Category Archives: Hazmat notification

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Hazmat notification, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail inspection, Tar sands crude, Union Pacific Railroad

Sacramento Bee: Crude oil train shipments on the rise in California

Repost from The Sacramento Bee
[Editor: Significant quotes: “…UP said new shipments into California from Canada started in late November, running through Idaho, Washington and Oregon…. The trains from Canada likely carry tar sands…. the trains from Canada appear to be traveling on the UP line that runs parallel to Interstate 5 through Northern California, which almost certainly takes them on one of several rail lines through Sacramento…. The new shipments are the first “unit” – or all-oil – trains to enter the Western U.S. from Canada, according to a report in Railway Age.  Crude from Canada has been coming into California sporadically and in smaller shipments for more than a year, Railway Age reported.”  See also Railway Age, UP begins Canada-to-California CBR service. – RS]

New crude oil trains from Canada arrive in California

By Tony Bizjak, 12/08/2014

In a sign that crude oil train shipments to California refineries are on the rise, Union Pacific railroad officials confirmed last week they are now transporting full trains of Canadian oil through Northern California on a route that likely cuts through central Sacramento.

State rail-safety inspectors shadowed the initial trains outside of Bakersfield and reported the mile-long trains were traveling at slow speeds, most likely out of caution, just days after a UP corn train derailed in the Feather River Canyon and spilled feed into the river.

The Canadian imports are the second set of all-oil trains now believed to be coming through the capital on a regular basis. A Bakken oil train comes through midtown Sacramento once or twice a week en route to Richmond in the Bay Area.

Several more oil trains may join them in the next year. Valero Refining Co. has applied for permission to run two 50-car oil trains a day through Sacramento to its plant in Benicia, and Phillips 66 has plans to run oil trains five days a week into its refinery in San Luis Obispo County, some from the north and some via southern routes.

State officials say the Canadian trains are heading to a newly opened transfer station outside Bakersfield, where the crude oil is expected to be piped to coastal refineries. The station, operated by Plains All American Pipeline, a Texas company, is the first of several crude-by-rail facilities planned for California in the next few years. Combined, they would give oil companies the ability to receive up to 22 percent of the state’s imported crude oil by rail instead of by marine shipment.

The increase nationally in train transport of North American crude has helped push international oil prices down dramatically in recent months. It also has raised concerns about the risk of derailments and oil spills. Sacramento officials have called on oil and rail companies and federal regulators to increase safety measures to protect against spills, including requiring stronger tank cars.

Citing safety issues of their own, rail companies have generally declined to disclose where and when rail shipments are happening. But in an email to The Sacramento Bee last week, UP said new shipments into California from Canada started in late November, running through Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

“We expect to run crude trains on this route moving forward,” UP’s Aaron Hunt wrote.

The trains from Canada likely carry tar sands, also called bitumen, which is considered less flammable than the Bakken oil from North Dakota. Bakken oil has been involved in a several major rail explosions in the last few years, including one that killed 47 people in a Canadian town. State safety officials say tar sands, viscous and heavy, are a threat to waterways because the material can sink, making spills hard to clean. A bitumen spill from a ruptured pipe forced closure of 35 miles of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010 and required $1 billion in cleanup costs over a three-year period.

The state recently called on railroads to provide plans that show that they have the wherewithal to clean oil spills on state waterways. Officials with the state Office of Spill Prevention and Response say tar sands may require particular equipment. “Businesses that transport heavy oils are required to have response resources necessary to address these types of spills,” state spokesman Steve Gonzalez said in an email. “Contractors must be able to locate, contain and clean up a spill that has sunk to the bottom of the water. Some of these responses include sonar, containment boom, dredges and pumps.”

Rail shippers point out that derailment numbers overall have been decreasing nationally for decades and that the industry now runs oil trains at slower speeds at times.

State Public Utilities Commission officials say they sent inspectors out near Bakersfield to monitor the first Canadian oil train, and another train headed to Bakersfield from the south, and noted that the trains were traveling slower than normal.

“The first run is a critical run. If anything goes wrong, we want to be there,” PUC rail safety chief Paul King said. “There might be compliance issues. We want to see how it interfaces with traffic, what speeds they decided to go.”

King said the trains from Canada appear to be traveling on the UP line that runs parallel to Interstate 5 through Northern California, which almost certainly takes them on one of several rail lines through Sacramento. Rail officials have declined to say which lines the oil trains use.

