Category Archives: Explosion

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Hazardous cargo transparency, Rail industry lobby, Spill, State regulation, Tar sands crude

SACRAMENTO BEE: State seeks fee on dangerous chemicals crisscrossing California

Repost from the Sacramento Bee

State seeks fee on dangerous chemicals crisscrossing California

By Tony Bizjak, July 22, 2016 6:00AM

HIGHLIGHTS
• California officials say the state isn’t prepared to handle hazardous materials spills
• A new $45 fee on every rail car carrying dangerous substances will help beef up spill response

Day and night, trains crisscross California pulling long strings of tanker cars carrying volatile gas, chemicals and crude oil.

These shipments have long played a key role in powering the state economy, providing materials for medical supplies, computers and fertilizers, as well as fuels for vehicle fleets. But they also pose the risk of catastrophic spills.

Jolted by a series of oil train explosions nationally, including one in Oregon last month, the state this summer has drawn up a list of what it says are the 25 most hazardous materials shipped on rail in California. It plans to impose a new $45 fee later this year on every rail car carrying one of those materials. The money will be used to ramp up the state’s emergency spill and fire response capabilities.

The state Legislature ordered the fee program after a Governor’s Office of Emergency Services analysis that found significant gaps in California’s ability to deal with spills, especially in rural and remote areas.

The fee plan is disputed by the state’s major railroad companies who say they think it’s illegal.

The top 25 list includes materials that are dangerous to humans either by direct contact or because they are highly flammable. They include ammonia, chlorine, propane, butane, fertilizers, acids, petroleum gases and oils.

“When one of these trains derails, it puts lives, property and the economy at risk,” said State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris. “And right now, we don’t have surge capacity to deal with a major spill.”

Because of the secrecy shrouding shipments of hazardous materials, it’s hard to know how big a risk they pose. State safety officials and private shippers refuse to disclose the amount, frequency, routes or timing of hazardous material shipments, citing federal safety regulations and state health and safety law restrictions, as well as concerns about terrorist or other criminal acts.

50  Approximate number of spills in the Roseville railyard in 2015

Even local fire departments typically don’t know in detail what materials are coming through, although they can get some after-the-fact information about hazardous materials that have traveled through their areas, if they request it.

Hazardous materials in train tanker cars can be identified, however, at least generically, by the identification numbers on diamond-shaped placards displayed on the sides of cars.

Trains observed by The Sacramento Bee in recent weeks in downtown and midtown Sacramento carried numerous hazardous materials, including liquefied petroleum gas, sulfuric acid and liquids designated hazardous at temperatures above 212 degrees Fahrenheit. A few trains were carrying either cleaning fluid, weed killing fluid, diesel fuel or other flammable liquids. Others were listed as holding unspecified petroleum distillates or petroleum products.

Shippers also have acknowledged transporting Bakken crude oil and Canadian tar sand oil through Sacramento neighborhoods.

California’s planned $45 per-train-car fee will pay for the creation of 12 specially trained hazmat teams to be spread out geographically near “gap” areas where there is a lack of expertise and equipment to deal with major spills, state Office of Emergency Services officials said.

Most will be in the lower Central Valley, on the coast and in Southern California. One hazmat team will be located in Yuba City, not far from the Feather River Canyon, where trains carrying hazardous materials travel the steep mountainside above a river that provides drinking water to urban areas as well as water for Central Valley farms.

Many larger fire departments already have specially trained hazmat teams. There are four in the Sacramento area, one each stationed in Roseville, Natomas, Carmichael and south Sacramento.

Railroad companies contend the proposed fee is illegal under federal law, which prohibits states from putting any constraints on interstate commerce via rail. Under the state plan, the companies that own the hazardous materials must pay the fee, but railroad companies must collect the fee from them and convey it to the state.

The Union Pacific and BNSF – the two main hazardous materials shippers in California – sent letters to the state last month saying the fee interferes in the railroads’ business dealings with their shipper customers and demanding the state desist.

“These emergency regulations violate federal law; therefore, (California) must abandon the process of adoption,” UP assistant vice president Phillip Christensen wrote. “No state can regulate the rates or charges a railroad collects from its customers. This kind of ‘economic regulation’ is categorically prohibited” by federal interstate commerce law.

