Category Archives: Explosion

Oil companies pay into compensation fund for Quebec train crash – deny further liability

Repost from The Hill

Oil companies pay into compensation fund for Quebec train crash

By Timothy Cama – 06/11/15 08:35 AM EDT
This July 16, 2013, file photo shows firefighters and workers at the crash site of a train derailment that killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. A watchdog from the Justice Department is looking for transparency on dollar amounts that oil companies are paying into a fund for victims of the crash. —Ryan Remiorz/Associated Press

Oil companies have contributed tens of millions of dollars toward a fund to compensate victims of a major 2013 oil train disaster in Quebec, Canada, that killed 47.

Companies like Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Marathon Oil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co. and Irving Oil Ltd. have paid into the $345 million fund, though they deny responsibility for the events on the train transporting their products, The Wall Street Journal reports.

If courts in the United States and Canada approve the oil companies’ role in the fund, the companies will be shielded from liability for any negligence they had involving the disaster in Lac-Megantic, including for failing to test the oil’s vulnerability.

The Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., which ran the train that derailed and exploded, filed for bankruptcy shortly after the incident.

But its court-appointed trustee said the oil companies knew that the oil was volatile and dangerous.

The oil companies have responded that their responsibility ended when they extracted the oil.

Most of the companies that contributed to the fund declined to comment to The Wall Street Journal. Marathon Oil told the newspaper that its contribution is not an acknowledgment of liability.

The Quebec disaster led officials in both Canada and the United States to pay new attention to the use of oil trains, which has increased dramatically in recent years along with oil production in places like the Bakken shale region.

It has resulted in rules in both countries that will ban the use of the oldest tank cars for oil in the coming years, as well as speed restrictions and other operational regulations.

Some Democratic lawmakers, led by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), have pushed for regulations limiting oil volatility in rail transport.

Oil Trains Don’t Have to Derail or Explode to Be Hazardous, Doctors Warn

Repost from TruthOut

Oil Trains Don’t Have to Derail or Explode to Be Hazardous, Doctors Warn

By Dahr Jamail, Tuesday, 09 June 2015 00:00
Oil by rail
There are no existing rail cars that could truly be considered safe for shipping crude oil. (Image: Oil by rail via Shutterstock)

In May, hundreds of doctors, nurses and health-care professionals from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) called on Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to take a stronger position against proposed oil-by-rail shipping terminals in their respective states, in order to insure the health and physical security of families and communities there.

Washington PSR describes itself as a group that promotes “peace and health for the human community and the global ecosystem by empowering members, citizens and policy makers to develop and model for the rest of the nation socially just and life-enhancing policies regarding nuclear issues, climate change, environmental toxins, vulnerable populations and other risks to human health.”

The group has sounded the alarm over what it sees as a direct health threat to the country stemming from the oil-by-rail system.

“We are dealing with a product [oil] that is harmful to human health at every single step along the process of extracting, transporting, storing and using it,” said Dr. Mark Vossler, a cardiologist and chairman of the Department of Medicine at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, Washington.

Vossler, who is also one of the lead authors of the Washington PSR/Oregon PSR position statement on crude oil transport and storage, and volunteers his time with WPSR’s climate change task force, added, “The health risks of water fouled by fracking, of exploding trains and storage tanks, of oil spills at sea and the dispersants used in the clean up, and of the everyday relentless actual use of the product in terms of a continuing rising carbon dioxide content in our atmosphere should be completely unacceptable.”

Fortunately for PSR and the general public, Senate Democrats in Washington State are already pushing for tougher federal safety rules for oil trains.

Oil companies have proposed dramatic increases in oil-by-rail transport and storage in Washington and Oregon, with the aim of increasing ocean shipments from regional ports there.

PSR says that although just three years ago there was no oil-by-rail movement in Washington, dramatic increases in oil extraction from the Bakken fields in North Dakota and Montana, as well as from the Canadian tar sands, have generated significant increases in oil-by-rail traffic. In a recently released position paper, PSR warns of a number of health impacts, including increased rates in cancer, asthma and cardiovascular disease, among dozens of others.

“If current proposals are allowed to proceed, the volume of oil-by-rail coming into Washington would increase from the current 19 trains per week to as many as 137 trains per week, each about 1.5 miles long,” PSR’s position statement reads. “Each would carry approximately 2.9 million gallons of volatile crude to be stored, in some cases refined, and then exported to other states. This is a larger daily volume than would flow through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.”

PSR has conducted a thorough review of health data published in peer-reviewed medical journals, and its warning is stark.

“The known risks associated with oil-by-rail transport, oil tank storage, and oil export by vessel pose an unacceptable threat to human health and safety,” the group said.

It is not just the Pacific Northwest that is being impacted. In the last two decades, millions of gallons of oil have been spilled across the United States by train derailments. This stunning interactive map, generated by McClatchy Newspapers’ Washington Bureau, illustrates the massive scope of this issue.

And the problem is worsening dramatically. There was more oil spilled from trains in 2013 than in the previous 40 years combined, according to federal data.

