you only have time for one, I’d recommend you watch the first, “Oxygen and Crude By Rail.”)

Oxygen and Crude By Rail (Public comment by Phyllis Ingerson, longtime resident of Benicia)

Stop Crude By Rail!  (“Oil Trains” by Andy Shaw, of Benicia, CA, Tune: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, by Gordon Lightfoot)

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fish and wildlife, Lac-Mégantic, Oil spill

Fish deformities spiked after Lac-Mégantic oil spill, report says

Repost from The Star, Toronto, ONT

Fish deformities spiked after Lac-Mégantic oil spill, report says

Scientists have recorded an “unprecedented” spike in the fish deformations in the wake of the deadly 2013 train derailment and oil spill in Lac-Mégantic, Que
Workers tend to an absorbent boom on the Chaudiere River near Lac-Megantic, Que. About 100,000 litres of crude oil is estimated to have washed into the river after the 2013 train derailment and settled as contaminated sediment on the riverbed.
Workers tend to an absorbent boom on the Chaudiere River near Lac-Megantic, Que. About 100,000 litres of crude oil is estimated to have washed into the river after the 2013 train derailment and settled as contaminated sediment on the riverbed. MICHEL HUNEAULT

By Allan Woods, Wed Feb 10 2016

MONTREAL—Scientists have recorded an “unprecedented” spike in the fish deformities in the wake of the deadly 2013 train derailment and oil spill in Lac-Mégantic, Que., according to a provincial government report.

The report into the effects of the disaster on the 185-km-long Chaudière River, which begins in Lac Mégantic, found that in some parts of the river as many as 47 per cent of the fish they collected had an external deformation.

The rate of deformations greatly surpassed that recorded in a similar fish population study in 1994. The study also found a “marked drop” in the river’s fish biomass, or total weight.

“There is no hypothesis other than the oil spill of July 6, 2013 that can explain these results,” says the report, which got little attention when it was released last November. It was brought to wider attention Wednesday when resurrected by Montreal’s Le Devoir newspaper.

The derailment and ensuing explosion, in which 47 people were killed, decimated the picturesque small town in eastern Quebec and turned its downtown strip and waterfront into an oil-soaked wasteland.

Workers drag an oil boom on Lac-Mégantic Tuesday afternoon following the massive derailment.
Workers drag an oil boom on Lac-Mégantic Tuesday afternoon following the massive derailment. LUCAS OLENIUK

The 72-car train was carrying nearly 8-million litres of highly combustible crude oil that was bound for a refinery in New Brunswick. An engine fire that occurred when the train was left unattended on the main tracks about 11 km from Lac-Mégantic resulted in the air brakes failing and the unattended train hurtling into town. It derailed near a popular bar, the site where most of the dead were found.

About 100,000 litres of crude oil is estimated to have washed into the Chaudière River and settled as contaminated sediment on the riverbed. The expert committee’s report said there are some encouraging signs that the worst contamination is limited to the first 10 km of the river, whereas traces were found some 80 km away in testing conducted right after the incident.

About 100,000 litres of crude oil is estimated to have washed into the Chaudière River.
About 100,000 litres of crude oil is estimated to have washed into the Chaudière River. STEEVE DUGUAY

But a whole ecosystem has been affected. The insects, worms and other organisms that live on the sediment and upon which fish feed were affected by the oil spill but are showing signs of recovery after testing conducted in 2014.

Crude oil coming to rest on the riverbed can prevent fish from accessing food and can result in the death of fish eggs or embryos. The population drop could also be attributable to other factors such as more active predators or lower reproduction rates, the report noted.

But the contaminated sediment is the most likely explanation for the alarmingly high rate of external deformities recorded among the sample of 900 fish collected for study. The most common problems were lesions and infection-induced breakdown of the fins, which can occur when a fish comes into direct contact with the sediment, leaving it vulnerable to bacteria, fungus and parasites that eat away at the tissue.

Among the more common deformities found in fish taken from the Chaudière River was the erosion of the fins, which can occur after a fish comes into direct contact with contaminated sediment.
Among the more common deformities found in fish taken from the Chaudière River was the erosion of the fins, which can occur after a fish comes into direct contact with contaminated sediment.

The widely held standard is that if more than five per cent of fish in the sample show signs of external deformities, the habitat is considered to be contaminated by toxic substances.

Perhaps as a result, fish populations are estimated to be 66 per cent smaller and the biomass — the total weight of the fish stock — is down 48 per cent.

“The weak biomass observed in 2014 is difficult to attribute to anything other than the oil spill,” the report concluded.

Scientists have now set their sights on a longer-term monitoring plan and a fish-population survey they hope to carry out in 2016. One of the things they will be looking for are skeletal malformations — a widely recognized consequence of exposure to petroleum hydrocarbons.

Their interest in this stems from a laboratory study in which the eggs of two types of fish — the fathead minnow and the brown trout — were exposed to contaminated sediment from the oil spill.

The exposure had no effect on mortality rates or the time it took for the eggs to hatch. But the eggs of the brown trout that were exposed to the most contaminated sediment showed a higher rate of scoliosis, an abnormal lateral curvature of the spinal column.