Despite being an otherwise healthy city, our rates of many cancers are much higher than Solano County and the rest of the state.
Benicia’s rate of lung cancer is between 14.5%-21.8% higher than the county’s and about 44% higher than the California rate. Our prostate cancer rates are 32.8% higher than the county’s and 70% higher than the state’s. For breast cancer, we have a 36% higher rate than our county and a 94% higher rate than our state. This data comes from Solano County and state public health sources.
While it cannot be definitively concluded that these higher cancer rates are due to refinery emissions, they are similar to the higher rates near refineries elsewhere that are well-documented in medical studies.
Yes, it will be economically challenging to weather Valero’s exit. But there is little doubt that when this happens, our community’s risk of cancer will drop. Many Benicia residents are looking forward to being able to breathe healthier air and are willing to work with our city government to move into a post-refinery future.
By Stephen Golub, Benicia resident and author. May 29, 2025 [An earlier version of this appeared in his “Benicia and Beyond” column in the Benicia Herald on 5/25/25.]
Executive Summary
As Benicia, the Valero Energy Corporation and California officials consider the future of the Texas-based firm’s Benicia refinery, this paper examines Valero’s and the petrochemical industry’s problematic histories of hazardous violations, accidents and incidents, most notably their possible contributions to cancer and other negative health impacts. It aims to inform Benicia’s and California’s planning and policies, regardless of whether Valero closes the facility next year (its stated intention) or seeks to retain it indefinitely.
The data documenting such hazards includes:
Research from across the country and world indicates elevated disease rates in refinery communities. For instance, a wide-ranging study published in 2020, covering numerous Texas refineries, determined that “proximity to an oil refinery was associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer diagnosis across all cancer types examined [bladder, breast, colon, lung, lymphoma, and prostate]. People living within 10 miles of an active refinery were more likely to have advanced disease or metastatic disease.”
Benicia’s cancer rates are much higher than those of the state and county, and include a breast cancer rate nearly double that of California.More specifically, the city’s breast cancer rate is 93.7 percent higher than California’s and 35.9 percent higher than Solano County’s. For prostate cancer, Benicia’s incidence is respectively 70.3 percent and 32.8 percent higher than those of the state and county. For lung cancer, it is 43.3 percent higher than California and 19.4 percent higher than Solano.
The Benicia refinery’s specific violations that spanned at least 16 years, spurring an $82 million Bay Area Air District fine, reflect a broader pattern of emissions violations, accidents and incidents in recent years. Regarding those specific violations: According to the Air District, from at least 2003 to 2019 the Benicia refinery committed “egregious emissions violations,” pouring into the city’s air “harmful organic compounds” containing “benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene…which cause cancer, reproductive harm and other toxic health effects.” What’s more, “refinery management had known since at least 2003 that emissions from the hydrogen system contained these harmful and toxic air contaminants but did not report them or take any steps to prevent them.”
Valero’s environmental violations and health-and-safety dangers are by no means confined to Benicia. They include numerous incidents, accidents and reports of excessive emissions elsewhere in recent years. They merit attention because they may indicate that such problems are endemic to the firm’s or industry’s operations, or flow from inadequate prioritization of safety/health/environmental hazards, or both. Even the arguably oil industry-friendly Texas Attorney General sued Valero in 2019 for refinery violations there, in effect citing it as an egregious repeat offender.
In reviewing the information shared here, it is important to emphasize that the Benicia refinery’s fine employees are not responsible for the corporation’s track record.
Particularly in view of public health considerations, the city and state should:
seek the facility’s closure within at most one-to-three years, rather than at some indefinite date;
especially given the maintenance and financial challenges for a refinery in its final years, ensure that the refinery adheres to enhanced health-and-safety standards for however long it remains open (including if another petrochemical firm purchases it) and that Valero and any successor owner guarantee a complete and rigorous remediation of the property; and
encourage the Air District to allow Benicia to use funds from the Valero fine to ease the city’s transition away from the refinery and toward cleaner air and a healthier Benicia and Bay Area.