Truthout spoke with several key PSR doctors and personnel about this issue, and found that the human health dangers posed by oil-by-rail, even when they don’t detonate into train-propelled firebombs that burn people alive and force evacuations of entire towns and cities, are shocking.

“Inherently a Public Health and Safety Issue”

“We’re talking about trains of over 100 cars shipped through Northwestern communities – right through them – including highly populated areas,” said Laura Skelton, WPSR’s executive director. “Plus, the Bakken crude most of them are hauling is more combustible than almost any other crude oil transported by train in the US.”

Skelton warned that the prospect of a rapidly expanding fossil fuel industry and its growing infrastructure throughout the Pacific Northwest “is not just an environmental issue … it is inherently a public health and safety issue. It is also a justice issue, as our states’ most vulnerable citizens are likely to be the most impacted.”

In Washington State alone, Skelton said that more than 3 million residents live within the US Department of Transportation-defined evacuation zone, if there were to be an oil trail derailment and explosion. Vulnerable citizens include pregnant women, babies and young children, the elderly and all those with pre-existing medical conditions.

“In addition, massive storage tank farms of millions of gallons of crude oil are proposed within population centers,” she added. “This is a new and totally unacceptable level of risk to humans, and it is not acceptable from a public policy perspective.

Vossler agreed, and took it a step further by pointing out some of the specific health impacts from the trains themselves.

“While derailments and explosions are serious, life threatening and quite dramatic, the insidious effects of increased train traffic are equally important,” he told Truthout. “Locomotives, being powered by diesel fuel, emit a large amount of particulate pollution in their exhaust. Given the known health risks of particulate inhalation, any increase in train traffic increases the odds of illness in people living in close proximity to the rail lines.”

Vossler explained that diesel particulates are tiny particles that can be breathed in and are carried deep into the lungs, creating local injury and causing toxins to be transported into the bloodstream.

Diesel particulate exposure leads to a host of diseases including cancer, particularly of the lung and breast; asthma and obstructive lung disease; heart attack and stroke.

“Seventy-eight percent of the risk of cancer due to airborne causes in the Puget Sound area are due to particulate pollution,” Vossler said. “In Washington State alone, more than a half million adults and 120,000 children have asthma. According to the state Department of Health, more than 5,000 people with asthma are hospitalized and nearly 100 die from asthma each year.”

He said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already identified Washington State’s asthma prevalence as being among the highest in the country, and that prevalence is steadily increasing along with the increase in oil-by-rail traffic.

“A dramatic increase in oil train traffic would only add to that trend,” Vossler said. “In children, diesel pollution is linked to higher rates of neuro-developmental disorders, impaired lung development and increased development of asthma. Exposure as an infant leads to lifelong disease and disability.”

Thus, the developmental effects of exposure to diesel particulate are cumulative, and the acute effects have no threshold upper limit where further exposure becomes inconsequential. Any rise in rail traffic will put people’s health in further danger, according to Vossler.

Given that the number of people living in proximity to oil-by-rail shipments across North America is currently in the tens of millions and growing, the importance of oil-by-rail as a national health issue is clear.

A Pulmonologist’s Nightmare

Don Storey is a pulmonologist who founded the PSR chapter in Spokane, Washington, in 1982. His motivation? He saw the threat of an oil-by-rail train exploding as it passed through that city as being “similar to a small nuclear weapon explosion over Spokane.”

Speaking to the proposed increase in oil-by-rail traffic through the region, Storey told Truthout, “To me, as a pulmonologist, this is just an amazing possibility that has almost certain negative impact on the respiratory health of our region. The conditions listed in our paper, from increased respiratory system cancers, to increased asthma, heart disease and cerebrovascular disease, are very real and certain to occur.”

Storey believes the particulate exposure generated by the trains is an even greater threat than derailments.

Citing the fact that the increase in trains would mean one per hour traveling through population centers, Storey sees them posing “unacceptable particulate exposure” to people, and that is why he sees the trains as a major health risk.

Even if it were possible to make the trains 100 percent safe from derailment and subsequent explosions, Storey says, it would never be possible to significantly decrease the risk of particulate exposure, given the nearly 700 percent increase in the number of trains traveling through Washington communities in any given period of time.

As a pulmonologist, Storey’s predictions regarding the health impacts of an oil train explosion are equally dire. His equation of the detonation of an oil train with that of a small nuclear weapon is no exaggeration.

“The blast damage may be less, but the potential respiratory injuries may be quite similar, from burning of the upper airways [nose and trachea] to destruction of alveoli, not to mention the very real potential of asphyxiation for those close to the burning from depletion of oxygen in the atmosphere from the intense fires,” he said.

In 1982, Storey treated a patient who survived an airplane crash, and had sustained significant skin wounds from the burning airline fuel. “From my perspective, the really significant damage was that to his lungs from inhalation of burning fuel and smoke,” he said. “I had never to that time, nor since, seen damage as severe as this patient had to his bronchial epithelium [lining]. This tissue sloughed off in big, black chunks for several days, and I had to bronchoscope him two to three times daily to remove necrotic [dead] material from his lungs so that healing could occur.”

