Category Archives: Federal Regulation (U.S.)

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Tank car retirement, Tank car retrofit, Train inspection, Train length, Train speed

Feds tighten safeguards for oil trains, Illinois officials want more

Repost from The Daily Herald, Suburban Chicago

Feds tighten safeguards for oil trains, advocates want more

By Marni Pyke, 4/17/2015 5:38 PM
Federal regulators are tightening some rules on transport of flammable liquids in tank cars.
Federal regulators are tightening some rules on transport of flammable liquids in tank cars. Bev Horne | Staff Photographer, December 2014

Federal regulators’ tweaks to rules for trains carrying flammable liquids released Friday didn’t impress local officials who are concerned about explosive fires.

“I’m fairly underwhelmed,” Barrington Mayor Karen Darch said regarding the recommendations by the Federal Railroad Administration and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The two agencies did act on one concern of suburban fire departments that first-responders wouldn’t get information on hazmat being shipped in a timely manner in cases of derailments or fires.

Regulators advised railroads and shippers they must provide first responders immediately with names and descriptions of hazardous materials, fire risks and the locations of tank cars on the train and their specifications, among other details.

Another recommendation was that “only the highest skilled inspectors” conduct brake and mechanical inspections of trains carrying large quantities of flammable liquids, including crude oil and ethanol.

“That struck me as incredibly odd,” Darch said, noting she was under the impression only well-qualified inspectors would be used in the first place given the volatility of some cargo on oil trains.

Regulators also issued an emergency order requiring trains with 20 or more continuous tank cars or 35 or more tank cars with Class 3 flammable liquids like crude oil stay at 40 mph or lower in urban areas.

Darch said restricting the speed limits to trains with 20 or 35 tank cars of flammable hazmat didn’t cover safety concerns when freights had smaller loads.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin called the changes “steps in the right direction, but they are not enough. We have to move to a new generation of tank cars that bring a new generation of safety. We are seeing the use of these tank cars moving crude oil in dramatically large numbers through rural and urban areas.”

Durbin is asking regulators to finalize new rules ordering retrofitting and replacement of older, accident-prone tank cars.

Since Feb. 16, four derailments of trains carrying crude oil with subsequent fire balls have occurred in the United States and Canada. One involved tank cars on a BNSF train outside of Galena March 5.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, Tank car maintenance, Train length, Train speed

Lower Speed Limits Part of U.S. Safety Proposal for Oil Trains

Repost from Bloomberg
[Editor:  See also:  OregonLive, Minnesota Public Radio, U.S. News & World Report, others….  – RS]

Lower Speed Limits Part of U.S. Safety Proposal for Oil Trains

by Jim Snyder, April 17, 2015 10:00 AM PDT

Trains carrying crude oil will be restricted to a 40 mile-per-hour speed limit in populated areas such as New York under an order by the U.S. Department of Transportation in response to a series of derailments. Railroads voluntarily agreed to that speed limit in so-called High Threat Urban Areas, a designation that covers more than three dozen cities, including New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington. The emergency order issued Friday makes that agreement mandatory for all railroads hauling 20 or more tank cars linked together or 35 cars in total that are filled with oil or other flammable liquids. It applies to both older model DOT-111 tank cars and CPC-1232s the industry has been voluntarily building since 2011. “This order is necessary due to the recent occurrence of railroad accidents involving trains transporting petroleum crude oil and ethanol and the increasing reliance on railroads to transport voluminous amounts of those hazardous material in recent years,” the notice states. The White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing a proposal from the Transportation Department that would require a more durable type of tank car be used to transport oil and other flammable liquids. That rule may be released next month. A draft of that rule calls for tank cars with a thicker steel shell, more robust top fittings and better brakes.

