House bill could shield oil train spill response plans from disclosure
By Curtis Tate, October 16, 2015
Oil burns at the site of a March 5, 2015, train derailment near Galena, Ill. A bill in Congress would require railroads to have comprehensive oil spill response plans, but would also give the Secretary of Transportation the ability to exempt the details from disclosure. EPA
HIGHLIGHTS
Six-year transportation bill includes section on oil trains
Obama administration supports public notifications of oil spills, etc.
Future transportation secretary could be empowered to protect data
WASHINGTON – A House of Representatives bill unveiled Friday could make it more difficult for the public to know how prepared railroads are for responding to oil spills from trains, their worst-case scenarios and how much oil is being transported by rail through communities.
The language appears in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s six-year transportation legislation, which primarily addresses federal programs that support state road, bridge and transit projects. But the legislation also includes a section on oil trains.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is working on a rule to require railroads shipping oil to develop comprehensive spill response plans along the lines of those required for pipelines and waterborne vessels. It would also require them to assess their worst-case scenarios for oil spills, including quantity and location.
The House bill would give the secretary of transportation the power to decide what information would not be disclosed to the public.
The secretary would have discretion to withhold anything proprietary or security sensitive, as well as “specific response resources and tactical resource deployment plans” and “the specific amount and location of worst-case discharges, including the process by which a railroad carrier determines the worst-case discharge.”
The House bill defines “worst-case discharge” as the largest foreseeable release of oil in an accident or incident, as determined by the rail carrier.
Four major oil train derailments have occurred in the U.S. since the beginning of the year, resulting in the release of more than 600,000 gallons, according to federal spill data.
Numerous states have released information on crude by rail shipments to McClatchy and other news organizations. DOT began requiring railroads to notify state officials of such shipments last year after a train derailed and caught fire in Lynchburg, Va.
The disclosures were opposed by railroads and their trade associations, which asked the department to drop the requirement. The department tried to accommodate the industry’s concerns in its May final rule on oil train safety by making the reports exempt from disclosure. But facing backlash from lawmakers and emergency response groups, the department reversed itself.
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, and Sarah Feinberg, the acting chief of the Federal Railroad Administration, said the department would continue the disclosure requirement and make it permanent. But a new administration could take a different approach.
“We strongly support transparency and public notification to the fullest extent possible,” Feinberg said in July.
In May, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill that would require railroads operating in the state to plan for their worst-case spills.
In April, BNSF Railway told state emergency responders that the company currently considers 150,000 gallons of crude oil, enough to fill five rail tank cars, its worst-case scenario when planning for spills into waterways. A typical 100-car oil train carries about 3 million gallons.
Washington state requires marine ships that transport oil to plan for a spill of the entire cargo.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency conducted a mock derailment in New Jersey in March in which 450,000 gallons of oil was released.
California passed a similar bill last year, but two railroads and a major trade association challenged it in court, claiming the federal laws regulating railroads preempted state laws. A judge sided with the state in June, but without addressing the preemption question.
The House Transportation Committee will consider the six-year bill when lawmakers return from recess next week. The current legislation expires on Oct. 29, and the timing makes a short-term extension likely.
After the committee and the full House vote on the bill, House and Senate leaders will have to work out their differences before the bill goes to the president’s desk.
Samantha Wohlfeil of the Bellingham (Wash.) Herald contributed.
Why are so many oil trains crashing? Track problems may be to blame
Ralph Vartabedian, October 7, 2015
Smoke and flames erupt from the scene of a train derailment March 5, 2015, near Galena, Ill. A BNSF Railway freight train loaded with crude oil derailed in a rural area where the Galena River meets the Mississippi. (Mike Burley / Associated Press)
The only sign of trouble aboard a Norfolk Southern train, hauling roughly 9,000 tons of Canadian crude in western Pennsylvania last year, was a moderate sway in the locomotive as it entered a bend on the Kiskiminetas River.
