Category Archives: Federal Regulation (U.S.)

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fracking, Hazmat notification, High Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs), Let it burn, Rail routing, Risk Assessment, Tank car retirement, Tank car retrofit, Volatility

Emergency Management Magazine: The Ticking Rail Car

Repost from Emergency Management Magazine
[Editor:  An excellent online comment appears following this article: “Wultcom” writes, “As always it is heartening to see how first responders rise to the occasion to protect us all.  If only such heroism rubbed off just a little on the railroad industry.  The creation of courses for first responders is praiseworthy. But it does create a false sense of security, for when Bakken crude explodes, the force of the fire is too great to allow firefighters to get anywhere near it.  The first duty of government is to protect citizens, not shareholders.  The rail industry takes advantage of lax regulators, pro-business governments, frail labor unions, and our desire for oil independence to roll the dice on safety.  They run 150 ton tank cars on 8000 foot trains with skeletal crews, well dictated by the profit motive.  An alliance of railway workers, environmentalists, and blast zone citizens can force a safer method of transporting crude oil.”  – RS]

The Ticking Rail Car: First Responders Are Preparing for the Worst

Railways are now carrying highly explosive Bakken crude oil, making emergency managers’ jobs even tougher.

By Jim McKay | April 10, 2015
Train carrying Bakken crude oil
Millions of people are potentially at risk from trains like this one carrying Bakken crude oil. Flickr/Brewbooks

Emergency managers have been asked in recent years to do a lot more with fewer resources. That job got even tougher with the advent of oil shipments from the Bakken shale region of North Dakota via rail around the country.

Bakken is obtained by hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling, which has increased since 2000 and can be highly explosive. And there have been several train derailments recently, including one in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in July 2013 that killed 47 people.

In the U.S., a train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed in West Virginia on Feb. 16, 2015, sending orange flames skyward for days. There have been other derailments, and there’s concern of a scene like the one in Quebec happening in a major U.S. city, including those in Pennsylvania. A report by PublicSource said 1.5 million people are potentially at risk if a train carrying crude oil derails and catches fire there.

Emergency managers are concerned and doing what they can to mitigate a derailment and possible explosion in their backyards. There’s training available but questions remain: Do emergency managers have all the information they need? Can one locale handle an explosion caused by a 30,000-gallon oil tanker incident?

“From a people standpoint, the worst-case scenario is if you have one or more of these cars breach and start on fire,” said Rick Edinger, assistant chief of the Chesterfield County, Va., Fire and EMS Department and a hazardous materials expert. “There’s an ongoing debate about how volatile crude oil is. The feds and industry are coming to realize now that it really depends on where the oil comes from.”

Because of that and other reasons, it’s important to understand the nature of the product, according to Robert Gardner, technological hazards coordinator for the Maine Emergency Management Agency. Emergency managers should study lessons learned and best practices and have safety data sheets. This information should be part of a risk assessment that lets first responders develop agency-specific response protocols that ensure responder safety and accounts for those exposed to potential fire.

Regional planning groups such as local emergency planning committees should review the routes that trains may use and identify sensitive receptors like water supplies, fisheries or agricultural areas.

Good to Know

There’s ongoing debate about what information communities and emergency managers should know about train routes and shipments of crude.

“Flow studies have been around for a long time and that’s an old tool that could be applied to figure out what’s going through your community,” Edinger said. “You may not have it down to the gallon and the day, but you have a great sense of what’s coming through and frankly, from a hazmat standpoint, I don’t need to know a specific time, I just need to know the worst-case scenario.”

Gardner said that in terms of actual shipments, there’s never enough information available. “We may know when a unit over a million gallons may be coming or where they are traveling, but those trains carrying fewer than 30 cars become unknowns,” he wrote in an email.

Some railroads have systems in place that allow for real-time knowledge of what any particular train may be carrying and the tanks’ location in the train.

Gardner said planning for Bakken crude oil transport is no different from any other hazardous material or even natural gas because you have an assessment and understand what you’re planning for and the role of those involved. But he acknowledged that the volume of the product is a concern.

The biggest concern for many is that one or more cars loaded with crude breach can start a fire. “Once you get past anything the size of a 9,000-gallon oil tanker, very few departments have the resources or capability to mitigate anything bigger,” Edinger said. “If you’re talking about a 30,000-tank car incident, even that would be beyond the capabilities of most departments in the initial stages, anyway.”