With a month of intensive therapy from Storey, along with the full resources of a major intensive care unit, the patient survived. However, the experience clearly demonstrated to the doctor that – given the intensity of the care required – Spokane wouldn’t be able to accommodate a large number of patients dealing with these types of injuries (for instance, in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion).

“This was the primary reason I became so convinced that preventative medicine for nuclear war injuries was much more practical and efficient than curative or restorative medicine, and that the potential for nuclear war had to be abolished,” Storey said. “I think this same conclusion holds for the potential of an oil train derailment and fire [or] explosion. This potential scenario needs to be eliminated, whatever the cost.”

Seeking Environmental Sanity

Skelton believes health-care professionals should research the localized impacts of the fossil fuel industry in every region of the country, and said that efforts along those lines are already in progress in many areas.

“With the release of [the PSR position paper] to the public, we’re providing a model that can be built on,” she said. “Local public health advocates can use this peer-reviewed science and address common threats, like exposure to cancer-causing diesel pollution, plus threats specific to their communities, like the number of at-grade crossings and related delays in emergency response times.”

She also pointed out that, while most media focus and public concerns are related to the detonation of oil trains, the issue of oil terminals, like those proposed for Grays Harbor and Vancouver in Washington State, have garnered far less concern and public scrutiny.

“We have researched horrific accidents at terminals elsewhere, such as an explosion and resulting fire at a petroleum depot in England that took days to squelch, but they have usually occurred in places far from any population centers,” she explained. “That is one thing that makes the new terminals in Washington and Oregon so dangerous; many are sited within population areas and extremely close to large numbers of homes and businesses.”

Skelton hopes that the PSR report will make an impact on public agencies performing the safety reviews of the proposed plans for more oil trains and oil storage terminals, as well as on decision makers who will make the call about whether to move forward with these very high-risk projects.

When asked whether the use of oil-by-rail is a necessary evil given our fossil-fuel-based economy, Skelton said that this type of thinking is trumped by an overriding public interest of “safety and environmental sanity.”

Skelton said she believed the common good of the people cannot be sacrificed to the business needs of the companies or the overall need for oil.

According to the PSR report, oil trains are already moving through 93 cities and towns (including 38 that are heavily populated) in Washington, and in Oregon, the trains are traveling through 88 communities.

The consequences are already clear, according to Skelton.

“We have seen air pollution from diesel exhaust from train engines,” she explained. “That is correlated with negative health outcomes already experienced in our region, from cancer to asthma. For example, the US [Environmental Protection Agency] placed the Puget Sound area in the top 5 percent nationally for potential cancer risk from air toxics.”

Skelton warned that if the proposals for more oil train and oil terminal permits in the Northwest are successful, we should expect what she referred to as “direct threats to health and safety.” Beyond that, she noted, the increase in permits would mean an increase in carbon pollution, which contributes to climate change and the associated health risks.

In response to the propaganda the oil industry uses to entice communities with jobs and other “benefits,” Skelton had this to say: “Rarely is the economic analogy shared of what it would cost to human health, industry and natural ecosystems if an oil spill were to take place on land or in the water, or from a tank farm explosion. The town of Cordova, Alaska, is still experiencing impacts from the Exxon Valdez spill 26 years ago. Almost every month it seems we learn about the ongoing environmental impacts of the BP Gulf spill in 2010. These are not compromises we want to have to make in the Puget Sound.”

Solutions

PSR’s position on what should be done to address the oil-by-rail proposals is that the railroads should not ship crude oil via rail in cars that are not designed to withstand accidents of the kind that are occurring.

That said, currently, there are no existing rail cars that could truly be considered safe for shipping crude oil, and the railroads have already shown that they cannot safely handle the massive weight loads of the individual cars as well as the aggregate weight of the train without frequent derailments.

“An average national derailment every three to four days suggests we cannot safely allow this industry to haul explosive cargo through population centers,” Skelton said. “Responsibility is not necessarily the raison d’être for most businesses; profit is. It is unlikely that most companies would become dramatically more responsible for preventing accidents without pressure in the form of rule-making or other top-down requirements.”

Skelton said that both oil and transport companies need to begin being as transparent as possible with the public about the existing and projected safety risks to the public and environment of oil train transport, storage and vessel export.

“These big companies could even drive solutions to climate change,” she added. “After all, they have the resources to envision, plan for and invest in a future of clean energy.”

However, at least for now, the oil industry is going in the opposite direction. In May, the oil industry challenged new federal rules aimed at improving the safety of the oil-by-rail system, and asked a court to block the rail transport safety rules.

In the Pacific Northwest, however, pressure remains on the governors of Oregon and Washington to safeguard their respective state populations from the health and safety threats posed by the oil trains and terminals.

“Both governors are taking steps to increase safety of trains now barreling through our state,” Skelton said. “That’s good, but we need more. They must also focus on prevention of this onslaught of additional oil trains that will come if new terminals are approved.”