I. Introduction
As Benicia, the Valero Energy Corporation and California consider the future of the Texas-based company’s Benicia refinery, this paper seeks to illuminate two topics that have received inadequate attention in discussion of the facility’s fate: the apparently severe hazards it imposes on the city’s health and safety and the brighter post-Valero future its planned closure could bring. It aims to spark greater scrutiny of these crucial matters.
The paper similarly aims to inform Benicians’ deliberations, the work of the four recently launched Benicia City Council task forces charting a course for life after Valero, and the actions of other officials in their current or future discussions with the corporation.
Relying mainly on online resources, in many regards this document only scratches the surface of Valero’s and the petrochemical industry’s problematic histories of hazardous violations, accidents and incidents, as well as their possible contributions to cancer and other negative health impacts.
The backdrop here is Valero’s April announcement of its plans to cease operations at its Benicia refinery within a year. This has sparked considerable and understandable concern about ramifications for the state and the impact on Benicia’s budget, businesses and jobs. As the corporation negotiates its potential future with California government officials, and notwithstanding its announcement about exploring redevelopment opportunities for the property, whether it will actually close the facility so soon remains in doubt. But Valero is leaving Benicia, sooner or later.
It is accordingly important to consider the inadequately discussed public health dimension and the departure’s potential benefits, which were largely lost in the storm of initial dismay over the departure. Those benefits include enhanced health and safety, the subject of this paper. But they could also feature residential, commercial and industrial development; resulting tax revenues, construction jobs, other employment and a more diversified local economy; blossoming tourism; and rising real estate values no longer burdened by some potential residents’ concerns about moving to a supposed “refinery town”.
The bottom line is that while Valero has its own decisions to make, so does Benicia. For the sake of the health and safety of the community’s children, seniors and everyone in-between, the city and state should seek the facility’s closure within at most one-to-three years rather than further down the line.
In reviewing the information shared here, it is important to emphasize respect for the Benicians and other fine people employed by the refinery, recognize that they are not responsible for the corporation’s track record, and fervently hope that they land on their professional and financial feet whenever the facility shuts down.
II. Refinery Communities’ Elevated Cancer and Illness Rates
A plethora of studies from across the country and world indicate elevated disease rates in refinery communities. While this essay summarizes several, bear in mind that certain of the studies cited here themselves draw on numerous papers, many of them peer reviewed. Thus, this section reflects the findings of dozens of papers concerning many refineries.
For instance, a wide-ranging study published in 2020 and covering numerous Texas refineries determined that “proximity to an oil refinery was associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer diagnosis across all cancer types examined [bladder, breast, colon, lung, lymphoma, and prostate]. People living within 10 miles of an active refinery were more likely to have advanced disease or metastatic disease.”
A 2020 review of 16 studies concerning various locations found, “Residents from fenceline communities, less than 5 km [about three miles] from a petrochemical facility (refinery or manufacturer of commercial chemicals), had a 30% higher risk of developing Leukaemia than residents from communities with no petrochemical activity.”
The results of a 2009 South Africa study of a community located near a refinery “support the hypothesis of an increased prevalence of asthma symptoms among children in the area as a result of refinery emissions…”
In a related vein, a 1997-2003 study of persons 29 or younger in Taiwan found that “residential petrochemical exposure [based on distance from petrochemical plants, duration of stay near them and other variables] was a significant risk factor for leukemia” for those 20-29 (though not for younger persons).
Nor is the damage confined to long-term exposure. In Texas, findings from research published in 2016 on the “health effects of benzene exposure among children from a flaring incident at the British Petroleum (BP) refinery in Texas City, Texas…suggest that children exposed to benzene are at a higher risk of developing both hepatic [liver-related] and bone marrow-related disorders.”
Closer to home, a review of emergency room visits in the wake of the 2012 Richmond Chevron fire found that they skyrocketed to roughly ten times their normal levels. “It took 4 weeks for censuses to return to normal. The most common diagnosis groups that spiked were nervous/sensory, respiratory, circulatory, and injury.”
