Rally on Lac Megantic disaster anniversary in Albany
By Eric Anderson, July 6, 2015
Oil train opponents rally in front of the Governor’s Mansion in Albany Monday.
Between 80 and 100 people, many affiliated with People of Albany United for Safe Energy, rallied in front of the Governor’s Mansion on Eagle Street in Albany at noon Monday, calling on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ban oil train traffic in the state.
The rally also marked the second anniversary of the Lac Megantic oil train derailment and explosion that killed 47 people and destroyed the center of the small Quebec town.
That train’s destination was the Irving Oil Co. refinery in St. John, New Brunswick, where it was to unload its cargo of fracked crude from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota.
The Port of Albany has become a major transshipment point for Bakken crude to refineries up and down the East Coast, with at least some of that oil also destined for the Irving Oil refinery.
Several speakers at Monday’s event called for a shift to renewable energy sources from fossil fuels.
“We have to transition our economy completely off fossil fuels,” said one speaker, Neely Kelley, lead organizer of Mothers Out Front, which seeks to raise awareness about the dangers of climate change.
“Governor Cuomo, you have a moral imperative to take the climate seriously,” said Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York.
PAUSE has sought to have oil trains, some of which are parked next to the backyards of residents of Ezra Prentice apartments in Albany, prohibited. State officials have said they haven’t the power to regulate railroads, that it’s a federal responsibility.
But activists have said that state officials could declare the oil trains an “imminent hazard” and ban them.
Whether Gov. Cuomo heard the protesters’ message Monday wasn’t clear. The governor was in New York City.
By Jesse Feith, July 5, 2015 9:09 AM EDT
(To play the video, click the image which takes you to the Montreal Gazette page.)
Two years after the deadly derailment in Lac-Mégantic, people are starting to feel comfortable about standing up for what they want, says Jonathan Santerre, an activist and founder of the Carré bleu Lac-Mégantic citizens’ group.
The group organized a walk against crude oil in Lac-Mégantic on Saturday afternoon, where about 150 people walked from the town’s high school down Laval St. toward the old downtown.
At first, residents were afraid to speak out after the train derailment that killed 47 people in July 2013, Santerre said.
Sending loud political messages while many continue to mourn could be seen as insensitive by some, but, Santerre said, “we have no choice.”
“Emotions and politics are tied together in this, unfortunately,” he continued. “It’s shocking that after everything that happened, people’s lives still come second to money.”
Though Saturday’s march was held to denounce crude oil, Santerre knows getting oil shipments through Lac-Mégantic banned isn’t realistic. When Central Maine and Québec Railway Canada bought the line in 2014 after Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway went bankrupt following the derailment, it was clear from the beginning that oil would return come 2016.
The town needs the railroad to survive economically, and CMQ needs to ship oil on it to be profitable.
But the goal that everyone is holding onto now is a new set of tracks that would bypass Lac-Mégantic’s residential sector, even though it could take years to get one.
“What’s important is that the conversation goes on,” Santerre said. “That the debate takes place.”
The town council and a number of vocal residents haven’t seen eye to eye on decisions taken since the disaster, but the one idea both sides agree on is the new railroad. Town officials weren’t on hand for Saturday’s protest, but it had been approved by council.
“With every passing day, residents are more determined to see it done,” said Mayor Colette Roy-Laroche earlier this week about the bypass railway. “As a municipal council, we consider it a must. Not a week goes by that it’s not brought up.”
Until then, she said, “we’re preoccupied with prevention, better security measures, well-maintained infrastructure and limited speeds.”
People dressed all in white for Saturday’s march, to contrast the colour of “dirty oil.”
“Say yes to a bypass railway,” they chanted as they descended toward downtown, “say no to another oil spill.”
Gilles Fluet, 67, said he was walking to make sure what happened never does again, in Lac-Mégantic or anywhere else.
MONTREAL, QUE.: July 04, 2015 — Gilles Fluet, centre kneeling, stopped with other protesters by the train tracks in Lac-Megantic, 250 kilometres east of Montreal Saturday July 04, 2015 to voice their opposition to the transport of oil by rail through their community. The demonstration took place two days before the anniversary of the 2013 train derailment that levelled the centre of the town and killed 47 residents. (John Mahoney / MONTREAL GAZETTE)John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette
He was at the Musi-Café the night of the derailment, leaving just before the tankers crashed and ignited.
