How This U.S. Rail Safety Measure Has Been Delayed for 44 Years … And Counting
2014-04-30 | Justin Mikulka
On August 20, 1969, two Penn Central commuter trains collided head-on near Darien, Conn. Four people were killed and 43 were injured. The crash led the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to recommend that railroads implement new safety technology called positive train control — a system for monitoring and controlling train movements to increase safety.
The NTSB first recommended positive train control in 1970. In 2008, after another fatal train collision that killed 25 people, Congress finally passed the Rail Safety Improvement Act, which mandated positive train control be implemented by the railroad industry by the end of 2015.
Fast-forward another six years to multiple congressional hearings in recent months, during which the railroads have informed Congress that positive train control simply won’t be implemented by the end of 2015. It’s been 44 years since the NTSB first recommended positive train control to improve rail safety in the U.S. and it is still not being used.
Looking at the way the positive train control scenario has played out for the past 44 years offers valuable lessons on how the U.S. is now dealing with safety regulations for shipping oil by rail.
Last week, the NTSB held a two-day forum on rail safety regarding the transportation of crude oil and ethanol. One of the main topics was how to improve rail tank car safety and what to do with the DOT-111 tank cars currently being used to ship crude oil and ethanol.
Much like positive train control, the NTSB has been recommending for decades that the DOT-111 tank cars not be used for ethanol and crude oil transportation due to the high risks they pose in derailments.
So why hasn’t anything been done? Mostly because of opposition by oil and gas industry groups, such as the American Petroleum Institute (API). The API was a constant presence at last week’s rail safety forum, just as it has been at congressional hearings on rail safety this year. A recent Reuter’s article alluded to the problem:
“Industry sources say compromise has been difficult among stakeholders with different concerns such as costs and whether an overly bulky model might limit cargoes.”
Basically, API is opposed to making changes to the rail tank cars because safety cuts into profits. Even NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman pointed to the profit motive in an interview with NPR on April 25th. Hersman said, “Absolutely. Follow the money. It all comes back to the money.”
And the reality is that API’s members don’t have to worry about paying for accidents caused by using these unsafe DOT-111 cars. The current estimate for what it will cost to clean up and rebuild from the oil train accident in Lac-Megantic, Que., is $2.7 billion, which will be paid by Canadian taxpayers, not by oil or rail companies.
During the recent rail safety forum, the NTSB’s Hersman asked Lee Johnson of the American Petroleum Institute: “Given the rates that we heard earlier for production and the needs of your members how long do you think we are going to see DOT-111 tank cars to continue to exist in the fleet and at what rate percentage?”
As you can see in the video, it was an instructive exchange. Surely, the question of how much longer unsafe tank cars will be transporting explosive substances through U.S. communities should be directed to regulators, not oil companies?
After estimating the DOT-111s will be in use for at least another decade, Hersman states: “You’re not making me feel very optimistic, Mr. Johnson.”
It’s doubtful the American public feels very optimistic either when the person in charge of the board tasked with transportation safety is asking the American Petroleum Institute, tasked with representing the oil and gas industry, how much longer unsafe tank cars will be allowed on American railways.
Photo: Chairman Deborah Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board via Flickr
Repost from DESMOGBLOG.COM [Editor: The map has some errors, but overall this is a great report and an important contribution in understanding the massive scope of the oil train boom. – RS]
Interactive Map and Report on Oil-By-Rail, “Booming Bomb Train Industry”
The report and interactive map of the “booming bomb train industry” capture the alarming scope of this very recent development. As the report points out, 70 times as much oil was moved by rail in 2014 as there was in 2005. That rapid expansion is continuing, placing more North American communities at risk.
“This analysis shows just how out of control the oil industry is in North America today. Regulators are unable to keep up with the industry’s expansion-at-any-cost mentality, and public safety is playing second fiddle to industry profits,” said Lorne Stockman, Research Director of Oil Change International and author of the report.
According to the report, Runaway Train: The Reckless Expansion of Crude By Rail in North America, approximately one million barrels of oil per day are moved on 135 trains of 100 cars or more each day in America. If all of the currently planned development of oil-by-rail facilities occurs, the full capacity to move oil would be five times that amount.
“This is what the All of the Above Energy Strategy looks like – a runaway train headed straight for North American communities,” Stockman said.
This massive investment by the oil and rail industries to expand their capacity to move oil by rail is one of the main reasons that improving oil-by-rail safety is unlikely when it comes to the unsafe DOT-111 tank cars. These cars currently make up approximately 70% of the oil-by-rail tank car fleet and there is currently a two to three year waiting list for companies wanting new tank cars.