Mark Vossler, the cardiologist and co-author of the PSR statement, pointed out how the general public remains largely unaware of the risks of using fossil fuels.

“The medical community has known about the respiratory and cardiovascular risks of air pollution for a long time but there has been little public outrage and little change in behavior,” he said. “The crucial difference is that they are transporting a substance that can explode and kill, can be spilled and foul the water, and no matter what measures are taken to make the tankers thicker and the rails more reliable will never, ever be completely safe.”

Skelton issued a broader perspective warning. “Fossil fuels, and the carbon pollution they contribute to, connect directly to climate change, the biggest health threat facing humanity this century,” she said.

Vossler also connected the oil trains to the larger issue of climate disruption. He pointed out the medical risks that come with that disruption: weather disasters, famine, drought, rampant disease and wars related to shrinking resources. Vossler emphasized the responsibility of the medical community to, as H.L. Mencken put it, “save man from the consequences of his vices.” However, he said, nothing the medical community can do, in an isolated way, is a replacement for moving beyond fossil fuels.

“We do have alternatives to our outdated dirty, harmful, unhealthy fossil fuel economy,” Vossler said. “We have the technology to build a modern, clean energy economy. We just need to gather the will to make it so.”

Plumas Co. Grand Jury: Scathing indictment of hazardous material transportation through Feather River Canyon

Repost from Plumas County News
[Editor:  This Grand Jury report is thorough and well written – an excellent resource and alarming in its analysis.  Its findings and recommendations (near the end of the report) might be a valuable resource for communities everywhere.  There are a number of references to “after-action reports.”   Question for our research: how can concerned citizens obtain such reports?  – RS]

Hazardous material transportation a roulette wheel for potential disaster

Feather Publishing

6/5/2015

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of midterm reports submitted by the 2014-15 Plumas County Civil Grand Jury.

SUMMARY
Early in the morning Nov. 25, 2014, a Union Pacific freight train derailed in the Feather River Canyon just east of Belden, sending 11 railcars full of corn off the tracks and down the steep embankment. In a press statement shortly afterward, a State Office of Emergency Services official was quoted as saying, “We dodged a bullet” because the train was only carrying corn.

Based on a rash of recent derailments and spills of hazardous materials happening throughout the United States and Canada, “a bullet” in fact grossly underestimates the potential devastation, magnitude and scope of the consequences left from these horrific incidents. Luckily, it was only corn that spilled. With the recent surge in crude-by-rail domestic crude oil transports between oil fields in North Dakota, Texas, Colorado and Pennsylvania and Bay Area refineries through the Feather River Canyon, the aftermath could have wrought far-reaching disaster had it been the high-flammable Bakken crude in the tanker cars.

According to sources, the number of crude-by-rail trains passing through the Feather River Canyon has tripled in number within the past three years. With developments in hydraulic fracking technology coming about in domestic oil fields, the petroleum market has seen a profound shift from importing foreign oil to extracting it in domestic oil fields in the United States. As a result, thousands of jobs have been created and oil prices have plummeted since this recent boon in domestic oil production. In addition, other hazardous chemicals are transported throughout the United States by rail and by truck. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, only the railroads are required to know what’s in the cars they’re shipping.

The grand jury found it extremely important to examine the recent corn derailment other recent crude-by-rail disasters in the U.S. and Canada to determine whether Plumas County agencies and private transportation operators are adequately prepared in “worst-case” scenarios. In respect to the Plumas County corn derailment, because the corn was relatively harmless and could be immediately dealt with without invoking hazardous material protocols, local, state and railroad officials and crews did an excellent job in containment of the spill and clearing and repairing the tracks within the impact area.

As a result of a quick and well-coordinated response, the Feather River Canyon rail route was restored and passing rail traffic three days after the initial derailment. Nonetheless, the grand jury has found the incident to be a practical review for a county hazardous material spill and useful opportunity to compare and contrast the corn spill with other recent more disastrous spills. Plumas County did indeed “dodge the bullet,” and from this incident the grand jury believes it will provide valuable findings and recommendations which may in turn act as a catalyst and cast fresh perspectives and insights on dealing with future potential spills and hazardous material disasters.

BACKGROUND
In review of the Feather River Canyon corn spill Nov. 25, 2014, a total of 11 cars full of raw corn derailed and spilled down a steep embankment near Rich Bar. Luckily, the spill was only tons of kernels and husks, and the incident proved to have had only a minimal impact, environmentally speaking.

The corn spill turned out to be good opportunity to test the Plumas County emergency response system. The incident was first reported by Union Pacific Railroad Dispatch in Omaha, Nebraska, to the Plumas County Warning Center, stating, “12 rail cars close to Rich Bar at Hwy 70 MPM 265 on the Canyon Sub,” and that “12 rail cars loaded with grain derailed, it is unknown whether the cars are upright or on their sides, and that the derailment occurred in a canyon next to a stream or river and it is unknown at this time if the waterway was impacted.”