In May, the U.S. Department of Transportation required railroads to notify state officials of large shipments of Bakken oil. Many states ultimately made the information available through public records requests, against the wishes of the railroads. However, railroads are not required to report oil shipments from Canada or other non-Bakken domestic sources.

The new shipments are the first “unit” – or all-oil – trains to enter the Western U.S. from Canada, according to a report in Railway Age. Crude from Canada has been coming into California sporadically and in smaller shipments for more than a year, Railway Age reported.

Bakken Crude, Blast zone, Crude By Rail, Decommissioning, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Fracking, Hazmat notification, Insurance and liability, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Oil spill, Rail routing, Tank car retirement, Tar sands crude, Train speed

Ralph Nader: Unsafe and Unnecessary Oil Trains Threaten 25 Million Americans

Repost from The Huffington Post
[Editor: This is a must read, a comprehensive summary by a visionary and influential old-timer.  – RS]

Unsafe and Unnecessary Oil Trains Threaten 25 Million Americans

By Ralph Nader, 12/15/2014
Ralph Nader Headshot
Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, lawyer and author

Back in 1991 the National Transportation Safety Board first identified oil trains as unsafe — the tank cars, specifically ones called DOT-111s, were too thin and punctured too easily, making transport of flammable liquids like oil unreasonably dangerous. As bad as this might sound, at the very least there was not a lot of oil being carried on the rails in 1991.

Now, in the midst of a North American oil boom, oil companies are using fracking and tar sands mining to produce crude in remote areas of the U.S. and Canada. To get the crude to refineries on the coasts the oil industry is ramping up transport by oil trains. In 2008, 9,500 crude oil tank cars moved on US rails. In 2013 the number was more than 400,000! With this rapid growth comes a looming threat to public safety and the environment. No one — not federal regulators or local firefighters — are prepared for oil train derailments, spills and explosions.

Unfortunately, the rapid increase in oil trains has already meant many more oil train disasters. Railroads spilled more oil in 2013 than in the previous 40 years combined.

Trains are the most efficient way to move freight and people. This is why train tracks run through our cities and towns. Our rail system was never designed to move hazardous materials, however; if it was, train tracks would not run next to schools and under football stadiums.

Last summer, environmental watchdog group ForestEthics released a map of North America that shows probable oil train routes. Using Google, anyone can check to see if their home or office is near an oil train route. (Try it out here.)

ForestEthics used census data to calculate that more than 25 million Americans live in the oil train blast zone (that being the one-mile evacuation area in the case of a derailment and fire.) This is clearly a risk not worth taking — oil trains are the Pintos of the rails. Most of these trains are a mile long, pulling 100-plus tank cars carrying more than 3 million gallons of explosive crude. Two-thirds of the tank cars used to carry crude oil today were considered a “substantial danger to life, property, and the environment” by federal rail safety officials back in 1991.

The remaining one-third of the tank cars are not much better — these more “modern” cars are tested at 14 to 15 mph, but the average derailment speed for heavy freight trains is 24 mph. And it was the most “modern” tank cars that infamously derailed, caught fire, exploded and poisoned the river in Lynchburg, Virginia last May. Other derailments and explosions in North Dakota and Alabama made national news in 2014.

The most alarming demonstration of the threat posed by these trains happened in Quebec in July 2013 — an oil train derailed and exploded in the City of Lac Megantic, killing 47 people and burning a quarter of the city to the ground. The fire burned uncontrollably, flowing through the city, into and then out of sewers, and into the nearby river. Firefighters from across the region responded, but an oil fire cannot be fought with water, and exceptionally few fire departments have enough foam flame retardant to control a fire from even a single 30,000 gallon tank car, much less the millions of gallons on an oil train.

Given the damage already done and the threat presented, Canada immediately banned the oldest of these rail cars and mandated a three-year phase-out of the DOT-111s. More needs to be done, but this is a solid first step. Of course, we share the North American rail network — right now those banned trains from Canada may very well be transporting oil through your home town while the Department of Transportation dallies.

The immense public risk these oil trains pose is starting to gain the attention it deserves, but not yet the response. Last summer, the U.S. federal government began the process of writing new safety regulations. Industry has weighed in heavily to protect its interest in keeping these trains rolling. The Department of Transportation, disturbingly, seems to be catering to industry’s needs.

The current draft rules are deeply flawed and would have little positive impact on safety. They leave the most dangerous cars in service for years. Worse yet, the oil industry would get to more than double its tank car fleet before being required to decommission any of the older, more dangerous DOT-111s.