The first 66 cars had passed safely around the curve when the emergency brakes suddenly engaged, slamming the train to a stop. The conductor trudged back nearly a mile through newly fallen snow to see what happened.
Twenty-one cars had derailed, one slamming through the wall of a nearby factory. Four tank cars were punctured, sending 4,300 gallons of crude pouring out of the tangled wreckage.
Cars are seen from a freight train derailment on Feb. 13, 2014, in Vandergrift, Pa. (Darrell Sapp / Associated Press)
The cause of the accident in North Vandergrift was identified as a failure in the rails — not aging or poorly maintained tracks, but a relatively new section laid less than a year earlier.
The February 2014 crash fits into an alarming pattern across North America that helps explain the significant rise of derailments involving oil-hauling trains over the last three years, even as railroads are investing billions of dollars in improving the safety of their networks. A review of 31 crashes that have occurred on oil trains since 2013 puts track failure at the heart of the growing safety problem.
Track problems were blamed on 59% of the crashes, more than double the overall rate for freight train accidents, according to a Times analysis of accident reports. Investigators and rail safety experts are looking at how the weight and movements of oil trains may be causing higher than expected track failures.
The growing number of trains hauling crude oil from Canada and the Northern Plains are among the heaviest on the rails today, many extending more than 100 cars in length and weighing a cumulative 19,000 tons or more.
Not since the early days of John D. Rockefeller’s oil trust have railroads played such a central role in moving oil from wells to refineries. Oil shipments by rail have soared — an 18-fold increase between 2010 and 2014 — as domestic oil production has escalated faster than the construction of new pipelines to carry it to market.
Concerns about the safety of hauling crude began to rise after the horrific Lac-Megantic accident in Quebec in July 2013 that left 47 people dead and the city’s downtown in ruins.
The Federal Railroad Administration is preparing in coming weeks to issue a new set of initiatives to address the track problems, after previously clamping tighter restrictions on tank car designs and railroad operations. But solving the track problems could be a formidable challenge.
Infographic: Oil train crashes since 2013
Sarah Feinberg, chief of the Federal Railroad Administration, said the agency is working hard to improve safety, but preventing accidents that result from defective track involves finding a needle in every haystack along thousands of miles of track.
“We have been incredibly lucky that the accidents have happened mostly in rural areas,” she said. “Some of them have been very close calls.”
The crashes have occurred as the nation’s railroad system is being asked to do more than at any time in history, putting additional wear and tear on the tracks. Since 2001, railroads have seen a modest 12% increase in the number of cars they haul, but a 24% jump in the more comprehensive measurement of cargo that looks at the weight and train mileage the system has to bear, known as ton-miles, according to industry data.
Though railroads have significantly improved safety in general, the oil train accidents are a worrisome trend in the opposite direction and not fully understood.
Of the 31 crashes involving crude or ethanol since 2013, 17 were related to track problems and 12 a mix of other causes. The cause of the two other crashes remains unclear. The count is based on both final or preliminary government and railroad investigations that were collected by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act or in U.S., Canadian and railroad company filings.
About two-thirds of the accidents resulted in spills, fires or explosions, a record that has already prompted regulators to demand stronger tank cars and other safety measures.
Weight, oil sloshing and cold temperatures are among the issues that might be exacerbating the problem, according to rail safety experts.
Investigators at Safety Transportation Board Canada, which is investigating the eight accidents that have occurred in that country, are beginning to suspect that the oil trains are causing unusual track damage.
“Petroleum crude oil unit trains transporting heavily loaded tank cars will tend to impart higher than usual forces to the track infrastructure during their operation,” the safety board said in a report this year. “These higher forces expose any weaknesses that may be present in the track structure, making the track more susceptible to failure.”
Rick Inclima, safety director at the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, also said that oil trains could be creating unique stresses on the track. “You can certainly get some rhythmic forces in … oil trains that you might not see on a mixed freight train with cars of different sizes, weights and commodities,” he said.