“I couldn’t be closer to it without dying, I had to run to avoid burning,” he said, holding up a sign that said “47 reasons” with a picture of residents lying across the tracks.
The post-traumatic stress symptoms have been present ever since, he said. First he avoided the sunshine because the bright light and heat reminded him of the fire he ran away from that night.
Then when the trains started coming through again in December, the sound they made was too much for him to handle.
“There are a bunch of different things that trigger it,” he said. “You don’t know when it’s going to hit you, and you don’t understand when it does.”
He fears oil returning could worsen his symptoms, or trigger some for other residents.
Nathalie Beaudet drove down from Varennes, on the south shore, to participate in the demonstration. She lost a close friend in the derailment, and recently, oil tankers have started rolling on the tracks behind her house.
“It’s scary, it terrorizes us,” she said. “I want Lac-Mégantic to get its new tracks because I know what it will do to residents once the oil starts again. They’ve been through enough, this shouldn’t be imposed on them.”
After marching through the town’s side streets, the group made its way to the railway longing the fence that cuts off the old downtown core, now a mountain of soil as decontamination work continues.
Demonstrators lined up elbow-to-elbow on the tracks, and together, symbolically crossed their arms.
Crude oil trains in California risk to minorities, poor, report says
By Bob Downing, June 30, 2015
From ForestEthics today:Highest Threat from Oil Trains in California Aligned with Race and Income: New Environmental Justice Report Links Dangerous Rail Routes with Census Data
[Oakland, CA] Public interest groups today released the Crude Injustice on the Railsreport evaluating the disparate threat to people of color and low-income communities from explosions and pollution from crude oil trains in California.
The groups ForestEthics and Communities for a Better Environment evaluated oil train routes and US Census data to determine who was at greatest risk from pollution and potential oil trains derailments and explosions, like the fatal July 2013 Lac Megantic oil train disaster.
“It’s simple, oil trains contribute to environmental racism in California,” says Nile Malloy, Northern California Program Director, Communities for a Better Environment. “Environmental justice communities like Richmond and Wilmington that already live with the highest risk are hardest hit. It’s time for a just and quick transition to clean energy.”
The groups report that Californians of color are more likely to live in the oil train blast zone, the dangerous one-mile evacuation zone in the case of an oil train derailment and fire. While 60 percent of Californians live in environmental justice communities – communities with racial minorities, low income, or non-English speaking households – 80 percent of the 5.5 million Californians with homes in the blast zone live in environmental justice communities. Nine out of ten of California’s largest cities on oil train routes have an even higher rate of discriminatory impact than the state average. In these cities, 82–100 percent of people living in the blast zone are in environmental justice communities.
“The maps paint a scary picture of who lives with threat of explosions and the health risks from pollution and disruption from dangerous 100-plus car crude oil trains,” says Matt Krogh, ForestEthics extreme oil campaign director and one of the authors of the report. “In California you are 33 percent more likely to live in the blast zone if you live in a nonwhite, low income, or non-English speaking household.”
The groups recommend immediate federal, state and local action to address this environmental discrimination, including a moratorium on oil imports into the state by rail, and action by the state attorney general, US EPA Office of Civil Rights, and US Department of Justice to enforce federal and state laws.
“Oil trains are a threat to our communities and to our climate — but the threat is not evenly shared,” says Todd Paglia, ForestEthics executive director. “The Crude Injustice report shows that in California people of color are the most exposed to these dangers demonstrating another area where our nation’s past and current challenges on issues of race show up loud and clear.”
“Our communities are working to build healthier, greener and thriving communities,” says Alicia Rivera, Communities for a Better Environment Los Angeles organizer. “Crude by rail is another deadly threat to our families. This is why we are joining across communities to demand environmental rights along the rails, on July 11th,” Rivera said.
July 6-11 ForestEthics, CBE, and other groups are coordinating the Stop Oil Trains Week of Action with more than 100 events across the US and Canada.