According to the after-action report on the incident, the State Warning Center notification included the Plumas County sheriff, California Highway Patrol, Plumas County Environmental Health, State Water Quality Board, State Department of Toxics, State Drinking Water, Cal Office of Emergency Services, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The accident occurred around 3 a.m. Nov. 25. By 8 a.m. Union Pacific had placed containment booms 100 feet down the Feather River. Fortunately, none of the cars landed in the river and only a small amount of corn spilled into the river.

One of the important facts that should be emphasized here concerns containment supplies and where they are located. It took roughly five hours for the railroad to have containment booms in place. According the Plumas County officials, Union Pacific does not have any spill containment kits in Plumas County. A formal request from the grand jury was emailed to Union Pacific safety representatives asking about the whereabouts of containment kits — according to their response (the grand jury received a very quick email reply that day), Chico, Roseville and Reno, Nevada, were the closest railroad facilities that had emergency containment kits.

Other revelations from the after-action report revealed that the Union Pacific Railroad Dispatch Center could not pinpoint the exact location in the Feather River Canyon to the Warning Center. In addition, dispatch was not “forthcoming” on what was spilled, although the center did state that the Plumas County Sheriff’s Department was notified that “there were no injuries, no hazardous materials released, and that no assistance was needed.” The corn spill after-action report in its conclusion posted its “corrective actions from railroad incident” review. Some of the recommendations are summarized here:

—Push Union Pacific dispatch for better initial report information.

—Use GPS to pinpoint incident location.

—Coordinate with the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for any incident in the Feather River Canyon.

—The incident commander for any hazardous materials incident is designated as the primary law enforcement authority.

—Follow Plumas County Hazardous Materials Response Plan.

—The Office of Emergency Services will try to find a local Union Pacific dispatch contact person.

Evidently, the cause of the corn derailment was a section of the railroad track breaking or separating. Ironically, Union Pacific reported that all railroad ties along the Feather River Canyon were replaced in 2013. Union Pacific conducts track inspections at regular intervals and reportedly it conducts Feather River Canyon inspections every three months. Nonetheless, the corn derailment exemplifies that rail accidents can happen at any time.

In respect to the other crude-by-rail spills, the same results were concluded. Train speed was not a factor and rail and bridge inspections were documented before the incidents occurred. The crude-by-rail derailments were all on relatively flat landscapes. The Feather River Canyon route, with its rocky and unstable terrain, is much more prone to outside factors that can lead to derailments.

According to 2013 Plumas County Hazard Mitigation Plan, in 2007 and in 2012 a rockslide struck and derailed passing trains. The 2007 slide derailed 22 rail cars; 20,000 gallons of peanut oil ruptured from several cars and 30,000 gallons of highly flammable denatured alcohol also spilled down the embankment. The 2012 incident was caused by a large boulder that fell onto the tracks and was struck by a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train. Over 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled from the train into the Feather River.

The recent crude-by-rail spills throughout the U.S. showcase the dramatic rise in domestic oil production and rail shipments to coastal refineries. According to railroad data, in 2008 there were reportedly about 10,000 oil cars carrying domestic crude. In 2014, there were over 400,000 crude-by-rail train cars, representing a 4,000 percent increase. Furthermore, the type of crude oil coming from shale deposits from Bakken oil fields (commonly referred as “light crude”) is high combustible. In almost every instance in which trains carrying Bakken crude derail and tanker cars are punctured, fiery detonation results. First responders and emergency service crews can merely watch it burn and concentrate on containment perimeters rather than extinguishing the oil fire. Without sensationalizing a disaster that occurred in another place, had any of the recent oil tanker disasters happened along the Feather River route, particularly at locations near population areas including downtown Portola, Blairsden, Twain and Keddie, where the railroad tracks are relatively close, the extent of the damage could have been far different.

The grand jury would first like to acknowledge as a matter of fact that hazardous chemical hauling is an integral part of our economy. As potentially dangerous as they are, crude oil, gasoline and chemicals are used safely every day. Without them our economy and all the things we do, all the products we require in our daily lives, the way we move would be changed; just about everything revolves around the consumer and the safe use of chemicals and their byproducts.

That being said, the vital role of both the national carriers of hazardous materials and our public safety officials at each level is to make safety the No. 1 priority. Safety, defined here, entails the complete processing of any particular product, from its extraction and refinement to transportation, delivery and ultimate usage.

Railroads carry over 40 percent of our nation’s freight. When conducted safely and securely, commodity transport over rail is proven to be economically the best and most efficient mode of transportation in terms of fuel efficiency, supply chain costs and safety. Intermodal traffic refers to the transport of goods on trains. Today, two major rail companies, Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe, transport intermodal goods through Plumas County. According to the Union Pacific Railroad, chemical transport is roughly 17 percent of total payload being carried. The breakdown of goods, however, is not representative of actual train payloads. In other words, trains passing through the county could have any number of railcars full of one particular commodity or another and the cars may be full or empty.