The planned expansion of the oil-by-rail industry is simply impossible without the existing DOT-111 cars. In 2013 this point was made by an industry analyst:
“People who want to ship oil can’t get them,” Toby Kolstad, president of the consultant firm Rail Theory Forecasts LLC said. “They’re desperate to get anything to move crude oil.”
Without the oil-by-rail transportation option, the Bakken Shale oil would have no way to get to market. Despite the fact that the DOT-111 cars are inadequate and the Bakken crude is more explosive, the industry continues to rapidly expand with no new regulations.
The planned expansion of the industry and the current known capacity restraints help explain the recent public relations effort by the oil industry to dismiss any safety concerns.
Last week, the North Dakota Petroleum Council released a new study that said Bakken crude was “comparable in volatility to gas-rich oils from other shale formations in other regions.”
Which is true. However, in other regions, like the Eagle Ford formation in Texas, the natural gas liquids are stripped from that oil before being shipped by rail which greatly reduces the danger of explosion.
“As the standards are today for flammable liquids, Bakken crude fits right in, and the DOT-111 cars should be fine”
These claims are being made despite testimony by Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board calling the DOT-111’s an “unacceptable public risk” when used to transport Bakken crude.
Last week, the White House announced that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) will be proposing new oil-by-rail regulations in July. However, this will just be a proposal and the beginning of a likely contentious political battle about these regulations. No one expects any new regulations before 2015. Meanwhile, the industry continues its expansion plans.
In July, at the same time PHMSA is expected to announce its proposed new regulations for the oil-by-rail industry, activists across the country are planning a week of action. Starting on July 6th, the anniversary of the deadly explosion in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, the “Oil by Rail week of action” will highlight opposition to the shipping of oil by rail through communities and remember the victims of that first Bakken crude oil explosion.
In Lac-Megantic, there is little good news. The town is facing years of clean-up and reconstruction, and billions of dollars of expenses to deal with that disaster. Recently, Réjean Roy, whose daughter died in that accident, talked about the reality of Lac-Megantic’s current situation and their need to try to revive the town’s tourism industry.
“We need it for my town, because my town is dying. If we do nothing to attract tourists here, the town will die.”
A town will die. But the oil-by-rail industry is booming and regulations are not coming any time soon. It will take a huge public outcry to change that.
“Communities are already waking up to the dangers of oil trains barreling through their backyards, with spills, explosions and derailments happening all too often. This report and online tool will help provide the critical information that’s been sorely missing in order to shine a light on what’s really going on, and to help stop the runaway train of crude-by-rail in its tracks before more damage is done.”
[Editor: In an exclusive interview, the Benicia Herald details the historical background on Thompson’s response to the catastrophic derailment and spill in Dunsmuir, CA in 1991. Note that Thompson is reported to have met with Valero and other area refinery and train safety officials. He has proposed legislation that would involve federal intelligence oversight to guard against security threats on hazmat tank cars. – RS]
Congressman on Crude-by-Rail plan: ‘Make sure it’s done safely’
May 25, 2014 by Donna Beth Weilenman
MIKE THOMPSON – watchsonomacounty.com
When it comes to looking at the dangers posed by transport of hazardous materials, “it’s not just Benicia,” U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson said Friday in an exclusive interview with The Herald.
And it’s not just since the opening of the Bakken oil fields made a light, sweet and more combustible crude oil available domestically, particularly by rail delivery.
Nor has Thompson been following these developments only since the the deadly train explosion last year that killed 47 in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada, or the April 30 derailment in Lynchburg, Va., that poured 30,000 gallons of crude into the James River.
His interest was sparked nearly a quarter century ago, and it’s why he said the proposed Valero Crude By Rail project “must be done right.”
In 1991, the small California resort town of Dunsmuir experienced its own toxic spill when a Southern Pacific train derailed nearby, spilling 19,000 gallons of a soil fumigant that killed more than a million fish and millions of other animals, from crayfish and amphibians to insects and mollusks.
Hundreds of thousands of trees were killed as well, and the chemical metam sodium left a 41-mile plume from the spill site to where the river enters Shasta Lake.
The disaster still ranks as California’s largest hazardous chemical spill. Many species still haven’t recovered from the spill, though fish populations have returned to normal.
At the time of the spill, Thompson was a state senator. Dunsmuir, in Siskiyou County, was in his district.