New federal rules instituted last year require carriers to notify state emergency response commissions about the transport routes of cars carrying at least 1 million gallons of crude from Bakken. But some emergency managers say that doesn’t go far enough and doesn’t include the typical load of 30,000 gallons.

Training is available for mitigating such a circumstance, but managing the volume of an incident that size could be daunting, Edinger said. “With the exception of a couple of departments, most can’t afford to stock and maintain the resources you would need to even approach doing something with one of these incidents.”

Gardner said the local Maine railroads have worked to educate first responders on rail safety. “This is of particular importance as rail employees have the specific knowledge of cars and engines that not all responders have, but need [in order] to have a safe response.”

Need Some Help

Gardner said it would help if the railroads could assist with the cost of the “gap pieces” of response equipment that have been identified as needed through the assessments. “It would be an immense help to many of the small volunteer agencies that we have in Maine and throughout the nation,” he wrote.

An examination of the tank car fleet that carries flammable liquids may be necessary as well. Canada has banned certain cars that are known to be unsafe in crash situations, but the U.S. has lagged. Part of the reason is the price. It would cost up to $1 billion to retrofit all of the 300,000 DOT-111 tank cars in use and take years.

“The dialog is going in a good direction,” Edinger said. “There seems to be agreement within public safety and the rail industry that we can do better with the construction of cars and that will improve, and perhaps prevent some incidents from happening.”

Federal Regulation (U.S.), Keystone XL, Oil Industry, Pipeline transport, Tar sands crude, Tar sands invasion

NRDC video and petition: Stop the Tar Sands Invasion!

Repost from NRDC,com

Stop the Tar Sands Invasion!

Big Oil’s Plan Will Destroy Songbird Habitat, Fuel Global Warming and Threaten Our Drinking Water.


The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline was only the beginning. Big Oil has a much bigger plan to triple the production of climate-wrecking tar sands oil in Canada and send as much as 6 million barrels a day gushing into America. But this Tar Sands Invasion can be stopped — if we act now. Urge President Obama to repel Big Oil’s full-blown tar sands assault and protect our natural heritage, our communities and our climate from the dangers of filthy tar sands oil.

Make Your Voice Heard! – Sign the NRDC Petition
Your petition will be sent to:  President Barack Obama
Subject line:  Protect us from dirty tar sands oil

Dear President Obama

Thank you for vetoing the bill that would have forced approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Now, your State Department is about to issue its final decision that will determine whether this climate-wrecking pipeline is in America’s national interest.

There is clear and compelling evidence that the Keystone XL will drive significantly more global warming pollution and more climate chaos. In short, it fails your climate test and should be rejected. In addition, piping the dirtiest oil on the planet through the heart of America would endanger our farms, our communities and our water supplies — all while worsening our dependence on fossil fuels and providing very few permanent jobs. That is absolutely not in our national interest.

Thank you for keeping your promise to veto any legislation that would have green lighted the Keystone XL. I urge you to stand strong against pressure from the oil industry and their allies in Congress by rejecting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline once and for all.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Local Regulation, Rail Safety, Reid vapor pressure levels, State regulation, Volatility

Davis Enterprise: Garamendi calls for greater Bakken oil-by-rail safety

Repost from The Davis Enterprise
[Editor:  Significant quote: “‘DOT began working on updated rules in April of 2012 and from 2006 to April of 2014, a total of 281 tank cars derailed in the U.S. and Canada, claiming 48 lives and releasing almost 5 million gallons of crude and ethanol,’ the letter reads.  ‘Serious crude-carrying train incidents are occurring once every seven weeks on average, and a DOT report predicts that trains hauling crude oil or ethanol will derail an average of 10 times a year over the next two decades, causing billions of dollars in damage and possibly costing hundreds of lives.'”   That said, Mayor Wolk joined the long list of officials who say they don’t want to STOP oil trains, only make them “safer.”  Good luck.  More photos here.  – RS]

Garamendi calls for greater Bakken oil-by-rail safety

By Dave Ryan, April 9, 2015
Rail1W
Davis Mayor Dan Wolk speaks at a news conference Wednesday organized by Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, to promote the congressman’s legislation that aims to reduce the volatility of Bakken crude oil. As many as 100 tank cars filled with the volatile oil could come through Davis every day if a proposed Valero oil refinery expansion is OK’d. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo

Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, called for less volatile Bakken crude oil — which is transported across the country by rail — on Wednesday morning, using the backdrop of the Davis Amtrak station to drive his point home.

