Category Archives: Lac-Mégantic

Cleanup funding, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Lac-Mégantic, Rail routing

University students find Lac-Megantic on verge of rebuilding after disaster

Repost from The Portland Press Herald, Portland, ME
[Editor: See photos, following the text below.  – RS]

UMF students find Lac-Megantic on verge of rebuilding after disaster

But the residents of the Quebec town are divided on how to proceed.
By Kaitlin Schroeder, December 4, 2014

FARMINGTON — More than a year after a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in downtown Lac-Megantic, the Quebec town is making plans to rebuild.

A group of students from the University of Maine at Farmington who recently visited the town just over the Maine border said the community is working on a plan to rebuild, but is divided on how to proceed and hoping it can come up with the necessary money.

The students visited Lac-Megantic last month on the pilot trip of Global Perspectives, a two-day UMF excursion program focused on making international education more accessible and affordable for students.

The town was devastated July 7, 2013, by the worst Canadian railway disaster in 150 years, when an unmanned train with 72 carloads of crude oil rolled down an incline, derailed and exploded, killing 47 people and leveling 40 downtown buildings in the town of 6,000.

Over the past year, the town has started slowly to rebuild. The Farmington students visited the recently rebuilt public library, and on Wednesday they met with Maurie Stockford, director of the Farmington Public Library, to present her with tokens of friendship from its Lac-Megantic counterpart.

Farmington and Lac-Megantic are longtime partner towns. The Farmington library led a book drive to help Lac-Megantic rebuild its library and replace its collection of 60,000 books.

Clint Bruce, assistant professor of French at UMF, who helped lead the trip the first week of November, said Lac-Megantic officials are getting ready to start reconstruction.

Senior Tobias Logan said the town’s residents want to move past the disaster and are primarily interested in finding government funding to help pay for reconstruction. The cost of rebuilding the town is estimated at as much as $200 million.

Bruce said some limited reconstruction already has started. After the downtown destruction, he said, some of the businesses left but others, such as a large grocery store, have set up shop again on the outskirts of town.

Bruce said there are differing opinions about how to rebuild downtown, some wanting it exactly the way it was and others hoping to take advantage of the opportunity to make changes.

While community members disagree on some points, Bruce said, there is one area of consensus: Residents want to reroute the train tracks.

“They scare people,” he said. “People want the trains to go around the town.”

The railroad is operational again, and residents fear it will derail again, he said.

Images

Searchers dig on July 8, 2013, through rubble on a search for victims of the inferno in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, a day after a runaway train derailed, igniting tanker cars and burning much of the town, killing 47 people.

Searchers dig on July 8, 2013, through rubble on a search for victims of the inferno in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, a day after a runaway train derailed, igniting tanker cars and burning much of the town, killing 47 people. Canadian Press file photo
Crude oil tankers from the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic railways are seen in the heart of downtown Lac-Megantic, Quebec, on July 9, 2013, two days after a train derailed then ignited, burning much of the town.

Crude oil tankers from the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic railways are seen in the heart of downtown Lac-Megantic, Quebec, on July 9, 2013, two days after a train derailed then ignited, burning much of the town. Staff file photo by Michael G. Seamans

 

 

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Disaster compensation, Explosion, Fire, Lac-Mégantic

Some Lac-Mégantic property owners receive compensation: first installment from Quebec

Repost from The Montreal Gazette

Lac-Mégantic property owners receive compensation instalment from Quebec

Presse Canadienne, November 24, 2014
The North Dakota Petroleum Council released a study Tuesday, May 20, 2014 at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference and Expo in Bismarck saying Bakken oil is similar to other light crudes and does not pose a greater risk to transport by rail than other flammable liquids. Oil trains in the U.S. and Canada were involved in at least eight major accidents during the last year, including an explosion in Lac-Megantic.
In this July 9, 2013 file photo, workers comb through debris after an oil train derailed and exploded in the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47. | Paul Chiasson / THE CANADIAN PRESS

The provincial government announced Monday that the first instalment of money set aside to compensate owners of buildings destroyed in the explosion and fire in Lac Mégantic has been transferred.

A total of $1.8 million has been sent to the town. A notary will disburse the funds to nine owners. Others will be paid later.