The grand jury has found that the mission statements, top priorities, primary focus and action plans are remarkably similar in commitment, scope and language between hazardous material producers, transport carriers and government officials at every level. In other words, everyone directly engaged in the production and distribution of everything delivered over rail, by air or on pavement — as well as their overseers — share a common pledge to make safety their top priority in the public domain and the environment.

In addition, the grand jury has studied the after-action reports of many of the most recent crude-by-rail derailments and public highway chemical transport accidents and learned that in nearly every case, there were inspections completed days or weeks before the incidents, rail and highway speeds were under the mandated limits and handling of the volatile payloads were properly done according to federal safety mandates.

According to official published reports, there has been more oil spilled from trains in the past two years than in the previous four decades. Between 1975 and 2012, around 800,000 gallons of crude oil was spilled in the U.S. By comparison, according to data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration data, over 1.5 million gallons of crude oil was spilled from rail cars.

As a result of the series of ruptures and fires that have recently plagued the U.S., federal regulators are considering higher safety standards and further upgrades such as thicker tanks, rollover protection for chemical carrying tanker cars, electronic braking systems on individual rail cars and increased track inspections.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued a notice for crude oil and high-hazard flammable trains tanker cars, calling for a phaseout of the older CTC-111A tanker car (commonly known as the DOT-111). Currently there are still around 300,000 CTC-111A cars still being used throughout the U.S. These tanker cars each generally carry between 20,000 and 30,000 gallons of oil. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation the older CTC-111As have the following safety flaws:

—Thin skins: Upon derailment, tanks often rupture.

—No head shields: Shields on both ends of tanker cars can prevent puncturing during collisions.

—Poor protection over valves and fittings.

—Lack of pressure relief devices for boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions.

In short, the older CTC-111A tanker cars were not designed for hauling flammable materials.

The new replacement tanker car, called the CPC-1232 (CPC is a railroad industry standard that stands for casualty prevention circular), features new standards for hazardous material railway transport. As of November 2011, all new tank cars built for transporting crude oil and ethanol must follow new standards, including half-height shields, thicker tank and head material, normalized steel, top fitting and gauge protection and recloseable pressure relief valves.

As of March 2015, there are reportedly 60,000 of the newer CPC-1232 tanker cars hauling crude in the U.S. In response to all the recent crude-by-rail derailments, Union Pacific, CSX and Burlington Northern Santa Fe have all stepped up in increased safety inspections and adapting new safety standards. The railroads are now relying on distributed power units, which place locomotives in the middle and/or both ends of the trains. Studies show that placing power locomotives on both ends and in the middle enhances safety because it even spreads physical forces on the train.

This revelation is significant — the 1991 Dunsmuir toxic chemical derailment was caused by this very reason. The power locomotive was placed in the rear of a 97-car train and light and empty cars flanked a full tanker car filled with 19,000 gallons of metam sodium. The investigation of the Dunsmuir disaster found that because all the power was placed at the rear of the large train, the uneven power distribution caused the train to buckle.

Metam sodium is a soil fumigant. When it spilled into the upper Sacramento River — because of poor containment action and the nature of toxicity of the chemical — it killed every plant and fish for approximately 40 miles downstream.

Railroads also use wayside electronic detectors to monitor railroad tracks. New safety detecting technology is also being used in their prevention and risk reduction process that features use of lasers and ultrasound to identify rail defects.

The grand jury has learned that many of the hazardous material railcars do not belong to the rail carrier but to the company producing and transporting the product. For example, most of the older CTC-111A and newer CPC-1232 tanker cars are actually owned by the crude oil fracking companies and refineries.

The number of trains carrying crude oil and other hazardous materials is actually based on sheer economics. For example, in 2014, when oil prices hovered around $100 a barrel, the price sent domestic oil production to an all-time high. Crude-by-rail oil shipments though Plumas County increased substantially as coastal refineries in Martinez and Benicia purchased more oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and other domestic oil fields in Texas and Oklahoma.

DISCUSSION
The grand jury chose a review of several recent U.S. crude-by-rail derailments for comparative reasons. The after-action reports provide valuable findings and recommendations from disasters that can happen anywhere, anytime. The reports are particularly invaluable to first responders, and public safety agencies.

After-action reports detail each incident from the time of the initial report that entails the scope and severity of the incident. In response to the above disastrous incidents, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued a “call to action” in January, calling on “rail company executives, associations, shippers and state and federal agencies to discuss how stakeholders can prevent and mitigate the consequences of rail accidents that involve flammable liquids.”

The grand jury also believes that examining the recent corn spill in Plumas County and comparing it with the way other derailments were handled can lead to information and recommendations that enhance and hopefully improve upon the vanguards (prevention, preparedness, response, recovery) of any future local potential disaster.

The tenets from the PHMSA call to action report produced similar recommendations — a strategic approach that promotes “effective preincident planning, preparedness, response, outreach and training.” One important point that the grand jury kept hearing was a difficulty and lack of communication between the railroad and local emergency management officials. One of the key elements the PHMSA call to action report specifically addresses is the absolute need for interaction and relevant guidance to first responders and local emergency management teams to “safely and effectively manage incidents.”