III. Elevated Cancer Rates for Benicia
While Benicia has not been the focus of the kind the rigorous research conducted elsewhere – and while recent medical statistics for the city appear hard to come by – the city’s cancer rates are worrisome.
Drawing on 2010-12 California Cancer Registry data, a 2018 Solano County report highlighting “Health Outcomes Data for Benicia” indicates a Benicia breast cancer rate nearly double that of California. The Benicia rates are substantially higher than Solano Country and California regarding lung and prostate cancer as well. (The data is broken down by zip code, with 94510 essentially constituting Benicia.)
More specifically, the city’s breast cancer rate is 93.7 percent higher than California’s and 35.9 percent higher than Solano County’s. For prostate cancer, Benicia’s incidence is respectively 70.3 percent and 32.8 percent higher than those of the state and county. For lung cancer, it is 43.3 percent higher than California and 19.4 percent higher than Solano.
“Solano County Lung Cancer Rate by Zip Code,” a 2012 chart prepared by the Solano County Public Health Epidemiology Unit, reports similar comparative data. It significantly also indicates that Benicia’s “emergency department discharge rate for lung cancer” ranks among the highest in the county, which in turn is 2.5 times that of California, and that its cancer hospitalization rate is higher than the county’s and the state’s as well.
The higher cancer rates especially stand out because the Health Outcomes report also indicates that in many regards Benicia is healthier than other parts of the county. Considered in combination with the city’s relative affluence, one might accordingly expect lower Benicia cancer rates compared to the county – thus raising the refinery as a possible reason for the higher rates.
None of the above proves that Benicia’s higher cancer levels are due to the Valero refinery’s emissions; correlation of course does not equal causation. But the elevated incidence of cancer in Benicia compared to the rest of Solano County and to California seems unlikely to be a random development. Coupled with two phenomena discussed elsewhere in this paper – that the Benicia refinery’s environmental violations feature spewing high levels of carcinogens into the air and that proximity to refineries in general is linked to higher cancer rates – the Benicia-specific data provides cause for considerable concern.
IV. The Benicia Refinery’s Numerous Violations, Accidents and Incidents
According to the Bay Area Air District, from at least 2003 to 2019 the Benicia refinery committed “egregious emissions violations,” pouring into the city’s air “harmful organic compounds” containing “benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene…which cause cancer, reproductive harm and other toxic health effects.” More specifically, “refinery management had known since at least 2003 that emissions from the hydrogen system contained these harmful and toxic air contaminants but did not report them or take any steps to prevent them.” The emissions averaged “more than 2.7 tons for each day on which a violation occurred, over 360 times the legal limit.”
Yet, as significant as that finding and the Air District’s resulting $82 million fine seem, they represent just some of the Benicia refinery’s numerous hazardous violations, accidents and incidents in recent years. Earlier this month, for instance, many Benicians witnessed the clouds of smoke spewing from a refinery furnace fire, for which the facility has already been issued Air District notices of violation.
In August 2023, the Air District “said that Valero had failed to install required pollution control equipment on eight pressure relief devices, safety devices that prevent extreme over pressurization that could cause a catastrophic equipment failure. The violations led to 165 tons of illegal emissions…”
In February 2023, Valero agreed to pay a $1.2 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “…fine over violations of chemical safety regulations…After chemical incidents at the Benicia Refinery in 2017 and 2019, a 2019 EPA inspection at the facility identified several areas of noncompliance, including that Valero failed to immediately report releases of hazardous substances and update certain process safety information.”
The violations, accidents and incidents summarized here cover just some of what has occurred over the past several years. A full list of other hazardous Benicia refinery problems would include many more violations.
This brief discussion would not be complete without mention of Valero’s unsuccessful 2012-16 fight to bring “crude by rail” to Benicia. More specifically, the plan involved the transport to Benicia, on two 50-car trains, up to 70,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Canada and North Dakota. The potentially deadly danger of this approach was demonstrated by the 2013 Lac-Mégantic disaster, named for the Quebec town where an oil train’s derailment, fire and explosion took 47 lives and decimated the downtown area. From 2013 to 2020, there were at least 21 such derailments in North America, many resulting in massive spills and fires lasting for hours or even days.