As a result of the devastating spill, he drafted legislation, Senate Bill 48, that became Chapter 766 of California’s Statutes of 1991. The bill founded the Railroad Accident Prevention and Immediate Deployment (RAPID) Force, which cooperates with existing agencies to respond to large-scale releases of toxic materials after surface transportation accidents.
The statute also ordered the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) to develop a statewide plan in cooperation with the state fire marshal, businesses that would be impacted by the requirement and agencies in the RAPID Force. For a time, it also raised money through fees to supply responders with necessary equipment to tackle such emergencies.
Under the statute, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, CalFire, the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services made interagency agreements so resources could be managed efficiently in preparing for or acting during an emergency.
That RAPID plan has multiple policies and directions to any agency or business in the event of a railroad accident, so the damage to public health and the environment is minimized.
Hazardous materials (hazmat) teams were formed, and regional training centers were established to provide certificate-level education, specifically in hazmat railcar safety and other specialist training to emergency responders.
“My legislation set the standard for railroad safety,” said Thompson, Benicia’s representative in the House. “It included grant money so safety officials would have the equipment for spill cleanup.”
More than a year ago, Valero Benicia Refinery applied to extend Union Pacific rail lines on its property so crude could be brought in by rail. This isn’t additional oil; it would replace some of the oil that currently is brought in by tanker ships or other methods.
A draft Environmental Impact Report on the project is due to be released June 10.
But trains already bring hazardous materials through other areas of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Thompson said he has met not only with officials from Valero, but other area refineries about rail delivery of oil.
“They’re here,” he said about the refineries. “Their employees live in the community.”
That doesn’t mean the safety factors aren’t being reviewed, he said. One is the design of the oil containers that are drawn by locomotives.
Though BNSF Railway has announced it’s seeking contractors to provide tanker cars that exceed federal safety standards, that’s an unusual step for a railroad company to take because of how contracting with a railroad works.
Normally railroads don’t own their own cars, according to rail officials for both BNSF and Union Pacific Railroad: Customers either lease or own them, then contract railroad lines to move their products.
Thompson said he has had conversations about construction of those cars, with one person telling him that if rail cars are carrying products that can harm people or the environment, they should be strong enough to fall off a cliff and not break.
It isn’t practical to armor a car or make its walls so thick it can carry little inside, he conceded. But he added, “They do need to be as safe as they possibly can, to protect public safety and the environment and wildlife.”
The Association of American Railroads and its Tank Car Committee has issued a statement saying that it petitioned the U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) in 2011 to strengthen the standard, non-pressure tanker car, called a DOT-111.
Those cars make up 228,000 of the 335,000 active fleet tank cars, and AAR’s statement said about 92,000 DOT-111s carry flammable liquids, including crude and ethanol.
When no federal action was taken on its request, AAR itself adopted higher standards for reinforcing flammable liquid-carrying tank cars that are ordered after Oct. 1, 2011.
AAR then reiterated in 2013 its request for the federal government to enact stricter regulations, and has said the oil companies that contract with railroads have resisted spending money on the stronger rail cars.
“There’s always pushback,” said Thompson, referring to any new or strengthening of regulations or raising of standards, and not just concerning tanker cars.
As for Valero’s specific Benicia project as well as crude delivery by rail in general, Thompson said, “I want to make sure it’s done safely, so damage is minimal, if not nonexistent.
“There is risk in everything,” he said, noting that there are risks as well when trucks, ships and pipelines transport oil.
He cited as examples such ship spills as the Exxon Valdez in Alaska and the Shell Oil pipeline break that sent oil into the Gulf of Mexico in April. He described how he went to inspect the latter incident.
He said he’s also met with area train safety officials, who told him about the safety detectors designed to spot irregularities on the rails.
“We walked the track,” he said.
But there still are questions whether such transport is safe enough, and Thompson said he’s submitted to rail safety officials questions posed by Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson.
As a member of the U.S. House, Thompson said he has also authored an amendment to a recent bill that also addresses rail safety.
He cited an example of one of his “walk the track” visits, when he saw rail tanker cars that were parked on a siding.
The cars were illustrated in graffiti.
Thompson said he has discussed this with federal rail safety officials, not as a vandalism problem, but as evidence of a lapse in security.
His legislation requires intelligence experts to be involved in looking at refineries, too, so that shipments by rail are secure against such violent activity.
While some refinery staff members have told Thompson that safety is being handled internally, without the need for federal involvement, he countered their objection by telling them about the tagged tankers.