The report also called for preincident planning and communication with all organizations to learn about what is being transported. Emergency response teams must have the training to safely contain and protect themselves and the contaminate zone affected. The need for a local hazmat team cannot be overemphasized.

The following crude-by-rail disasters summarized in this grand jury report illustrate some of the potential circumstances other public safety agencies have had to deal with. Despite all the mandated safeguards dealing with hazardous material hauling, i.e., safe speeds, upgraded rail cars, railcar and track inspections, specialized training, etc., accidents can happen anytime and anywhere within transportation routes of hazardous materials.

Plumas County and the surrounding 12 counties in northeastern California lie within Region 3 of the State Emergency Services System. At the time of this report, Plumas County has no hazmat team. Upon any need for hazmat response, Plumas County must contact nearby Butte or Shasta teams. In more serious incidents, Plumas County would have to enlist state or federal emergency service agencies.

Lac-Megantic, Canada: In July 2013 a train carrying 72 tank cars full of crude oil exploded after the train braking system released, sending the unmanned train on a downhill run into the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec. The runaway train crashed into a crowded downtown pub, killing 47 people and destroying over 30 buildings. According to the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, the train had been idling and unmanned for over seven hours and the emergency braking system disengaged. The train then rolled down the tracks for several miles, picking up speed and eventually derailing into downtown Lac-Megantic. Of the four disaster crude-by-rail spills mentioned in this report, the results from the official investigation determined that sheer neglect (train left running and unattended and braking system released, causing a runaway unmanned train) was the primary factor in the disaster.

Aliceville, Alabama: A 90-car train carrying Bakken crude derailed in November 2013 and exploded. Nearly 750,000 gallons of its 2 million gallon load spilled in wetlands in Alabama. Officials still assail cleanup operations today and report that containment booms and absorbent products were ineffective.

Lynchburg, Virginia: In April 2014 a CSX train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire, spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the James River. Oil fires from the ruptured tanker cars burned for two days. Reports indicate that the tanker cars were all the new CPC-1232 model.

Casselton, North Dakota: In December 2013 a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train hauling grain derailed and fell across another set of tracks. Shortly after, a crude oil train heading in the opposite direction struck the derailed cars and derailed itself. Several tanker cars exploded. A slow response to the first incident set up the chain of events for the explosive second incident.

Montgomery, West Virginia: In February 2015 a train carrying crude oil in West Virginia derailed sending 27 tanker cars off the tracks. Twelve of those rail cars exploded, not at once, but randomly for up to 12 hours. The cause is still under investigation.

In the event of a local hazardous material disaster, the Plumas County Office of Emergency Services is notified and it determines the scope and magnitude of the incident and then contacts the Plumas County Board of Supervisors. Depending on the incident assessment of the Plumas County OES, the BOS has the authority to officially declare an emergency, which allows the Plumas County OES to request help from relevant local, state and federal agencies.

Through leadership and partnership with all first responders, each incident goes through a foundational process that includes prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. The first three steps of the mitigation process rely on the safe containment of the hazardous material as quickly as possible with a special focus on protecting human life (isolate, deny entry, protect life safely, mitigate). The recovery phase, however, can last for years. The Dunsmuir toxic spill, for example, seriously impacted the area for several years after. At the time of this report, the crude-by-rail spills were all still in the recovery phase. Fortunately, the Plumas County corn derailment had a minimal effect on the environment. The first three phases of emergency services mitigation at the corn spill served as a great training exercise for all agencies and first responders involved.

Recovery, in this case, was at a minimum in terms of environmental impact.

In regard to Plumas County hazmat, the grand jury has learned that the county must rely on local volunteers to devote their time as first responders.

Plumas County has had a difficult time finding enough volunteers to cover the entire county, and retaining volunteers after hazmat certification and specialized training has not worked out. All the local fire districts within Plumas County have been actively seeking volunteers.

FINDINGS
F1) The grand jury finds that communication between Plumas County public safety agencies and railroad officials is profoundly inadequate.

F2) The grand jury finds that the lack of spill and containment equipment along rail routes in Plumas County poses a direct threat to public safety and the natural environment.

F3) The grand jury finds that relying on hazmat response teams from surrounding counties compromises response times and threatens Plumas County public safety and natural resources.

F4) The grand jury finds that the lack of training of first responders concerning hazardous materials that they may have to deal with could have profound consequences.

F5) The grand jury finds that population centers within Plumas County that are in close proximity to railroads have grossly inadequate protection resources.

RECOMMENDATIONS
R1) The grand jury recommends Plumas County Emergency Services and the Plumas County Environment Health Agency establish direct local contact with Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe and any hazardous material carrier that operates within the county.

R2) The grand jury recommends that Plumas County negotiate with railroad officials to have spill containment booms and absorbent kits in key strategic storage facilities in Plumas County.

R3) The grand jury recommends that the BOS find the means to provide hazmat training and certification to in-county first responders.