V. Valero Refineries’ Violations and Dangers Beyond Benicia
Valero’s environmental violations and health-and-safety dangers are by no means confined to Benicia. They include numerous incidents, accidents and reports of excessive emissions in recent years. They merit attention because they may indicate that such problems are endemic to the firm’s or industry’s operations, or flow from inadequate prioritization of safety/health/environmental hazards, or both.
Valero’s Texas track record leads the way in demonstrating such problems and hazards. Even the staunchly conservative and arguably oil industry-friendly Texas Attorney General sued the Texas-based corporation in 2019, in effect citing it as an egregious repeat offender that released nearly a million pounds of pollutants into the air during a 2017 fire and committed at least 38 unauthorized, permit-exceeding toxic emissions since 2014. His suit further asserted that, despite earlier federal EPA and state enforcement actions, “defendants’ poor operational, maintenance, and design practices continue to cause emissions events and unauthorized emissions of air contaminants from the Refinery into the environment.”
The AG’s office and state regulators also sought more than $1 million in damages for a 2016 “backflow incident at the Valero Corpus Christi Asphalt Plant” that resulted in “residents endur[ing] three days without tap water, forcing many to rely on bottled water for drinking, showering and cooking.”
What’s more, a leading Texas environmentalist has contrasted one of Valero’s facilities there unfavorably with other refineries in the state, asserting that “Valero’s Port Arthur Refinery has a poor compliance record even when compared to other Texas oil refineries, spewing out millions of pounds of dangerous pollution into surrounding neighborhoods…”
Five workers recently sued the company for injuries suffered, including third-degree burns involving extended hospitalization, at its Three Rivers, Texas, refinery due to a January 2025 fire and explosion. Over the years, several others have died in explosions and accidents at its Texas facilities.
Valero’s hazards and damage are not confined to Texas (or Benica). Due to an emergency valve malfunction, a 2020 explosion and fire at the company’s Meraux, Louisiana, refinery seriously injured one worker and caused over $5 million in damage. Tennessee regulators found sixteen “serious, alleged” violations linked to a Memphis refinery’s 2012 explosion that killed one worker and injured two others.
During a February 2025 storm, that same facility experienced massive flames due to flaring as, according to one news report, “ Fire and oil spewed from the stacks requiring environmental clean up on the ground and in the creek nearby.” In addition, “thousands of pounds of a toxic gas were released in the incident,” including “very toxic” sulfur dioxide at levels “twice the amount that triggers mandatory reporting to government regulators.”
More broadly, an EPA review of a dozen Valero facilities across the country found toxic emissions violations and related actions stretching from at least 2012 to 2018. The investigation resulted in a 2020 settlement involving millions of dollars of fines and mitigation measures.
A compilation of air pollution monitoring data drawn from U.S. refineries’ fence lines – aptly summarized by its title, “Nearly Half of U.S. Refineries Releasing Benzene at Levels That Could Pose a Long-Term Health Threat” – included numerous Valero facilities on the list. An associated chart ranked two Valero refineries fifth and sixth nationally in terms of the percentage by which they each exceed the relevant “threat level.”
It should be noted that neither the EPA review nor the air monitoring data compilation identified Valero’s Benicia refinery as problematic. However, it is unclear whether the Benicia facility was even included in the review. Furthermore, the facility’s approach to air monitoring has been the subject of considerable contention.
VI. Potentially Deadly Accidents
The risk of life-threatening accidents merits a bit more mention, since Benicia is by no means immune to such phenomena. This paper has already cited several instances of deadly and injurious refinery accidents, as well as the massive (non-fatal) 2012 Chevron Richmond fire and the 2013 Lac-Mégantic disaster, where a train bearing cargo akin to that of Valero’s failed crude-by-rail plan exploded and took 47 lives.