The nation’s major railroads are investing record amounts of money to upgrade their tracks and improve safety. The seven class-one railroads, which haul the majority of the nation’s freight, are spending $29 billion this year on their systems, nearly double the level of 2001, according to the American Assn. of Railroads. The trade group did not have any response to The Times analysis of oil train accidents, though it said its member companies exceed federal requirements for inspection and safety.
But that has not eliminated the problem. While all types of derailments dropped 17% over the last three years, there are still more than three every day across the nation, involving trains carrying a variety of freight, according to federal safety data. Bad track accounts for about 27% of overall accidents, less than half the rate that track problems are contributing to oil train accidents.
Though railroad technology may seem antiquated in a digital age, it relies on incredible precision to control monstrously heavy loads. The track in North Vandergrift, Pa., where the Norfolk Southern accident occurred, carries about 30 million tons of freight every year.
The relentless pounding plays havoc with any metallurgical flaw. Wooden ties deteriorate as they age. And other track components crack.
Investigators attributed the Pennsylvania derailment to a “wide gauge” failure, in which the rails were pushed too far apart to keep the wheels on the tracks.
The freight tracks in the U.S. and most of the world are supposed to be 56.5 inches apart, a width known as the gauge. Just three inches of movement can cause a derailment. And even if tracks conform to federal standards, they can separate under the force of a heavy train.
“Wide gauge” is the single largest cause of accidents involving track defects. In the case of the Pennsylvania derailment, it was broken spikes that caused the rail to widen, even though the track had been replaced in 2012, according to Federal Railroad Administration officials.
Private railroad experts have suggested that the sloshing of oil inside the cars may also be involved in the derailments.
Tank cars are only partially filled with oil, allowing for expansion if the temperature increases. The tanks have internal baffles, but the liquid can still slosh as the cars move, causing higher dynamic loads, said Bill Keppen, an independent rail safety expert. “Sloshing increases the stress on the track,” he said.
Federal safety experts said if sloshing does have an effect, they do not consider it significant.
The Times examination of accident reports also shows the large majority of derailments occurred in below freezing temperatures, ranging down to 23 below zero in a crash this year in Ontario.
As temperatures drop, steel rails progressively shrink, amplifying the potential for any existing defect to cause a failure, FRA safety experts said in interviews. Frozen ballast, the crushed rock that forms the rail bed, also causes rail to undergo greater shocks under the load of heavy trains.
Federal regulators and the industry are trying to improve safety, but opinions are sharply divided about exactly what measures are needed.
The Federal Railroad Administration, for example, has ordered that crude-carrying trains can travel at no more than 40 miles per hour in urban areas. But the North Vandergrift train was going only 36 mph. Nineteen of the trains whose speeds are known were moving 40 mph or slower, and no train was going faster than 50 mph, records show.
The railroad administration has increased its track inspections and railroads have agreed to increase their own inspections, according to Matthew Lehner, the agency’s communications director.
“In the coming weeks, the Federal Railroad Administration plans to announce additional steps to prevent crude oil train derailments,” Lehner said.
Critics say that many of the safety initiatives adopted so far reflect a policy aimed at mitigating the damage caused by derailments rather than preventing them.
“The attention has changed,” said Brigham McCown, former chief of the federal agency that sets tank car standards. “I hear people say, ‘It happens, they derail.’ I think that is an untenable position. As a safety regulator, I don’t think you can ever say, ‘Things blow up,’ or ‘Things crash.’ I believe the Department of Transportation has myopically focused on incident mitigation. Prevention should be the first question they should address.”
Another View: No to proposal that would bring oil through Auburn
By: Rosalie Wohlfromm / Guest Columnist
Do you remember back in 2013, when there was a train derailment carrying crude oil in Lac-Megantic, Quebec? That incident resulted in a fiery explosion and caused the death of 47 people.
It has been reported that crude oil from North Dakota and Canada into California would be expected to rise from just 1 percent of total oil imports in 2013 to 25 percent by 2016, according to state energy officials.