UP officials declined to be interviewed for the story. The company sent The Bee an email saying that safety is the railroad’s primary focus when transporting hazardous materials. The email did not say whether the railroad might sue the state to stop the fee.

The American Chemistry Council, which represents hazmat shippers, said its members are concerned that California’s actions could lead to dozens of states imposing rail fees, creating what chemistry council spokesman Scott Jensen calls a confusing “patchwork” of regulations without certainty about how the money would be spent, beyond creation of some hazmat teams.

Dow Chemical regulatory affairs official Dale Backlund said his company would like the state to meet more with the industry to talk about the best approach to conducting emergency response training. “Can we slow down the train and think through the implications of this?” he said.

NO STATE CAN REGULATE THE RATES OR CHARGES A RAILROAD COLLECTS FROM ITS CUSTOMERS. Union Pacific’s Phillip Christensen

Despite such complaints, state Office of Emergency Services officials say they plan to impose the fee later this year, although they expect to continue talking with the railroad companies and shippers about fine-tuning the fee program.

“It is law now,” Zagaris said. “We are following the law.”

The state plans to collect up to $10 million annually from hazardous materials shippers, to be placed in the Regional Railroad Accident Preparedness and Immediate Response Fund. The fund will be capped at $20 million.

Although hazardous materials also are shipped on highways, the fee is being applied only to rail shipments, mainly because the threat of a major spill incident is greater on rail, Zagaris said.

“It is a bigger item for us to deal with, takes a larger response, more surge capacity and it puts the public and environment at more risk,” he said. “That’s not to say, at some point, (the state) won’t come back and try to ID things transported on the road.”

Railroads and hazardous materials shippers argue that the risks of oil and hazmat spills are being overplayed by anti-oil advocates and some community leaders. Very few trains derail, they note, and most hazardous material spills are small. A crude oil train crash in a Canadian town three years ago, though, unleashed a firestorm that killed 47 people, some in their sleep.

A Bee review of the state’s rail spill database found that hundreds of hazardous material spills occur annually. The database represents an incomplete listing, based only on initial reports, not on post-response findings. But it does offer a glimpse at the many types of hazardous materials that run on local rails.

Most spills are small and many happen in railyards around the state, such as the Union Pacific yard in Roseville. There were about 50 reported spills in the Roseville yard in 2015. The largest local spill that year, as initially reported, was 300 gallons of diesel fuel that leaked due to an improperly closed locomotive fuel filter cap. Other small spills around the Roseville yard in 2015 involved butane, oil, liquid petroleum gas, anhydrous ammonia, picoline and sodium sulfide.

Larger spills, though rare, can be devastating to wildlife and rural economies. The most notorious modern rail-related toxic spill in California occurred 25 years ago when a train derailed and spilled 19,000 gallons of the pesticide metam sodium into the Sacramento River near Dunsmuir, killing aquatic life on a 40-mile stretch of the river for years. Rail safety improvements have since been made at a tight rail curve at that spill site.

In Sacramento, several dozen trains cross daily in downtown Sacramento on two main freight lines. A Bee review of trains on those tracks recently found that more than half of the trains included at least a few cars carrying hazardous materials.

One freight line is a north-south route that comes through the region between Yuba City and Stockton and passes through midtown Sacramento between 19th and 20th streets. The other is an east-west route that runs through Roseville and on a berm above downtown Sacramento, through the downtown railyard and through Davis, adjacent to downtown and the university campus.

Sacramento City Fire Department hazardous materials coordinator Jerry Apodaca said the Sacramento region, with four hazmat teams, is well positioned to deal with a potential spill. But he and other local fire officials say they remain on alert, not knowing on any given day what shipments are coming through or when.

“We don’t know what’s in those cars until we get there,” he said.