Instances of catastrophic (fortunately non-fatal) refinery events also include the three-day, February 2025 Martinez Refinery Company fire, which spewed into the air carcinogenic chemicals that can also cause heart and lung disease. Another notorious accident was a huge 2019 Philadelphia refinery fire, sparked by the failure of a pipe’s simple elbow joint. Its multiple explosions hurled several multi-ton pieces of equipment thousands of feet away.
VII. Moving Forward
As Benicia takes its first steps to plan for life after Valero, the City Council, state officials and Benicians should heed the potential public health benefits of the corporation’s departure and the price the city pays in the meantime. More specifically, city, state and other officials should pursue the following paths:
They should recognize that public health considerations weigh heavily against any indefinite extension of the Benicia facility’s operation. The city and state should accordingly seek the facility’s closure within at most one-to-three years, rather than at some indefinite date.
Especially (but not only) if an expedited closure does not take place, the city, state, Air District and other governmental entities should inform Valero and any potential petrochemical buyer/operator of the refinery that they will be subject to enhanced scrutiny and accountability that ensure adherence to strictest health-and-safety standards. This priority becomes all the more pressing as financial pressures could conceivably weigh against maximum maintenance in a facility slated to eventually cease operations. The city and state should also press Valero and any successor owner to guarantee a complete and rigorous remediation of the property
The Bay Area Air District policy for the use of its $82 million Valero fine (and for other air pollution penalties) is to employ such funds to “to improve community health and air quality.” It should accordingly permit Benicia to use funds from the fine to ease the city’s transition away from the refinery and toward cleaner air and a healthier Benicia and Bay Area. City and state officials should play a part in advancing this flexible approach, which should also apply to other refinery-hosting Bay Area communities in transition.
[Notes: 1. This paper benefits from valuable advice from and research by Richard Fleming, M.D., a Benicia resident, and from the much-appreciated assistance of Benicia Independent Editor Roger Straw. However, any possible inadvertent inaccuracies are the sole responsibility of the author. 2. Stephen Golub is a Benicia resident and Harvard Law School graduate who formerly was a management analyst for the New York City Council President and, for the bulk of his career, served as a policy analyst, consultant and researcher for funding agencies, policy institutes and nonprofits engaged with international development – particularly regarding the rule of law, democracy, anti-corruption efforts and policy analysis, including their overlap with public health and environmental concerns. He taught law-and-development and related courses at Berkeley Law and the Central European University Public Policy School for a number of years. The institutions with which he has worked include the U.S., U.K. and Danish development agencies; the Asian Development and World Banks; several UN programs and offices, including that of the Secretary-General; the Asia, Ford and Open Society Foundations; and, currently, the Indian broadcasters WION and CNN-India.]
Repost from The Register-Guard, Eugene, OR [Quote: “When something bad happens, the government will take action — but over time those regulations and requirements wind up being dropped, reduced or delayed. The 2017 fatal Amtrak derailment near Tacoma, the 2016 oil train derailment in the Columbia River Gorge, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2008 financial crisis and countless other events could have been prevented.”]
Deregulating? DeFazio’s watching
Posted Mar 27, 2019 at 12:01 AM
The Boeing 737 jet crashes raise troubling questions that go far beyond one company’s safety record and one federal agency’s watchdog role.
The history of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft suggests it is an example of how the government’s regulation-and-oversight pendulum has swung too far. The Federal Aviation Administration has lacked both the money and the inclination to adequately oversee aircraft development, instead relying heavily on companies to do their own testing.
Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio is demanding answers. The Springfield Democrat chairs the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The committee’s investigative staff is doing research, and DeFazio then plans to hold hearings.
“This is really, really raising questions about the FAA as a watchdog,” he said in a meeting with The Register-Guard editorial board.
A faulty sensor is being investigated as one cause, and Boeing is working on a software fix. The two-sensor system was developed as a safety feature to prevent a plane from stalling. But it appears the failure of just one sensor can send the aircraft into a powerful, possibly irreversible dive unless the pilots override the system within 40 seconds, according to a New York Times report this week.
DeFazio promises a tenacious investigation. Among the questions are why the system was designed this way, whether the aircraft was unsafely rushed to market, and why the FAA and Boeing did not require extensive retraining of pilots.