This oil would travel by rail through densely populated areas to refineries on the coast. One of these routes is right through our town of Auburn. We could see trains pulling 100 oil tanker cars going past our homes, schools and parks.
Since 2013, we have heard of numerous derailments causing evacuations of citizens from their homes. One of the latest was last February in Lynchburg, Virginia. It is now known that the cause of the derailment was a broken rail, which was missed in two previous inspections.
Oil giant Valero wants to build a massive terminal for oil trains at its Benicia refinery. Union Pacific runs from Reno via Donner Pass, a dangerous route that, according to the Environmental Impact Report for Valero Crude by Rail Project, has only 3.5 percent of Class 4 or 5 track, the quality deemed by the U.S. Dept of Transportation necessary to support daily travel of extremely heavy unit trains made up of over 100 tank cars loaded with crude oil.
The City of Benicia is currently in the process of approving or rejecting the Valero Refinery’s proposed CBR project, which would permit Union Pacific to haul crude oil through Auburn. If this project is approved, Auburn could see oil trains loaded with highly flammable oil from North Dakota running right through our town on their way to Benicia. I ask you to remember what happened in Lynchburg. That could happen here.
Concerned citizens of Benicia are asking for those of us along the rail lines to call or write the City of Benicia City Manager, Brad Kilger, 250 E.L. Street, Benicia CA 94510 or e-mail Planner Amy Million at amillion@ci.benicia.ca.us. Please submit your comments by 5pm on Oct. 30.
Letter received by email from the author, Lawrence (Larnie) Reid Fox
To the Benicia City Planning Commission and City Council:
By Larnie Fox, October 12, 2015
I’m writing to request that you oppose Valero’s Crude Oil by Rail project.
The Revised Draft EIR states that:
Potential train derailment would result in significant and unavoidable adverse effects to people and secondary effects to biological, cultural, and hydrological resources, and geology.
Impacts to air quality would be significant and unavoidable because the Project would contribute to an existing or projected air quality violation and result in a cumulatively considerable increase in ozone precursor emissions.
Impacts to greenhouse gas emissions would be significant and unavoidable because the Project would generate significant levels of GHG and conflict with plans adopted for reducing GHG emissions.
What more do you need to know?
There have been more crude-by-rail explosions and spills in the last two years than in the previous 40 years. The new crudes are demonstrably more hazardous than the crudes that have been processed in our community in the past, and have led to many horrendous accidents in other parts of North America. Accidents can and will happen.
The Revised Draft EIR states that Valero proposes to use non-jacketed Casualty Prevention Circular (CPC)-1232-compliant tank cars.
The National Transportation Safety Board has said that the CPC-1232 standard is only a minimal improvement over the older tank DOT-111s. NTSB officials say they are “not convinced that these modifications offer significant safety improvements.”
There is overwhelming and passionate opposition to the project here in Benicia. There is also strong opposition from hundreds of individuals who live up-rail and from all over our state, and also from government entities including the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and our state’s Attorney General.
If there is a spill or an explosion and fire, I for one, do not want my community to be culpable. We need to show the state and the world that we stand for safety and environmental responsibility, even if it cuts into corporate profits and tax revenues.
The bottom line is that fossil fuels are going away, sooner or later, and Benicia will need to adapt, sooner or later. We need to take a longer-term and wider-scope view of the issue. We may reap short-term local gains by approving this project, but the cost is unacceptably high. In doing so, we would be putting our Industrial Park at risk, and inconveniencing them with the long trains. This area should be the economic engine for the next 100 years. We would be ignoring the legitimate concerns of communities up-rail from us. We would be responsible for putting environmentally sensitive areas at risk. We would be contributing to global warming and thus sea level rise, which poses a clear threat to our community and the rest of the world as well. We would be contributing to decimation of the old-growth forests in Northern Canada.
It’s up to us to guard our own welfare, and also, as a City, to be responsible citizens of California, the USA and our fragile planet.
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