CALIFORNIA’S LIST

The state wants to impose a $45 fee on rail cars that transport the 25 materials the state considers most hazardous. The list, with the hazard identification number of the materials:

  • Acetonitrile 1648
  • Alcohols 1987
  • Ammonia, anhydrous 1005
  • Ammonium hydroxide/ ammonia solutions 2073, 2672, 3318
  • Calcium hypochlorite 1748, 2208, 2880, 3485, 3486, 3487
  • Chlorine 1017
  • Corrosive liquid, basic, inorganic 3266
  • Diesel fuel/fuel oil/gas oil 1202, 1993
  • Environmentally hazardous substances, liquid 3082
  • Ethanol/ethyl alcohol 1170
  • Gasoline; when shipped as flammable liquid 1203, 1993, 3295
  • Hydrogen peroxide 2014, 2015, 2984, 3149
  • Liquefied petroleum gas 1075, 3161
  • Methanol/methyl alcohol 1230
  • Methyl ethyl ketone 1193
  • Nitric acid 2031, 2032
  • Petroleum crude oil 1267, 1270
  • Phenol 1671, 2312, 2821
  • Phosphoric acid 1805, 3453
  • Potassium hydroxide/caustic potash 1813, 1814
  • Propylene 1075, 1077, 3138
  • Sodium hydroxide/caustic soda 1823, 1824, 3320
  • Sulfuric acid 1830, 1831, 1832, 2796
  • Toluene 1294
  • Vinyl acetate 1301

Source: California Office of Emergency Services

 

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Oil slick, Oil spill, Water contamination, Wildlife

Mosier groundwater contaminated after derailment spill

Repost from the Hood River News

Mosier groundwater contaminated after derailment spill

By Patrick Mulvihill, July 22, 2016
TREATMENT PLANT in Mosier came back online in mid-June. The city had been trucking sewage to Hood River for treatment while their system was shut down following the train wreck.
TREATMENT PLANT in Mosier came back online in mid-June. The city had been trucking sewage to Hood River for treatment while their system was shut down following the train wreck. Photo by Patrick Mulvihill

Regulators have found contaminated groundwater at the site of the June 3 fiery oil train derailment in Mosier.

There’s no current threat to drinking water or beach users, according to Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), but concerns have surfaced for wildlife health in the Rock Creek wetland near the Columbia River.

“It really isn’t a significant issue of harming human health; however, there is a wetland (nearby) and we’re mainly concerned for animals (living there),” said Bob Schwarz, DEQ project manager.

DEQ staff found high levels of benzene and other volatile organic compounds in one of four test wells crews installed north of the Union Pacific train tracks in Mosier shortly after the train wreck.

Schwarz described the contaminant levels discovered at the east-most site as roughly 10 times higher than the safe amount for animal populations — 1,800 parts of benzene per billion, compared to the ecological risk level of 130 parts.

The wetland ecosystem includes various amphibians and insects, he said.

DEQ has ruled the local drinking water safe because Mosier’s municipal water supply is located about a mile away from the spill area, uphill.

Beach access at Mosier — a popular watersports access spot — has been deemed safe. Booms laid out on the river following the derailment (to catch a small sheen of oil) have since been removed.

Mosier’s wastewater system is also back in action. While heavy green sewage tanks and pump trucks were a common sight during early June, the town no longer trucks sewage to Hood River for treatment.

In the derailment, 16 cars of a 96-car Union Pacific train bearing Bakken crude oil left the tracks in what U.P. ruled an accident due to faulty rail bolts. At least three cars caught fire. Crews extinguished the blaze by early morning the next day.

About 47,000 gallons of oil escaped from four rail cars.

During the wreck, one of the railcars tore off the lid of a sanitary sewer manhole, allowing roughly 13,000 gallons of oil to flow into the nearby Mosier wastewater treatment plant. That system was shut down as crews worked to pump out oil and clean the piping network.

As a temporary fix, workers trucked sewage from Mosier to Hood River for treatment at the municipal plant on Riverside Drive. By June 16, the plant was restored, and shortly after Mosier’s system was fully functional.

A small sheen of oil leaked into the Columbia River through the wastewater system at some point following the wreck, DEQ reported.

Crews cast out absorbing booms into the river to contain the sheen. The exact amount is “unknown but low in volume,” according to a DEQ fact sheet, but it quickly dissipated.

Surface water samples in the river didn’t show any significant contamination from the spill, Schwarz said. He expects the booms will be replaced in September, before autumn rains, in case new rain flushes any oil from the ground into the river.