“This is the first time Boeing has put in a system that took over the plane automatically,” he said. “And they didn’t think they needed to tell people about it — because it’s different from any other Boeing plane ever made?
“Obviously, maybe not the best idea.”
For years, the FAA has lacked sufficient inspectors and has outsourced much of that responsibility to the manufacturers. But the FAA is not unique. We now have a government that relies on the honor, integrity and self-supervision of the industries it regulates.
When something bad happens, the government will take action — but over time those regulations and requirements wind up being dropped, reduced or delayed. The 2017 fatal Amtrak derailment near Tacoma, the 2016 oil train derailment in the Columbia River Gorge, the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2008 financial crisis and countless other events could have been prevented.
“It’s repeated time and time again,” DeFazio said. “There are limits to deregulation, which in many cases have been exceeded.”
Oregon has its own history of unwatchful eyes. The Cover Oregon health insurance fiasco could have been averted through closer, more-knowledgeable oversight and insistence on stronger testing of the technology throughout its development. Better oversight — not to mention much-better planning in the first place — might have saved the state from wasting millions of dollars in the Highway 20 reconstruction between the valley and the coast.
How Industrial Hygienists Assist in Rail Emergencies
Speaking at an AIHce 2016 session, several experts said industrial hygienists are well suited to anticipate, recognize, and respond to the hazards and to control the risks using science-based methods.
By Jerry Laws, Jul 01, 2016
Industrial hygienists are well prepared to perform an important role during the response to a railroad hazardous materials emergency, several experienced experts said during an AIHce 2016 session about rail crude oil spills on May 24. Risk assessment, data analysis, and plan preparation (such as the health and safety plan, respiratory protection plan, and air monitoring plan) are important early in the response to such emergency incidents, and CIHs are equipped to do all of these, they stressed.
“With our knowledge, skills, and abilities, the training and education that industrial hygienists get, we’re well prepared” to interpret data on the scope and nature of a hazmat spill following a derailment, said Billy Bullock, CIH, CSP, FAIHA, director of industrial hygiene with CSX Transportation. He mentioned several new roles the industrial hygienist can manage in such a situation: health and safety plan preparation, town hall meetings to inform the public, preparing news releases for area news media, interpreting data from air monitoring, working with the local health department, and serving as the liaison with area hospitals, which can improve their treatment of patients affected by the spill if they understand where exposures really are happening and where a gas plume from the spilled crude is moving, he said.
Bullock said the industrial hygienist’s role is primarily in evaluating chemical exposures:
assessing the risk for inhalation hazards
supporting operational decisions
gathering valid scientific information
managing data and ensuring data quality reporting and recordkeeping
“All of these things we do as part of our day job transfer to an emergency situation very, very well,” he said, explaining that it’s very important to gain the trust of local responders and officials, including fire department leaders, hazardous materials response teams, the health department, and city officials.
Another speaker, Laura Weems, CIH, CSP, CHMM, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Little Rock, Ark., agreed, saying industrial hygienists are well suited to anticipate, recognize, and respond to hazards and to control risks using science-based methods.
Cleanup Workers Face Inhalation, Fire, and Heat Stress Hazards
Scott Skelton, MS, CIH, senior industrial hygienist for CTEH, the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, LLC, and other speakers explained that the hazard assessment following a hazmat derailment begins by identifying the type of crude oil that has spilled. It’s critical to know its flammability and the status of the oil’s containment, he said, and if there is an active fire, officials in command of the response will have to decide whether cleanup personnel are wearing flame-resistant clothing or chemical-protective apparel and will default to protecting against the greater hazard, he explained.
Benzene exposure—a dermal and inhalation hazard—is a concern in the early hours of a crude oil spill following the derailment, Skelton said. He discussed a 2015 test spill into a tank measuring 100 feet by 65 feet, where the benzene was completely lost and other lighter compounds also were lost 24 hours after the spill occurred. But that type of large surface area for a crude oil spill is not typical at actual derailments, he said. Still, he said the inhalation risk for cleanup workers is of most concern during the initial 24 hours of a spill.