ForestEthics demands environmental responsibility from government and the biggest companies in the world. Visit our Blast-Zone.org to see if you are one of the 25 million Americans who live in the dangerous one-mile oil train evacuation zone. www.ForestEthics.org
CBE works to build people’s power in California’s communities of color and low-income communities to achieve environmental health and justice by preventing and reducing pollution and building green, healthy and sustainable communities and environments. www.cbecal.org
Public interest groups today released the Crude Injustice on the Rails report evaluating the disparate threat to people of color and low-income communities from explosions and pollution from crude oil trains in California.
The groups ForestEthics and Communities for a Better Environment evaluated oil train routes and US Census data to determine who was at greatest risk from pollution and potential oil trains derailments and explosions, like the fatal July 2013 Lac Megantic oil train disaster.
For more information about the environmental justice impacts on Latino and low-income communities of color in California blast zones, contact Communities for a Better Environment.
Using bad tank cars? Then pay a fee, Brown proposes
By Rick Rouan, June 30, 2015 11:36 PM
Sen. Sherrod Brown wants shippers using tank cars that have been linked to fiery train derailments to pay fees that would be used to reroute train tracks, train first responders and clean up spills.
Brown has proposed fees that start at $175 per car for those using the DOT-11 [sic], a tank car that federal regulators have warned hazardous-material shippers against using.
The fees would pay to clean up hazardous-material spills, to move tracks that handle large volumes of hazardous material and to hire more railroad inspectors. Brown’s bill earmarks about $45 million over three years to train first responders near rail lines that carry large quantities of hazardous material.
Earlier this year, federal regulators tightened rules on newly manufactured tank cars but did not require shippers to immediately remove the old cars.
“(The rule) probably didn’t go far enough,” Brown said on Tuesday at the site of a 2012 derailment and explosion near the state fairgrounds. “If it’s a threat to public safety, they probably need to be off the rails.”
The federal rule will phase out or require retrofitting of thousands of the oldest tank cars that carry crude oil by 2018. Another wave of the oil-carrying tankers would have to change by 2020.
Some of the tank cars that aren’t carrying crude oil would not be replaced or retrofitted until 2025.
Brown’s proposal calls for a tax credit for companies that upgrade their tank cars to the new federal standard in the next three years.
Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers trade association, said his organization would oppose the fee structure Brown proposed.
“We think the federal focus should be on the rail carriers and their efforts to improve track integrity,” he said. “We want to see legislation that beefs up track integrity to keep the trains on the track.”
A spokesman for the American Association of Railroads declined to comment on Brown’s proposal. The organization is appealing the new federal standard, arguing that it doesn’t do enough to require shippers to stop using the DOT-111 tank cars and should require more heat protection on the cars, spokesman Ed Greenberg said.
The cars have been involved in several fiery derailments while carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota to East Coast refineries. In July 2013, a runaway train killed 47 people and destroyed the business district in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.
And in February, a train carrying volatile Bakken crude derailed in Mount Carbon, W.Va., after it likely traveled through Columbus. The train was run by CSX, which has three tracks that carry crude oil converging in Columbus before they head toward West Virginia.
On July 11, 2012, a Norfolk Southern train slipped the rails just north of Downtown. One of the cars punctured, spilling ethanol and causing an explosion and fire. Two people were injured and about 100 people were evacuated.
The National Transportation Safety Board said a broken track caused the derailment.
“Unfortunately, that was not an isolated incident,” Brown said.
A recent analysis for Franklin County Emergency Management and Homeland Security found that crude oil represents the largest share of hazardous material transported by rail through the region, Director Mike Pannell said.
Earlier this year, the state released reports showing that 45 million to 137 million gallons of Bakken crude travel through the state each week.
Local first responders have procedures in place to handle derailments but not specific plans for every piece of track, including lines that run through residential areas, said Karry Ellis, an assistant chief in the Columbus Fire Division.
Brown’s proposal calls for the U.S. Department of Transportation to study whether first responders are prepared for flammable-liquid spills and whether longer freight trains pose a greater risk.
Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.
Public interest groups today released the Crude Injustice on the Rails report evaluating the disparate threat to people of color and low-income communities from explosions and pollution from crude oil trains in California.
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