On July 6, 2013, a train belonging to the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway loaded with crude oil rolled unmanned into Lac Mégantic and derailed, causing explosions and fireballs.

This is just the first phase of the payout scheme. Other property owners will be getting cheques totalling $8 million before the end of the year.

In total, the government has earmarked $60 million for the reconstruction and relaunch of the town after the devastating fire that killed 47 people and decimated the downtown area.

Of that $60 million, a maximum of $37 million has been set aside to compensate people whose properties were damaged.

Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fracking, Lac-Mégantic, Natural gas, Tank car design, US Department of Transportation, US Government Accountability Office

Fed GAO report critical of Department of Transportation, warns of more accidents

Repost from NBC News

More Fiery Oil Train, Pipeline Accidents Unless Government Acts: Report

September 22, 2014

If the U.S. doesn’t quickly address the safe transportation of oil and gas, Americans could pay the price with more fiery train and pipeline accidents, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office.

“Without timely action to address safety risks posed by increased transport of oil and gas by pipeline and rail, additional accidents that could have been prevented or mitigated may endanger the public and call into question the readiness of transportation networks in the new oil and gas environment,” found the report.

The GAO report focused on the safety of moving crude oil by train and the growing network of “gathering lines,” largely unregulated natural gas pipelines. Both have been subjects of recent investigations by NBC News. The GAO determined that the Department of Transportation had “not kept pace with the changing oil and gas transportation environment.”

Oil and gas production in the U.S. increased more than fivefold between 2007 and 2012, a boom brought on by technological advances in drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Vast volumes of oil and gas production soon outstripped the pipeline infrastructure in place to move them.

Crude producers began to load their oil on trains. More than 400,000 carloads of crude ran over North American rails in 2013, up from just 9,500 in 2008. But a series of explosive wrecks have raised concern about the safety of oil trains — the worst, a 2013 derailment outside a small Quebec town, killed nearly 50 people.

A 2013 NBC News investigation found regulators had long known that the tank cars used to ship oil were vulnerable to rupture in an accident.

The DOT has since issued proposed rules to improve the train cars that carry oil. In its report, the GAO applauded the move, but emphasized safety improvements must go beyond the cars, including testing the makeup of the oil, which the DOT has said is particularly flammable.

The GAO also warned better oversight was needed over the growing network of “gathering pipelines” that move natural gas from the well. In August, an investigation by NBC News found that 250,000 miles of these lines are in rural areas and subject to little or no federal or state safety oversight, despite sometimes running beside homes.

Bakken Crude, DOT-111, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Lac-Mégantic, U.S. Department of Transportation

DOT strengthens rules on unattended freight trains

Repost from UPI Business News

Tighter rules for U.S. crude oil trains

Measure part of a series of steps in response to Lac-Megantic disaster.
By Daniel J. Graeber   |   Sept. 9, 2014
Department of Transportation proposes new measures to ensure safety of trains carrying hazardous materials like crude oil (Photo: Daniel J. Graeber)

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Transportation said Tuesday it adopted new measures aimed at securing unattended freight trains in response to oil train accidents.

The Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration issued a new proposal aimed at strengthening rules on unattended freight trains. The rules are part of a series of federal procedures outlined in the wake of the deadly 2013 derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.

“This rulemaking will solidify our existing securement regulations and provide additional safeguards against the rolling of unattended freight trains, especially those carrying hazardous materials,” Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo said in a statement.

At least 40 people were killed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in the derailment of a train carrying tankers of crude oil from North Dakota to Canadian refineries. Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway blamed the air brakes on the locomotive for the accident.

Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced new regulations in April aimed at increasing safety on the Canadian rail system. The measure from regulator Transport Canada started with an order to remove around 5,000 tanker cars designated DOT-111 from service almost immediately.

A 200-page proposal from the Department of Transportation calls for the elimination of older rail cars designated DOT 111 for shipment of flammable liquid, “including most Bakken crude oil.”

The new proposal would prevent trains carrying certain specified hazardous materials from being left unattended.

“Safety is our top priority,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement. “Today’s action is only the latest in more than two dozen steps we have taken in the last year to further safeguard communities along train routes that carry crude oil and other flammable liquids.”