“It’s my opinion that heat stress is the most dangerous aspect,” Skelton said. “With these [cleanup] guys, heat stress risk is extraordinary.” The American Petroleum Institute (API)’s report on PPE use by workers involved in the cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill confirmed this, he added.
Patrick Brady, CIH, CSP, general director of hazardous materials safety for BNSF Railway Company, pointed out that crude oil spills from derailments are rare: 99.998 percent of the 1.7 million hazardous materials shipments moved by the railroad during 2015 were completed without an accidental release, he said.
Brady said the railroad pre-positions 253 first responders along with needed cleanup equipment at 60 locations along its rail network. “The best case planning for us is we don’t rely on any local resources to be there at all,” he said, so BNSF hires hazmat contractors for crude oil derailment response and brings in consultants from CTEH to interpret monitoring data. (Responding to a question from someone in the session’s audience, he touted the AskRail™ app, a tool that gives emergency responders information about the hazardous materials inside a railcar or the contents being transported on an entire train. http://www.askrail.us/)
Dyron Hamlin, MS, PE, a chemical engineer with GHD, said hydrogen sulfide is the primary acute hazard faced by responders after a spill occurs. While an H2S concentration below 50 ppm is irritating, 50-100 ppm causes loss of the individual’s sense of smell, and 100 ppm is immediately dangerous to life and health. If the crude oil in a railcar has 1 percent sulfur in the liquid, GHD personnel typically measure 300 ppm of H2S in the headspace inside the railcar, Hamlin said.
Echoing Skelton’s comments, Hamlin said API found that 50 percent of the mass of typical crude oils is lost in the first 48 hours following a spill; following the Deepwater Horizon spill, the volatile organic compounds measured in the air during the response were lower than expected because of water dissolution in the Gulf of Mexico, he said.
He cautioned the audience members to keep in mind that all hazardous material railcars’ contents are mixtures, which complicates the task of calculating boiling points and other factors important to responders and cleanup workers.
DOT Helps Out PHMSA Offers Rail Incident Training Resource
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration recently released a web-accessible Transportation Rail Incident Preparedness and Response training resource, saying it gives emergency responders critical information and best practices related to rail incidents involving Hazard Class 3 Flammable Liquids, such as crude oil and ethanol. It is off-the-shelf training that is available online and can be used anywhere throughout the country.
“TRIPR is the result of a concerted effort between federal agencies and rail safety stakeholders to improve emergency response organizations’ ability to prepare for and respond to rail incidents involving a release of flammable liquids like crude oil or ethanol,” said PHMSA Administrator Marie Therese Dominguez. “We are committed to safety and providing responders with flexible, cost-effective training and resources that help them respond to hazmat incidents safely.” The resource was developed in conjunction with other public safety agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard, and EPA, in order to prepare first responders to safely manage incidents involving flammable liquids.
“Some of the most important actions we have taken during the last two years to increase the safety of transporting crude oil by rail have been providing more resources, better information, and quality training for first responders. This web-based training is another tool to help first responders in communities large and small, urban and rural, quickly and effectively respond if a derailment happens,” said FRA Administrator Sarah E. Feinberg.
The TRIPR curriculum focuses on key hazmat response functions and incorporates three animated training scenarios and introductory videos to help instructors facilitate tabletop discussions. PHMSA announced that it plans to host a series of open houses nationwide to promote the curriculum. Visit http://dothazmat.vividlms.com/tools.asp to download the TRIPR materials.
About the Author: Jerry Laws is Editor of Occupational Health & Safety magazine, which is owned by 1105 Media Inc.
Industrial hygienists are well prepared to perform an important role during the response to a railroad hazardous materials emergency, several experienced experts said during an AIHce 2016 session about rail crude oil spills on May 24. Risk assessment, data analysis, and plan preparation (such as the health and safety plan, respiratory protection plan, and air monitoring plan) are important early in the response to such emergency incidents, and CIHs are equipped to do all of these, they stressed.
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