Quebec Disaster

Questions about the safety of the growing fleet of trains carrying oil arose after an unattended train broke from its moorings in 2013 and rolled into Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people. This year, oil trains have derailed in Ontario and in West Virginia and Illinois, creating dramatic images of fireballs billowing from rumpled tank cars. The Transportation Department also issued a notice Friday to ensure railroads provide information to investigators after an accident within 90 minutes, including about the volatility of the oil being hauled and the type of rail car in the train. Investigators suspect an accident last month in Galena, Illinois, was related to a broken wheel, and in another step announced today, the Transportation Department recommended tighter standards for replacing wheels than the industry currently observes. Railroads should “provide special attention” to the condition of the tank cars they haul, the order states.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fire, Outlet valves

McClatchy Exclusive: Report details causes of West Virginia oil train fire

Repost from McClatchyDC News

Rail defect, tank car valves implicated in West Virginia oil train fire

By Curtis Tate,  April 16, 2015

WASHINGTON — Outlet valves underneath four tank cars in a February oil train derailment in West Virginia were sheared off and the 50,000 gallons of crude oil they released ignited in a fire that subsequently caused several nearby rail cars to explode, according to a federal report.

The report also identified the initial cause of the Feb. 16 derailment in Mount Carbon, W.Va., as a broken rail on track owned and maintained by CSX and said more than 362,000 gallons of crude oil were released. The fires and explosions from the derailment kept 300 residents away from their homes.

The report, which appeared Thursday in the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s hazardous materials incident database, highlights another issue with the design of the tank cars used to carry crude oil and their ability to resist damage from derailments and fire exposure.

The Mount Carbon derailment was one of four oil train derailments since the beginning of the year that resulted in large fires. On March 5, an oil train operated by BNSF derailed near Galena, Ill. Two other oil trains derailed in Ontario on Canadian National, one in February and one in March.

Last week, the National Transportation Safety Board issued recommendations that tank cars used to transport flammable liquids must have thermal insulation to protect them from the kind of fire exposure that can result in explosions.

Federal regulations require tank cars to survive 100 minutes of fire exposure. However, eight tank cars failed within 90 minutes after the derailment, their contents exploding in giant fireballs, according to the NTSB.

The NTSB recommendations did not address the apparent cause of the initial fire: the failure of the bottom valves on the cars used in unloading.

A set of new regulations on tank car construction the government may release in the next few weeks include requirements to remove bottom valve handles or to protect them from opening in a derailment. But they would not require the valves’ removal altogether.

Removing the valves would mean expensive modifications at unloading facilities that have popped up across the country as a surge in energy production has moved by rail in recent years.

Members of Congress impatient with the pace at which new regulations have moved have begun introducing legislation to require more robust tank car construction. Regulators and lawmakers also are pushing for increased track inspections.

The particular type of internal defect that led to the broken rail in West Virginia, called a vertical split head, can be difficult to detect with a visual inspection, according to Sperry, a company that makes vehicles that perform ultrasonic rail inspections.

Federal law requires that railroads inspect most mainline track twice a week, with at least one calendar day between inspections. A CSX regional vice president told reporters a day after the derailment that the track in Mount Carbon had been inspected three days earlier.

Rob Doolittle, a CSX spokesman, said in an email Thursday that the company looked forward to learning more about the Federal Railroad Administration’s accident investigation.

“Safety is CSX’s highest priority and we carefully evaluate the ascribed cause of each incident to apply whatever lessons are available to make our operations safer,” he said.

Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Tank car retirement, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail, Volatility

Vallejo Times-Herald: Thompson introduces act addressing crude by rail

Repost from The Vallejo Times-Herald
[Editor:  See also coverage in McClatchyDC News.  – RS]

Thompson introduces act addressing crude by rail

By Irma Widjojo, 04/15/15, 8:06 PM PDT

Another bill concerning the transportation of crude oil by rail was introduced Wednesday, following at least two others in the past month. With a pending Valero Refinery crude-by-rail project in the works, concerned Benicians and activists said though they acknowledge the effort in the bill, they’d like to see more.