Garamendi introduced the Bakken Crude Stabilization Act on March 26 in a bid to protect what he said are 16 million Americans living and working near railroad shipment lines. If approved, the bill will require lower vapor pressure for transported Bakken crude to reduce its volatility, a practice currently required in Texas and to some degree in North Dakota.

An oil tanker rumbles past the Davis train depot at Second and H streets Wednesday morning, interrupting a news conference organized by Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, to address oil-by-rail safety. Sue Cockrell/ Enterprise photo

Vapors like propane and butane add to the unstable nature of Bakken crude during train derailments.

On Wednesday, Garamendi and other government officials explained why requiring more safety for railroad tank cars is essential to communities along rail lines like Davis and Fairfield, should there be an explosion. As if on cue, freight trains carrying black tank cars rumbled by as Garamendi spoke.

“You’d wipe out downtown Davis and possibly hundreds of people,” he said, adding that stripping out volatile vapors would prevent a fireball rising what he said was a hundred feet in the air.

Solano County Supervisor Skip Thomson said there are refineries and pipelines in his county, but also populations along rail lines and an environmentally sensitive marshland.

“If we de-gas the oil, that is a huge thing for safety,” Thomson said. “We need to ask that legislation be passed. … We need to move this quickly.”

Environmental groups say Bakken crude oil is transported through Yolo and Solano counties along Union Pacific Railroad lines that run through Davis, Dixon, Fairfield and Suisun City on their way to the Valero oil refinery in Benicia. A proposal is pending before the Benicia City Council that could increase the number of rail tank cars moving through those cities, increasing shipments to about 70,000 barrels of oil a day in two, 50-car-long shipments.

So-called “up-rail” community groups are fighting the proposal, and local governments in Yolo and Solano counties are working for better safety and oversight of the Valero project, which is still in the environmental review process.

Davis Mayor Dan Wolk said local agencies’ goal in the Valero project is not to stop commerce, but to ensure that adequate safety measures are in place.

Meanwhile, at the state level, a warren of rules protecting rail commerce prohibit states and localities from enacting restrictions on rail traffic, leading to calls for the federal government to step in.

However, laws protecting railroads, some more than a century old, ensure that railroads have a strong hand in approving any new regulations that the federal Department of Transportation or the Federal Railroad Administration may impose on their industry. Most regulations are created by consensus with the railroads.

Garamendi said a legislative approach is the quickest way to get the railroads to implement safety standards.

“Every day we delay the implementation of a stronger safety standard for the transport of Bakken crude oil by rail, lives and communities are at risk,” the congressman said in a prepared statement released at the news conference.

“We need the federal government to step in and ensure that the vapor pressure of transported crude oil is lower, making it more stable and safer to transport. We also need to upgrade and ensure the maintenance of rail lines, tank cars, brake systems and our emergency response plans.”

Getting railroads to help beef up local safety planning is a big part of what state and local governments are trying to wring out of the rail industry. One key demand is to get the railroads to disclose to emergency first responders what is inside their tank cars.

In a March 3 letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation written by Garamendi and Congresswoman Doris Matsui, D- Sacramento, the pair said the need for safer train cars has long been documented and is overdue.

“DOT began working on updated rules in April of 2012 and from 2006 to April of 2014, a total of 281 tank cars derailed in the U.S. and Canada, claiming 48 lives and releasing almost 5 million gallons of crude and ethanol,” the letter reads.

“Serious crude-carrying train incidents are occurring once every seven weeks on average, and a DOT report predicts that trains hauling crude oil or ethanol will derail an average of 10 times a year over the next two decades, causing billions of dollars in damage and possibly costing hundreds of lives.”

Asked Wednesday what the chances are of a railroad safety bill passing through a Republican-controlled Congress, Garamendi said “excellent,” evoking some chuckles from other government officials standing by.