Category Archives: DOT-111

Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Rail routing, Train speed

Oil tank cars pose a hazard when moving and when parked

Repost from  The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY (Letters to the Editor)

Oil tanker rail cars pose a hazard when moving and when parked

To the Editor:

Every sports person knows that a moving target is harder to hit than a stationary one. When you can read graffiti on oil tanker cars parked in the train yards in Minoa, and other areas around Syracuse, you know you have a serious safety problem.

Interstate commerce allows Bakken crude-oil rail shipments from North Dakota to “pass” through Central New York State. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., wants the U.,S. Department of Transportation and the Association of American Railroads to reduce the speed limit of these oil tanker trains from 50 mph to 40 mph through Syracuse and other heavily populated areas. Between 200 to 300 tanker cars “pass” through the Syracuse area daily. Presently, the 40 mph speed limit only applies to Buffalo and the New York City area.

These antiquated, poorly designed DOT-111 tanker cars pose a potential danger to the populace and the environment regardless of their speed! This was evidenced by the recent CSX derailment of crude oil tanker cars in Lynchburg, Va.

It doesn’t make one iota of difference if these trains travel at speeds of 40 or 50 mph, as long as they keep “passing” through the Syracuse area. Parking, however, for indefinite periods in small populated communities, like Minoa, is not acceptable.

Are we, Minoa residents, considered collateral damage – dispensable, if an accident, man-made or otherwise happens?

Come on, CSX … move these hazardous oil tankers out of my village; my front yard is not a bomb depot.

M. Claire Crull
Minoa

Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Hazardous cargo transparency, Rail industry, Rail routing, State regulation, U.S. Department of Transportation

US DOT and railroads want to circumvent Washington State’s Public Records Act

Repost from The Seattle Post Intelligencer (seattlepi.com)

Should shipments of oil by rail be kept secret from the public?

Posted on June 4, 2014 | By Joel Connelly
In this image made available by the City of Lynchburg, several CSX tanker cars carrying crude oil in flames after derailing in downtown Lynchburg, Va., Wednesday, April 30, 2014. (AP Photo/City of Lynchburg, LuAnn Hunt)Several CSX tanker cars carrying crude oil erupt in  flames after derailing in downtown Lynchburg, Va., on April 30.  It was the latest in a series of oil train accidents.  Nobody was killed, but much of downtown Lynchburg was evacuated.  (AP Photo/City of Lynchburg, LuAnn Hunt)

The nation’s railroads were told last week by the U.S. Department of Transportation that they must notify state emergency management officials about the volume, frequency and county-by-county routes used in cross country shipment of volatile North Dakota crude oil.

But a hitch has developed in Washington, where refineries at Anacortes and Cherry Point north of Bellingham are increasingly relying on oil by rail.

In its order, the Department of Transportation, siding with the railroads, said the information ought to be kept secret from the public.

The DOT told state emergency preparedness agencies to “treat this data as confidential, providing it only to those with a need to know and with the understanding that recipients of the data will continue to treat it as confidential.”

The BNSF and Union Pacific Railroads have sent the state drafts of confidentiality agreements that would restrict access to what the shippers call “security sensitive information.”

In this Aug. 8, 2012 photo, a DOT-111 rail tanker passes through Council Bluffs, Iowa. DOT-111 rail cars being used to ship crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken region are an "unacceptable public risk," and even cars voluntarily upgraded by the industry may not be sufficient, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2014. The cars were involved in derailments of oil trains in Casselton, N.D., and Lac-Megantic, Quebec, just across the U.S. border, NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said at a House Transportation subcommittee hearing. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)
A DOT-111 rail tanker passes through Council Bluffs, Iowa. DOT-111 rail cars being used to ship crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken region are an “unacceptable public risk,” and even cars voluntarily upgraded by the industry may not be sufficient, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board told Congress in February. The cars were involved in derailments of oil trains in Casselton, N.D., and Lac-Megantic, Quebec, just across the U.S. border. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik, File)

On Wednesday, however, spokesman Mark Stewart of state Emergency Response Commission told the Associated Press that the railroads’ request conflicts with one of Washington pioneering open government laws.

The confidentiality agreements “require us to withhold the information in a manner that’s not consistent with the Public Records Act,” Stewart told the AP.

The US DOT order came in the wake of a series of oil train fires, most recently train cars catching fire in Lynchburg, Virginia and dumping “product” into the James River.

This follows a deadly runaway trail explosion last year that leveled the downtown of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, and killed 47 people, as well as an explosion and fire near Casselton, North Dakota.

Lawmakers, notably Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, have pressed the Transportation Department to speed implementation of new safety rules that would require phaseout of 1960′s-vintage, explosion vulnerable DOT 111 tank cars.

The Tesoro Refinery in Anacortes accepted its first trainload of oil in September of 2012. The shipments have soared, with 17 million barrels of oil coming into the state by rail in 2013.  Trains carry as many as 50,000 barrels of crude oil to the Tesoro refinery.

And Tesoro wants to build a $100 million rail-to-barge terminal in the Port of Vancouver on the Columbia River. It would be the largest such terminal in the Northwest, capable of receiving 380,000 barrels of oil a day. The Vancouver City Council voted earlier this week to oppose the project.

Shell Anacortes is in the process of creating a facility that would take 100-car oil trains.  The BP Refinery at Cherry Point is also receiving oil by rail.

All told, according to a Sightline Institute study, 11 refineries and ports in Washington and Oregon are either receiving oil by rail, or have projects underway to receive rail shipments of oil.

The shipments head by rail through cities in both Eastern and Western Washington.

The railroads have been highly secretive about their operations.  They are regulated by the federal government under the Interstate Commerce Act, leaving cities and local governments with almost no rights to request information or limit operations.