U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, coauthored the Crude-By-Rail Safety Act, which would “establish new, common sense federal safety standards for railcars transporting oil across the country,” according to a release from Thompson’s office.

The act would take on a number of factors, including maximum volatility standard for crude oil transported by rail, higher fines for violating volatility standards and hazmat transport standards. The act will also seek to remove 37,700 unsafe cars off the rail network and recommend other measures to increase the safety of crude by rail.

“Public safety is priority No. 1 when it comes to transporting highly volatile crude oil,” Thompson said in the release.

There have been four derailments of trains carrying crude oil in the United States and Canada in under a month earlier this year — in Illinois, West Virginia and twice in Ontario.

Thompson said he has been working on the Crude-By-Rail Safety Act for about a year. The proposed legislation was also authored by Reps. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, Ron Kind, D-Wis., and Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and Nita Lowey, D-NY.

“Folks in the district had concerns,” he said. “Explosions have people worried.”

The bill will still have to go through its due process before it could get signed into law, and that could take some time.

Activists said these procedures won’t come in time before another possible disaster strikes.

Marilyn Bardet, a Benicia resident and environmental activist, said that even if the policy was put in place, it wouldn’t be done before the pending Valero’s Crude-by-Rail project is underway.

“That is a huge concern,” Bardet said. “Valero talks about their safety record, but they are talking about the safety of the refinery. This is really the project of the railroad.”

Benicia is currently processing the use permit and Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the project. The Recirculated Draft EIR is anticipated to be released for public comment June 30. It will have a 45-day comment period. After the comment period closes, the city will complete the final version, which will include responses to all comments.

Bardet said she’s glad to see an effort from congress to address the Department of Transportation and the issue, but said from her initial perusing of the act she found that there were missing components to it.

A few of her concerns that are not mentioned in the proposed act are speed reduction, plans on dealing with explosions and derailment in remote areas and the safety of bridges.

“There are derailments on a regular basis, and historically they have not been shipping oil in hundreds and hundreds of (train) cars across the country,” Bardet said. “They are doing this at the risk of people’s safety and the environment.”

A spokesman for Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, an advocate group against the crude-by-rail project, agreed with Bardet’s sentiment.

“In general we’re glad to see our federal representatives are paying attention to the critical issue that impact communities around the country,” Andrés Soto said.

However, Soto is doubting the passage of the bill.

“I think that there’s going to be a major challenge to get this legislation passed,” he said, adding that he would like to see more transparency from the refineries and railroad companies.

Thompson said he doesn’t know if he’s going to be met with pushbacks on the proposed bill.

“I’m trying to do what’s right, and not what’s easy,” he said.

Soto said the only way to ensure the community’s safety before a policy is set is by having a national moratorium on the transportation of these crude oils, especially of more volatile kinds like Bakken shale oil.

Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, an outspoken advocate of rail safety, calls the bill “a good start” and is “a comprehensive way to address rail safety.”

Speaking in a general context of the issue, Patterson said she is glad to see that “the dots have been connected between the issue of volatility of some of the products and transportation.”

She shared some of the few questions that the activists had, including waiting for a set of standards.

“What’s the rush?” Patterson said. “Why not take some time out and get our house in order in terms of federal regulations, and the response to accidents?”

She also said she would like to see funding in place for the response to accidents and training for local governments and public safety personnel.

“The response equipment doesn’t exist in most routes,” Patterson said. “The funding needs to be there.”

Paterson acknowledged that the bill is still in its early stages.

“I imagine there would be a lot of comments,” she said. “It’s a good first start, I wouldn’t want to see anything less. It shows that (Thompson) has been listening to the public, and he’s responded.”

To read the proposed act, visit mcdermott.house.gov/images/pdf/crudebyrailsafetyct.pdf.

A similar senate bill was also introduced last month by Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Patty Murray, D-Wash., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Solano, also authored a legislation, H.R. 1679, in March, which would prohibit the transport of crude-by-rail unless authorities have reduced the volatile gases in the oil prior to transportation.