Agencies reported that the rest of the oil was burned off or absorbed into the soil. Excavation workers disposed of about 29,600 tons of earth that had been contaminated with petroleum.

Oil remaining in the derailed cars was transferred by truck to The Dalles, then hauled by rail to Tacoma, Wash., its original destination. The emptied railcars were taken by truck to Portland for salvage.

Following the derailment, DEQ oversaw the installation of six wells near the train tracks — two extraction wells and four monitoring wells. At the fourth monitoring site, staff found high petroleum levels and other compounds.

Now, DEQ is working with the railroad’s consultant to design an underground system that will treat the contamination, Schwarz said.

The “biosparge” system will include vertical pipes where air will be injected into the ground water. That oxygen will spur growth of naturally occurring microbes that will break down the oil.

“We are still waiting for groundwater flow direction information from CH2M, the consultant for Union Pacific Railroad,” Schwarz said in a July 6 memo.

Local conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper raised concerns about U.P.’s role in the high pollutant levels and called for a third party to steer the cleanup.

“It’s very concerning that we have such high levels of toxic pollutants so close to the river,” Riverkeeper staff attorney Lauren Goldberg said.

She asserted that the public needs to hold state officials accountable so that “U.P. is not at the wheel of this cleanup.”

Schwarz expects a small drill rig and a half dozen or so workers will be on scene in Mosier to implement the treatment system.

For more information, go to deq.state.or.us/lq/ecsi/ecsi.htm .

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Let it burn, Tank car design, Tank car retrofit

Rail Industry Requests Massive Loophole in Oil-by-Rail Safety To Extend Bomb Trains Well Beyond 2025

Repost from DeSmogBlog

Rail Industry Requests Massive Loophole in Oil-by-Rail Safety To Extend Bomb Trains Well Beyond 2025

By Justin Mikulka, July 21, 2016 – 13:00

In the most recent oil-by-rail accident in Mosier, Oregon the Federal Rail Administration (FRA) concluded that the tank cars involved — the jacketed CPC-1232 type — “performed as expected.” So an oil train derailing at the relatively slow speed of 25 mph should be “expected” to have breached cars resulting in fiery explosions.

Current regulations allow those tank cars to continue rolling on the track carrying volatile Bakken crude oil and ethanol until 2025 with no modifications.

Yet industry lobbying group the Railway Supply Institute (RSI) has now requested the Federal Railroad Administration to essentially allow these jacketed CPC-1232 tank cars to remain on the tracks for decades beyond 2025.

This was just one of the troubling facts that came to light at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) roundtable on tank car safety on July 13th, and perhaps the one of greatest concern to anyone living in an oil train blast zone like Mosier, Oregon.

Just Re-Stencil It and Call It a DOT 117

One of the biggest risks with Bakken oil train accidents is that often the only way to deal with the fires is to let them burn themselves out. This can result in full tank cars becoming engulfed in flames for hours or days in what is known as a pool fire. This can lead to a “thermal tear” in the tank and the signature mushroom cloud of fire so often seen with these derailments.

The new regulations address this issue by requiring tank cars to have a layer of ceramic insulation covering the entire tank car to prevent the oil from heating up to the point of creating a thermal tear (ceramic shown in pink in the image below.)


Image credit: NTSB

However, the RSI has requested the FRA to allow the existing jacketed CPC-1232 cars, like the ones in the Mosier accident, to not require the ceramic thermal protection.

The industry’s argument is that the current fiberglass insulation on the CPC-1232 is sufficient protection. However, the fact that the fiberglass insulation was not designed to protect the contents of a tank car from fire does not seem to bother the RSI.

At the same time the RSI is arguing against thermal protection for CPC-1232s, the RSI has helpful videos on its website explaining the new safety features for DOT-117 tank cars — including “thermal protection.”

The NTSB’s Robert Sumwalt summed up what this request would mean in one simple statement at the July 13 round table event saying, “the same type of cars as in Mosier can be re-stenciled as DOT-117R with nothing more than a new bottom outlet valve.” [R stands for retrofit.]

So, they are essentially asking to paint over the CPC-1232 label on the tank cars with a DOT-117 while doing nothing more than changing the bottom outlet valve. Which means we should expect many more accidents like Mosier in the future since most of these CPC-1232 cars are only a few years old and they have an expected working life of 30-40 years.