“If there’s time to put graffiti on them, there’s time to put a bomb on them,” he said.
Repost from the Bakersfield Californian [Editor: this is a MUST READ article, a comprehensive and graphic description of first-responder requirements and readiness. Someone needs to interview first responders in each of our Bay Area refinery towns, ask every single question referenced in this article, and lay out similar scenarios for the all-too-imaginable catastrophes that threaten our communities. – RS]
Increased oil train traffic raises potential for safety challenges
By John Cox, Californian staff writer | May 17, 2014
Bakersfield High School is seen in the background behind the rail cars that go through town as viewed from the overpass on Oak Street. By Casey Christie / The Californian
First responders think of the rail yard by Bakersfield High School when they envision the worst-case scenario in Kern County’s drive to become a major destination for Midwestern oil trains. If a derailment there punctures and ignites a string of tank cars, the fireball’s heat will be felt a mile away and flames will be a hundred feet high. Thick acrid black smoke will cover an area from downtown to Valley Plaza mall. Burning oil will flow through storm drains and sewers, possibly shooting flames up through manholes.
Some 3,000 BHS students and staff would have to be evacuated immediately. Depending on how many tank cars ignite, whole neighborhoods may have to be cleared, including patients and employees at 194-bed Mercy Hospital. State and county fire officials say local 911 call centers will be inundated, and overtaxed city and county firefighters, police and emergency medical services will have to call for help from neighboring counties and state agencies.
While the potential for such an accident has sparked urgency around the state and the country, it has attracted little notice locally — despite two ongoing oil car offloading projects that would push Kern from its current average of receiving a single mile-long oil train delivery about once a month, to one every six hours.
One project is Dallas-based Alon USA Energy Inc.’s proposed oil car offloading facility at the company’s Rosedale Highway refinery. The other is being developed near Taft by Plains All American Pipeline LP, based in Houston.
Kern’s two projects, and three others proposed around the state, would greatly reduce California’s thirst for foreign crude. State energy officials say the five projects should increase the amount of crude California gets by rail from less than 1 percent of the state’s supply last year to nearly a quarter by 2016.
But officials who have studied the BHS derailment scenario say more time and money should be invested in coordinated drills and additional equipment to prepare for what could be a uniquely difficult and potentially disastrous oil accident.
Bakersfield High Principal David Reese met late last year with representatives of Alon, which hopes to start bringing mile-long “unit trains” — two per day — through the rail yard near campus.
He said Alon’s people told him about plans for double-lined tank cars and other safety measures “to make me feel better” about the project. But he still worries.
“I told them, ‘You may assure me but I continue to be concerned about the safety of my students and staff with any new (rail) project that comes within the vicinity of the school,'” he said.
Alon declined to comment for this story.
Both projects aim to capitalize on the current price difference between light crude on the global market and Bakken Shale oil found in and around North Dakota. Thanks to the nation’s shale boom, the Midwest’s ability to produce oil has outpaced its capacity to transport it cheaper and more safely by pipeline. The resulting overabundance has depressed prices and prompted more train shipments.
There are no oil pipelines over the Rockies; rail is the next best mode of shipping oil to the West Coast. Kern County is viewed as an ideal place for offloading crude because of its oil infrastructure and experience with energy projects. Two facilities are proposed in Northern California, in Beniciaand Pittsburg; [emphasis added] the other would be to the south, in Wilmington.
A local refinery, Kern Oil & Refining Co., has accepted Bakken oil at its East Panama Lane plant since at least 2012. The California Energy Commission says Kern Oil receives one unit train every four to six weeks.
NATIONAL CHANGES
Shipments of Bakken present special safety concerns. The oil has been found to be highly volatile, and the common mode of transporting it — in quick-loading trains of 100 or more cars carrying more than 3 million gallons per shipment — rules out the traditional safety practice of placing an inert car as a buffer between two containing dangerous materials.
The dangers of shipping Bakken crude by unit train have been evident in several fiery derailments over the past year. One in July in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada, killed 47 people and destroyed 30 buildings when a 74-car runaway train jumped the tracks at 63 mph.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said 99.9 percent of U.S. oil rail cars reached their destination without incident last year. Two of its divisions, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, have issued emergency orders, safety advisories and special inspections relating to oil car shipments. New rules on tank car standards and operational controls for “high-hazard flammable trains” are in the federal pipeline.
Locally operating companies Union Pacific Railroad Co. and BNSF Railway Co. signed an agreement with the DOT to voluntarily lower train speeds, have more frequent inspections, make new investments in brake technology and conduct additional first-responder training.