R4) The grand jury recommends more hazardous material training between first responders and all those involved in mitigating hazardous material disasters. Union Pacific, for example, offers tank car safety training in Roseville at the California Office of Emergency Services Specialized Training Institute every year. The training involves practically all aspects of hazardous material incident mitigation.

R5) The grand jury recommends that the BOS and Plumas County OES conduct a “what-if” evaluation for population centers within Plumas County that are within potential “blast zones” of crude-by-rail tanker cars.

State denies permit for Baltimore crude oil terminal

Email from John Kenney, Chesapeake Climate Action Network:

Great news out of Baltimore: Maryland puts proposed crude oil terminal on hold

Great news out of Baltimore! Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) put the permits for the proposed crude oil terminal that we’ve been fighting on hold! MDE actually listened to our public comments saying that crude oil trains were way more dangerous than they previously thought, so they asked more questions for the company before issuing a final permit in the future. There will be plenty of opportunities to comment if the company decides to proceed with their plan to ship crude oil.

For now, the expansion of crude by rail in Maryland is on hold.

However, the fight isn’t over. Advocates throughout our region are continuing to organize. Crude oil still runs through Maryland, is still shipped out of Baltimore, and we still don’t have route transparency. Our goal is to continue pushing city and state legislators to take action, and will send updates along the way. Please see article [at right] for more details.

Repost from the Baltimore Sun

State denies permit for Baltimore crude oil terminal

By Jeff Barker, June 3, 2015 8:24 P.M.
Targa Resources
Targa Terminals, located at 1955 Chesapeake Avenue along the Patapsco River, has applied for an air-quality permit with the Maryland Department of Environment to begin handling crude oil at the Baltimore facility. (Kenneth K. Lam, Baltimore Sun)

The state Department of the Environment has denied, for now, a Houston-based company’s application to permit crude oil to be shipped through its port of Baltimore terminal in Fairfield — a proposal that nearby residents say poses a safety threat.

The agency said it needs more information from Targa Resources, a Houston-based firm that handles and stores oil, natural gas and petroleum products.

MDE “is not moving forward with any further review of the crude oil related application submitted in February until the department receives additional information from the company,” it said in a summary of its decision.

A bill that would have required a study of crude oil rail shipments in Maryland, such as the one above in Cecil County, has stalled.

CBR-in-Maryland
A bill that would have required a study of crude oil rail shipments in Maryland, such as the one above in Cecil County, has stalled. (Photo by Amy Davis)

“Before any decision is made on a crude oil related project at the Targa facility, there will be additional public review opportunities beyond the public meeting already held,” the agency said.

If MDE had approved the permit, Targa would have become the second Fairfield-area terminal to handle crude oil shipments. Axeon Specialty Products, based in Stamford, Conn., ships tens of millions of gallons of crude oil through its nearby terminal just north of Interstate 895.

Axeon brings crude oil in by rail from the west and ships it by barge to refineries in the Northeast. But even those shipments are relatively new. While it moved nearly 57 million gallons of crude through Baltimore in the fiscal year that ended June 30 and 53 million gallons the year before, it handled none the previous two years, according to data from MDE’s Oil Control Program.

Substantially more crude oil passes through the state, much of it through Cecil County, but is not captured by the oil-control program because it is not unloaded.

Shipments of domestic crude oil have boomed in recent years because of the surge in production from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. So much oil is coming out of the ground there and from the Canadian oil sands that a global glut has suppressed prices.

Another derailment of a train carrying Bakken crude in Lynchburg, Va., in April 2014 caused an explosion and an evacuation and spilled thousands of gallons of crude into the James River, but no one was injured.

Other incidents have occurred in West Virginia and North Dakota.

While it denied the crude oil permit, MDE did grant Targa an air-quality permit May 26 allowing other products to be transported through the terminal. The permit will enable the company to offload fuel oils, noncrude oils and distillates from rail cars onto tanker trucks.

At Targa’s request, MDE considered the crude oil request separately. The agency said in its decision that Targa asked it to split the application “in order to meet current customer demand for storage and transport of the other types of fuel oils and distillates.”

Vincent DiCosimo, Targa’s senior vice president for petroleum logistics, did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

He has said previously that the company takes safety seriously and has the record to prove it.

“Targa is just as interested in safety as you are,” he said in December at a public hearing hosted by the department and attended by about 25 residents and environmentalists.

But residents have expressed concerns and environmental advocacy organizations said the new facility would increase the threat crude oil shipments pose to the Chesapeake Bay’s fragile ecosystem, since Targa would transfer the oil from trains onto barges for transport to East Coast refineries.

The company purchased the Fairfield terminal, previously owned by Chevron, in 2011.

“This decision by the Maryland Department of the Environment is good news,” said Leah Kelly, attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, in a statement Wednesday.

“Shipping crude oil through this terminal in Baltimore could have increased the risk of accidents and potentially explosions, such as have happened in Virginia, West Virginia and Canada,” she said. “Targa Terminals’ application for the crude oil permit was full of holes. MDE has said that it will not move forward with the crude oil permit unless the company provides more information about the air pollution that would be created by its operations.”