We need an immediate ban on the most dangerous tank cars. We also need to slow these trains down; slower trains mean fewer accidents, and fewer spills and explosions when they do derail. The public and local fire fighters must be notified about train routes and schedules, and every oil train needs a comprehensive emergency response plan for accidents involving explosive Bakken crude and toxic tar sands. In addition, regulations must require adequate insurance. This is the least we could expect from Secretary Anthony Foxx, who travels a lot around the country, and the Department of Transportation.

So far, Secretary Foxx is protecting the oil industry, not ordinary Americans. In fact, Secretary Foxx is meeting with Canadian officials this Thursday, December 18, to discuss oil-by-rail. It is doubtful, considering Canada’s strong first step, that he will be trying to persuade them to adopt even stronger regulations. Will Secretary Foxx ask them to weaken what they have done and put more lives at risk? Time will tell. He has the power, and the mandate, to remove the most dangerous rail cars to protect public safety but he appears to be heading in the opposite direction. Earlier this month ForestEthics and the Sierra Club, represented by EarthJustice, filed a lawsuit against the DOT to require them to fulfill this duty.

Secretary Foxx no doubt has a parade of corporate executives wooing him for lax or no oversight. But he certainly doesn’t want to have a Lac Megantic-type disaster in the U.S. on his watch. It is more possible now than ever before, given the massive increase in oil-by-rail traffic.

Pipelines, such as the Keystone XL, are not the answer either. (Keystone oil would be routed for export to other countries from Gulf ports.) Pipelines can also leak and result in massive damage to the environment as we have seen in the Kalamazoo, MI spill by the Enbridge Corporation. Three years later, $1.2 billion spent, and the “clean up” is still ongoing.

Here’s the reality — we don’t need new pipelines and we don’t need oil by rail. This is “extreme oil,” and if we can’t transport it safely, we can and must say no. Secretary Foxx needs to help make sure 25 million people living in the blastzone are safe and that means significant regulations and restrictions on potentially catastrophic oil rail cars.

Rather than choosing either of these destructive options, we are fortunate to be able to choose safe, affordable cleaner energy and more efficient energy products, such as vehicles and furnaces, instead. That is the future and it is not a distant future — it’s happening right now.

Follow Ralph Nader on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RalphNader
Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Hazmat notification

Oil Trains Hide in Plain Sight

Repost from The Wall Street Journal
[Editor: This is a must-read.  IMPORTANT – See the Wall Street Journal site for an excellent video report and an interactive U.S. map showing  the weekly average number of crude oil trains from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota that pass through each county.  – RS]

Oil Trains Hide in Plain Sight

Rail Industry’s Secret: Volatile Crude Routes Often Kept From Cities and Towns
By Russell Gold, Dec. 3, 2014
tank car 1267
Finding the locations of oil-filled trains remains difficult, even in states that don’t consider the information top secret. WSJ’s Leslie Eaton and Simon Constable discuss. Photo: AP

NEWARK, Del.—Early last year, a new kind of pipeline full of volatile oil appeared in this college town, halfway between Philadelphia and Baltimore.

If it had been a traditional pipeline, there would have been government hearings and environmental reviews. There would be markers or signs along the line’s route and instructions for nearby residents on how to react in an emergency. A detailed plan for responding to a spill would be on file with the federal government.

 

None of that happened here in Newark. In fact, nobody initially notified the city’s fire chief about the new line, which can carry more than a hundred thousand barrels of oil a day along Amtrak’s busiest passenger-rail corridor.

See Related Video on #WorldStream

This was possible because the oil here is transported by a virtual pipeline: mile-long strings of railroad tanker cars that travel from North Dakota to a refinery in Delaware. In Newark, the cars are especially easy to spot as they often sit for hours on tracks 10 feet away from passing passenger trains, waiting for an opening at the nearby PBF Energy Inc. plant.

While the existence of this virtual pipeline is obvious to its neighbors—trains are visible from homes, the local commuter rail station, a park and a popular jogging trail—it is officially secret. Delaware Safety and Homeland Security officials contend that publicizing any information about the oil trains parked there would “reveal the State’s vulnerability to terrorist attacks,” according to a letter to The Wall Street Journal.

A Norfolk Southern Corp. train
A Norfolk Southern Corp. train in a refinery in Delaware, waiting to unload its cargo of crude oil from North Dakota. Russell Gold/The Wall Street Journal

Finding the locations of oil-filled trains remains difficult, even in states that don’t consider the information top secret. There are no federal or state rules requiring public notice despite several fiery accidents involving oil trains, including one in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people.