Until new federal rules take effect next year, railroads can only urge their customers to use tank cars meeting the higher standards.
“UP does not choose the tank car,” Union Pacific spokesman Aaron Hunt wrote in an email. “We encourage our shippers to retrofit or phase out older cars.”
The San Joaquin Valley Railroad Co., owned by Connecticut-based Genesee & Wyoming Inc., is a short line that carries Kern Oil’s oil shipments and would serve the Plains project but not Alon’s. A spokesman said SJVR is working with the larger railroads to upgrade its line, and the company inspects tracks ahead of every unit train arrival, among other measures designed just for oil shipments.
STATE LEVEL PROPOSALS
Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed a big change in the way California protects against and responds to oil spills.
His 2014-15 budget calls for $6.7 million in new spending on the state’s Oil Spill Prevention and Administration Fund to add 38 inland positions, a 15 percent staffing increase. Currently the agency focuses on ocean shipments, which have been the norm for out-of-state oil deliveries in California.
To help pay for the expansion, Brown wants to expand a 6.5 cent-per-barrel fee to not only marine terminals but all oil headed for California refineries.
“We’ll have a more robust response capability,” said Thomas Cullen, an administrator at the Office of Spill Prevention and Response, which is within the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
A representative of the oil trade group Western States Petroleum Association criticized the proposal March 19 at a legislative joint hearing in Sacramento. Lobbyist Ed Manning said OSPR lacks inland reach, and that giving such responsibilities to an agency with primarily marine experience “doesn’t really respond to the problem.”
WSPA President Catherine Reheis-Boyd has emphasized the group has not taken a position on Brown’s OSPR proposal.
Also at the state capitol, Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, has forwarded legislation requiring railroads to give first responders more information about incoming oil shipments and publicly share spill contingency plans. The bill, AB 380, would also direct state grants toward local contingency planning and training. It is pending before the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.
LOCAL PREPARATIONS
In recent years Kern County has conducted large-scale, multi-agency emergency drills to prepare for an earthquake, disease outbreak and Isabella Dam break. There has not been a single oil spill drill.
Emergency service officials say that’s not as bad as it sounds because disasters share common actions — notification, evacuation, decontamination.
Nevertheless, State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris, County Fire Chief Brian Marshall and Kern Emergency Services Manager Georgianna Armstrong support the idea of local oil spill drills involving public safety agencies, hospitals and others.
Kern County is well-versed at handling hazardous materials. Some local officials say an oil accident may actually be less dangerous than the release of toxic chemicals, which also travel through the county on a regular basis.
There have been recent accidents, but all were relatively minor.
Federal records list 18 oil or other hazardous material spills on Kern County railroads in the last 10 years. No one was injured; together the accidents caused $752,000 in property damage.
Most involved chemicals such as sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid. Only two resulted in crude oil spills, both in 2013 in the 93305 ZIP code in the city of Bakersfield. Together they spilled a little more than a gallon of oil.
But the risk of spills rises significantly as the volume of oil passing through the county grows.
“The volume is a big deal,” Bakersfield Fire Chief Douglas R. Greener said. “Potentially, if you have a train derail, you could see numerous cars of the same type of material leaking all at once.”
Kern County firefighters are better prepared for an oil spill than many other first responders around the state. They train on an actual oil tanker and have special tools to mend rail car punctures and gashes. The county fire department has several trucks carrying spray foam that suffocates industrial fires.
But Chief Marshall acknowledged a bad rail accident could strain the department’s resources.
He has been speaking with Alon about securing additional firefighting equipment and foam to ensure an appropriate response to any oil train derailment related to the company’s proposed offloading facility.
What comes of those talks is expected to be included in an upcoming environmental review of the project.
“We recognize the need to increase our industrial firefighting program,” Marshall said.
Chief Zagaris said Kern’s proximity to on-call emergency agencies in Tulare, Kings and Los Angeles counties may come in handy under the Bakersfield High spill scenario, which is based on fire officials’ assessments and reports from several similar incidents over the past year.
He and Marshall would not estimate how many people would require evacuation in the event of a disaster near the school, or what specific levels of emergency response might become necessary.
But Zagaris said local public safety officials would almost certainly require outside help to assess injuries, transfer people in need of medical care, secure the city and contain the spill itself.
“I look at it as, you know, depending what it is and where it happens will dictate how quickly” outside resources would have to be pulled in, he said.
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