As Robert Sumwalt said in his opening statement explaining why we should expect many more fiery oil train derailments with the existing tank car fleet, “just do the math.”

Industry Arguments Laughable If Not For the Consequences

Would you believe that one of the arguments made at the roundtable in favor of not requiring thermal protection on these cars was that the oil itself acts as a heat sink? Which is true. Until the point where the oil absorbs so much heat from the fire that the tank car explodes.

However, the reason this argument is given credibility is that the regulations only require a tank car to endure sitting in a pool fire for 100 minutes without exploding. Forget the fact that many of the Bakken oil train accidents have involved fires that burned for days.

This 100-minute limit was the same reasoning used to justify the fiberglass insulation on the current jacketed CPC-1232 as offering sufficient protection, as per the industry request. Which led to the following exchange between the NTSB’s Sumwalt and RSI representative John Byrne.

Byrne: “In our own modeling the fiberglass insulation system met the federal requirement for thermal protection.”

Sumwalt: “But in reality in the fiberglass situation, doesn’t the fiberglass all just melt… doesn’t it also melt and all end up pooling down in the bottom in the void between the blanket and the shell?”

Byrne: “Basically yes…but at the same time, that whole system acts as a thermal protection system in that it meets the requirement based on the federal law.”

Sumwalt: “Ok, thanks. So it meets the requirements.”

So, along with the oil itself being offered as adequate thermal protection, we also get fiberglass that melts in a fire being offered as protection for anyone in the blast zone.

So what did the regulators have to say about this absurd argument?

FRA’s Karl Alexy made it clear that “industry” concerns were receiving serious consideration saying, “we’re not taking it lightly, we understand what it means to industry… be certain that we are taking this very seriously.”

Well, we do understand what it means to the industry. Adding ceramic thermal protection would cut into profits. And one thing that was made clear repeatedly during the day’s discussion was that this was all about the money and that safety was only for people worried about “risk.”

As usual when there is a discussion about oil train safety, the oil industry lobbying group the American Petroleum Institute had a seat at the table. API representative Susan Lemieux cut to the heart of the issue with some actual honesty.

“In the industry we don’t see transportation as a risk, it is just a function of business.”

Why try to improve the situation when you don’t see any risk?

The FRA and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration have informed DeSmog that they will issue a formal response to the industry’s request to allow the fiberglass to qualify as thermal protection in the near future.

The Ground Rules – Profits Over Safety

In the above slide shown of the DOT-117, there is one other important thing to note. The shells on those tank cars are 9/16th of an inch thick. The shells of the jacketed CPC-1232 are 7/16th of an inch thick. This difference has safety implications as the thinner shells rupture more easily.  The RSI points out this fact in a video on its website about the advantages of the thicker shells on the DOT-117 which they say are “less prone to puncture.”

But the more important difference, as we have pointed out repeatedly at DeSmog, is that safer car designs are heavier, which means they can transport less oil per car. That lower capacity again cuts into profits. This point was made by ExxonMobil in a slide they presented to regulators arguing against thicker tank shells.

While Exxon was not at the roundtable, plenty of oil and rail industry representatives were, and they made this point very clear.

Gabe Claypool, President of oil train operators Dakota Plains, explained why it made economic sense to use CPC-1232s over DOT-117s.

“A lot of it’s economics as well…we were just having a conversation around the sizing of the car, the 1232 car type is very much in abundance and it is also a larger car. In the current category of still trying to be profitable, if I can get that extra volume in a larger car that is still regulatorally [sic] compliant, they’re [sic] gonna stick with that.”

Richard Kloster of rail consulting firm Alltranstek was one of the more vocal participants during the roundtable and he repeatedly made points about the economics of retrofitting the CPC-1232 over buying the new DOT-117 saying, “The retrofit is always going to win economically.”

Kloster also made it clear where the industry put its priorities when it came to safety versus profit saying, “There has got to be a balance between safety and the economic viability of moving these products by rail” and that there were a “lot of cases, you know, where economics wins all the time but risk trumps economics in some cases.”

Economics wins all the time.