The desire for secrecy seems wrongheaded to some experts. “If you don’t share this information, how are people supposed to know what they are supposed to do when another Lac-Mégantic happens?” asked Denise Krepp, a consultant and former senior counsel to the congressional Homeland Security Committee.

She said more firefighting equipment and training was needed urgently. “We are not prepared,” she said.

In May, federal regulators ordered railroads to tell states about the counties traversed by trains carrying combustible crude oil from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota so local first responders could be notified.

The Journal submitted open-records requests to all 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia and received at least some information from all but 14: Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and West Virginia.

Mapping data received from the disclosing states, the Journal found a lot of other cities in the same situation as Newark. On its way to refiners on the East Coast and along the Gulf of Mexico, oil often sits in tank cars in railroad yards outside Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Penn., and passes through Cleveland, Chicago, Albany, Seattle and a dozen other cities.

Bakken oil is flowing in two directions from North Dakota: west toward Portland and the Puget Sound; and east through Minneapolis, then southeast through Chicago, and across the northern edge of Indiana and Ohio. There it splits into three routes: One heads to Albany; another goes to Yorktown, Va., where the crude is transferred to barges for trips up and down the East Coast. The third heads to Philadelphia through Ohio, which is one of the states that doesn’t disclose data, but the Journal was able to deduce the routes by following available maps.

Other oil trains run south from Oregon to California, from Minnesota to Texas, and from Wisconsin toward the Gulf Coast.

Maryland previously had attempted to release oil-train information, but was successfully sued by Norfolk Southern Corp. and CSX Corp. Norfolk argued that these trains were carrying “highly volatile cargo” that could be a target for terrorists.

Railroads have continued to press for secrecy; in August, the Association of American Railroads and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association wrote a confidential letter to the federal government asking that routing information be kept from the public. The request was denied.

“The rail industry is concerned making crude oil route information public elevates security risks by making it easier for someone intent on causing harm,” said AAR spokesman Ed Greenberg. The group said it supports sharing information with local officials.

Neither the oil nor the railroad industry anticipated the rapid and dramatic rise of oil shipments by train. In 2009, U.S. railroads transported about 21,000 barrels a day of oil; today they carry 1.1 million barrels a day, according to data from the Surface Transportation Board, a federal regulator. Last year, railroads generated about $2.15 billion in revenue from moving crude.

Shipments of hazardous material, especially crude oil, have soared recently, even for railroads whose routes are far from the oil fields of North Dakota. Norfolk Southern and CSX, which serve the East Coast, moved 53,001 carloads of oil in the three months ended September, compared with just seven carloads during the same period of 2009, according to data from the federal Surface Transportation Board. They transported 156,731 carloads of industrial chemicals, some of which are hazardous, in the third quarter of this year, up 8% from five years ago.

Trains are the new pipelines, and have become a vital link in the energy infrastructure, said Dave Pidgeon, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern. “We are the keystone, the bridge, between the source of where the energy is extracted and where it is refined,” he said. Moving hazardous material like crude, he added, is “safe and getting safer.”

Trains offer the energy industry flexibility to move oil where it can fetch the highest prices. Building the needed loading and unloading terminals is fast and inexpensive, and an extensive rail network connects the Midwest to the East and West coasts.

While these virtual pipelines can be created in months, traditional pipelines have become increasingly difficult to install as environmental groups seek to block permits for new energy infrastructure.

“What we are seeing on rail is largely due to opposition to and uncertainty around building pipelines,” said Brigham McCown, who was the chief pipeline regulator under President George W. Bush . Pipelines, he adds, are far safer than trains.

Since Lac-Mégantic, several trains have derailed and exploded. Most of these accidents have happened in relatively rural areas like Casselton, N.D., a town of about 2,500 people 24 miles west of Fargo. But one occurred in downtown Lynchburg, Va., forcing the evacuation of much of the downtown in a city with 78,000 residents.

In response, railroads agreed to slow oil trains to 40 miles an hour in urban areas, and federal regulators have proposed a broader speed limit for older tank cars carrying volatile crude oil.

The rules don’t apply to other freight trains or Amtrak trains that share tracks in Newark with oil trains; about 85 Amtrak trains run through Newark every day, according to a spokesman, at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour. In addition to Norfolk Southern, which operates on the outskirts of town, CSX runs oil trains on a wholly separate track heading north toward refineries near Philadelphia.

Without oil trains, the local PBF Refinery might not be operating. Opened in 1956 on the Delaware River, the refinery handled imported oil that arrived by water from overseas; it was mothballed in 2009 as the economics of importing crude oil soured and demand for gasoline slumped.