The BNSF has promised to purchase 5,000 newer, safer tank cars, and Tesoro has pledged to phase out use of the DOT-111 cars this year.

Bakken Crude, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, James River, Lynchburg Virginia, National Transportation Safety Board

NTSB crash analysis in Lynchburg derailment slow, deliberate

Repost from The Roanoke Times
[Editor: Slow, deliberate … and of course, COSTLY.  – RS]

NTSB says train cars being analyzed in Lynchburg derailment investigation

June 3, 2014  |  by Alicia Petska, Lynchburg News & Advance
Train Derailment.JPEG-050.1
Associated Press | National Transportation Safety Board lead investigator James Southworth said it’s too early to say if weather was a factor in Wednesday’s oil train derailment in Lynchburg.

Federal officials continue to sift through a mountain of information in the Lynchburg train derailment, lead investigator Jim Southworth said.

Southworth, of the National Transportation Safety Board, was among some 80 federal, state and local officials who attended a rail safety roundtable organized Monday by U.S. Sen. Mark Warner.

Southworth was not one of the speakers, but in an interview afterward he said the investigation into what caused the April 30 train derailment in Lynchburg is continuing at a slow and deliberate pace.

Southworth said officials will review CSX’s maintenance and inspections records going back months.

In addition, the team will do a 3-D scan, inside and out, of the oil tanker that ruptured and send pieces of it off to a lab for metallurgical testing.

Other tankers in the 105-unit train that derailed will be scanned as well to compare their performance to the ruptured unit.

Southworth said it is too early to comment on what may have caused the derailment that upset 17 oil tanker cars, three of which fell into the James River.

He said Monday he hoped to complete the investigation in a year or less.

“There is a lot of interest in what happened here because of the type of tanker cars,” he noted. “It’s going to be scrutinized quite deliberately.”

The train that derailed in downtown Lynchburg contained a mix of older and newer model oil tankers, but the car that ruptured was a newer model intended to be safer in the event of an crash.

The derailment, which sparked a large fire on the river but caused no injuries, has made Lynchburg part of a national debate on the best way to ship crude oil in the country.

So far, there has been no evidence the derailment was caused by operator error, Southworth said. He declined to comment on other possibilities and said the investigation still is in the fact-gathering stage.

Investigators no longer are working on-site at the derailment scene, but continue to gather information and analyze the train cars and pieces of the damaged track.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazardous cargo transparency, Oil Industry, Public Safety, Rail industry

Washington State: federal emergency order not enough

Repost from Seattle Weekly News

Emergency Order Requires Railroads to Report Bakken Oil, but Is It Enough?

By Jerry Cornfield Thu., May 29 2014

By the end of next week, Washington will learn how often tank cars of oil siphoned from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale are getting shipped by rail through the state.

 A modern tank car. Photo by Harvey Henkelmann

An emergency order from the U.S. Transportation Department requires railroads to tell the state how many trains carrying this highly flammable varietal of black gold are expected to travel through Washington each week, and on which routes.

Railroads are not required to reveal exactly what days and times the trains are coming or how much crude oil is getting transported.

Community leaders, emergency responders and some politicians say that’s the information they really need to be prepared for a derailment, spill or other type of accident.

They’re aware of oil train derailments in Virginia in April, in Alabama in November; and in Quebec last July, where 47 people died.

They know the chances of an accident are increasing as rail shipments of all types of crude oil multiply in Washington. The state Department of Ecology estimates it went from zero barrels in 2011 to nearly 17 million barrels—roughly 714 million gallons—in 2013.

But rather than criticize the order as inadequate, these leaders cite the federal action as a step forward.

“We’re all kind of worried about (Bakken crude) because it is much more flammable than regular crude oil. We have been asking for more information,” said Brad Reading, assistant chief of Snohomish County Fire District 1 and chairman of the countywide Special Operations Policy Board which handles planning for hazardous materials incidents. “This is certainly a step forward.”

Marysville Mayor Jon Nehring said he understood the federal change “wasn’t overwhelming” in its scope when it was announced in early May

“From the perspective of public safety, the greater the detail the better, so any movement in that direction is good,” he said.

The rules, which kick in June 6 and apply to all 50 states, cover only shipments of at least 1 million gallons of Bakken crude. That sounds like a lot, except when you consider that one tank car holds about 30,000 gallons of crude oil, and oil trains commonly have 100 or more cars hitched together.

Railroads must give the State Emergency Response Commission an estimate of how many trains will run through each county each week. The commission will notify the counties.

After railroads provide the information next week, they won’t need to contact the state again unless the number of trains carrying Bakken oil increases or decreases by 25 percent or more.

Refiners and railroads aren’t enamored with the notification directive. They worry it could increase the risk of sabotage and encourage daring activists to try to block trains through protests.

They’d prefer not to see the information publicized. State emergency management officials plan to post it online but on Tuesday were checking to find out if they are barred from doing so.

And the federal rules don’t deal with the safety of the rail cars in which the Bakken is shipped. That’s a separate conversation going on in Washington, D.C. where the Obama Administration and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are likely to impose tougher standards for rail car construction.

Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, chairman of the Senate Energy, Environment & Telecommunications committee, said the new notification rule is “a piece of the puzzle” but tank car safety is critically important and needs addressing sooner than later.

He’s planning to hold a public hearing on oil trains June 17 in Spokane.

“State lawmakers must continue to pressure the federal government to take stronger action,” he said when the order came out May 7. “It is what communities throughout Washington deserve and what we didn’t get from our federal leaders today.”

Political reporter Jerry Cornfield’s blog, The Petri Dish, runs regularly at www.heraldnet.com .