There was one representative from labor at the roundtable who did not offer a comment until the final closing segment, but he also shared the reality of what was driving the decisionmaking when he discussed the need for safety but stated, “I know it’s about money.”

ExxonMobil Wins Again

So, in the end, ExxonMobil and the oil industry have won again. Watching this roundtable and the many congressional hearings and previous NTSB events in the past few years and seeing the lack of progress on real safety improvements, it almost seems like this all was orchestrated from the start.

In the years leading up to the latest tank car rulemaking, the industry essentially ordered a whole new fleet of CPC-1232 cars which they are currently using. The CPC-1232 cars have the thinner tank shells which makes them more prone to puncture and also more profitable. And they are ok to use, unchanged, until 2025. If the industry request is approved, those cars will just need new bottom outlet valves after 2025.

Regardless, they will always have the thinner tank shells, like Exxon wanted.

At the end of the July 13 event, Robert Sumwalt made an interesting statement. He said, “some of us met yesterday to go over the ground rules.”

The meeting where they went over the ground rules was not open to the public or media. If one were to hazard a guess as to what the first and foremost ground rule set was, it would be a safe bet to posit it was that “economics wins all the time.”

Blog Image Credit: Dawn Faught via NTSB

 

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs)

Feds Propose New Safety Oil Spill Response Plans and Information Sharing for High-Hazard Flammable Trains

By Roger Straw, July 20, 2016

Following are links to 4 sources with information about the PHMSA’s new proposed rules.  First from the PHMSA itself, then ThinkProgress, Bakken Magazine, and the California Association of Counties.

PHMSA Proposes New Safety Oil Spill Response Plans and Information Sharing for High-Hazard Flammable Trains

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration
By Artealia Gilliard, 7/13/16

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), today announced proposed regulations for Oil Spill Response Plans and Information Sharing for High-Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs) to improve oil spill response readiness and mitigate effects of rail incidents involving petroleum oil. The proposed rule would update and clarify the comprehensive oil spill response plan requirements for certain trains, and would require railroads to share information with state and tribal emergency response commissions to improve community preparedness for potential accidents. The rule would also incorporate a test method for initial boiling point for flammable liquids into the hazardous materials regulations. (continued…)

New Federal Rules Proposed for High-Hazard Flammable Trains

Calif. State Ass’n of Counties
By Karen Keene, Cara Martinson, 7/21/16

Two federal agencies are working on new regulations related to so-called “oil trains” that have become more common recently. The goal is to improve oil spill response readiness and mitigate effects of rail incidents involving petroleum oil.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced proposed regulations for Oil Spill Response Plans and Information Sharing for High-Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs).

The proposed rule would update and clarify the comprehensive oil spill response plan requirements for certain trains, and would require railroads to share information with state and tribal emergency response commissions to improve community preparedness for potential accidents.

According to the PHMSA announcement… (continued…)

New Oil Train Rules Would Force Railroad Companies To Plan For The Worst

ClimateProgress
By Natasha Geiling, 7/14/16 3:23 PM

A little over a month after a Union Pacific train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed outside of the tiny Oregon known of Mosier, the Department of Transportation has announced new rules aimed at ensuring that communities near oil train routes have adequate information and help in the event of an oil derailment.

The new rules would, among other things, require railroad companies that ship oil by rail to come up with response plans in case of a worst-case scenario oil spill — something that most railroad companies are not currently required to do.  (continued…)

PHMSA proposes new rules for high-hazard, flammable trains

The Bakken Magazine
By Patrick C. Miller, 7/20/16

In response to train derailments involving flammable oil, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) last week announced proposed regulations for oil spill response plans and the sharing of information with state and tribal governments.

PHMSA said the new regulations—aimed at high-hazard flammable trains (HHFT)—are intended to improve oil spill response readiness and mitigate effects of rail incidents involving petroleum oil. The effort is being coordinated with the Federal Railroad Administration.

“The substantial surge in our country’s production of crude oil is creating a serious need for improved response and communication between railroads and the communities through which they travel,” said Therese Dominguez, PHMSA administrator. “This rule would help to ensure that railroads provide vital information to first responders to help them prepare for and respond to a derailment involving crude.”  (continued…)