PBF bought the refinery in 2011, reopened it the next year and began adding facilities to unload crude from trains. The company owns or leases 4,000 tank cars, has 1,900 more on order and said it is committed to using the safest cars available.

The refinery built a double loop that can accommodate two trains, each holding 70,000 barrels of crude. It can take workers 14 hours to unload each train by connecting hoses to drain out the cargo.

The Bakken crude contains a lot of butane, making it volatile but useful for mixing with heavier oils or as a refined byproduct, said refinery manager José Dominguez. On a recent afternoon, the refinery was running mostly Bakken oil, along with some diluted crude from Canadian oil sands and a ship’s worth of light sweet oil from Basra, Iraq.

When Norfolk Southern began routing crude trains through Newark, it didn’t notify the local emergency officials. Last March, a year after trains started turning up, Fire Chief A.J. Schall sat down with officials from the railroad and refinery to discuss the crude shipments.

“It shows a lack of communication,” he said. By the summer, Norfolk Southern and PBF paid for Mr. Schall and another local fire chief to fly to Colorado and attend a three-day class on crude-by-rail trains.
Some people who live and work along the tracks say that they are disquieted by the increased traffic and especially of the new presence of mile-long strings of black tanker cars, but unaware of any new accident-preparedness plans.

Demitri Theodoropoulos, who manages a record store facing the intersection, said that since 2004 his security cameras have recorded 14 collisions, including one in 2012 when a train smashed into a large truck.

“We have major, major freight traffic here,” he said. “I see trains with crude every day or so. I don’t like it, but this is the way it is.”

Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Feather River Canyon, Hazmat notification, Union Pacific Railroad

Chico editorial: Train derailment in canyon a cautionary tale

Repost from Chico Enterprise-Record

Editorial: Train derailment in canyon a cautionary tale

11/29/14

When a train derailed in the Feather River Canyon above Belden on Tuesday and dropped tons of corn in the river, it was natural to chuckle uneasily that it was only corn.

Nobody was injured, no animals died, the river’s ecosystem will recover and Union Pacific, while on the hook for a difficult cleanup operation in a steep area, talked largely about how the company was fortunate — because it knows it could have been a whole lot worse.

What should be worrisome to the rest of us is that only Union Pacific seems to know how bad things could get — and Union Pacific isn’t sharing, apparently not even with government officials.

With a surge in crude oil pumped from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and Montana and not enough pipelines to move it across the United States, oil companies have taken to moving the explosive type of oil on railroads. Union Pacific is undoubtedly being compensated handsomely to do so. But moving it from east to west means coming through the picturesque Feather River Canyon, along Highway 70 above Lake Oroville.

Oroville residents have noticed an alarming increase in the number of oil trains, with their black tanker cars, coming through town, headed south. But nobody knows how many trains. The railroad keeps that information close to the vest. Still, the Butte and Plumas county offices of emergency services should know, just in case it has to respond to a derailment, which likely would be accompanied by an explosion. One would think …

But Plumas County’s director of emergency services, Jerry Sipe, says Union Pacific hasn’t advised the county of when or how often the trains come through. Sipe said he’d like the rail companies to provide training and equipment needed to respond to oil train derailments.

Union Pacific spokesman Aaron Hunt, when asked by a reporter about the frequency of oil trains, answered in an email.

“For safety and commercial-competitive reasons,” he wrote, “Union Pacific provides specific commodity route information for its trains only to appropriate response agencies. We cannot address what commodities may travel on other railroads. This route is one where oil may be transported based upon the needs of our customers.”

Well, we think those who live along the route and those who might be asked to respond to a disaster deserve better answers. Local lawmakers from Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, to Assemblyman Brian Dahle, R-Bieber, and state Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, should intervene to demand more transparency.

Nobody should wait until after the first explosion of an oil train to say, “We need to do something about this.” The best time to act is now.

Though Union Pacific’s Hunt points out repeatedly that UP has reduced derailments by 23 percent in the past 10 years, the fact is that trains still derail, and all it takes is one. An explosion would be disastrous. An oil spill in the river system would be as well.

The Feather River Canyon is a treacherous stretch of track, with curves, rock slides and erosion all factors that can contribute to derailments. The fact that UP says it doesn’t know what caused last week’s derailment means, so far anyway, it will be less likely to prevent them in the immediate future.

Let’s get out in front of this problem. As other states have learned, explosions are an increasing possibility. We like first responders to be prepared, not left in the dark.