Two Oil-Tank Cars on Canadian National Train Derail in Rural Alberta
No Injuries or Fire Reported
By David George-Cosh | July 4, 2014
Two crude-carrying cars on a train operated by Canadian National Railway Ltd. derailed in central Alberta early Friday, according to the railway company and a local official. There were no reports of injuries or fire.
The 79-car train was carrying oil and forestry products when it derailed near Whitecourt, Alberta, about 125 miles northwest of Edmonton, capital of the oil-rich province, according to a spokesman with Canada’s Transportation Safety Board.
A CN spokeswoman said three other cars also left the tracks but contained paper and forest products.
The train, which originated in Whitecourt, was en route to a terminal in Edmonton when the cars left the track, according to Whitecourt fire chief Brian Wynn. Mr. Wynn said the train was carrying 81 cars.
The CN spokeswoman, Emily Hamer, said the company had contained “slight seepage” from a valve on one tank car but that both oil-carrying cars that derailed remained intact. She said the cause of the accident was being investigated, and that both derailed tank cars were currently on their side.
The incident comes just two days before the one-year anniversary of a deadly train derailment in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in which a train carrying 72 cars of crude from the Bakken Shale slammed into the town’s downtown, killing 47 people.
Since then, other crude-by-rail derailments have occurred in Alabama, North Dakota, Lynchburg, Va., and elsewhere in Canada. Those occurred even as U.S. and Canadian regulators moved to toughen safety standards amid growing transport of oil by rail.
The TSB said it had dispatched an investigator to the site.
The train was headed southbound on a secondary main line where trains typically travel at slower speeds, Mr. Wynn said.
Reps. Thompson, Matsui, Miller & Garamendi Send Letter To Secretary Of Transportation Foxx Requesting Immediate Action To Improve Safety Of Crude Oil Shipped By Rail
Jul 1, 2014 | Press Release
Letter calls on DOT to expedite rules and issue regulations to improve safety of crude shipments and prevent future accidents
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Representatives Mike Thompson (CA-05), Doris Matsui (CA-06), George Miller (CA-11) and John Garamendi (CA-03) sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx expressing strong concern over the increased shipments of crude oil by rail in their districts, and calling for action to increase safety.
“We are especially concerned with the high risks involved with transporting lighter, more flammable crude in densely populated areas. Should spills or explosions occur, as we have seen over the last year, the consequences could be disastrous, costing lives, damaging property, and harming the environment,” the members wrote. “While we are pleased with the many actions that DOT has taken thus far and we believe that your agency is making steady progress, we must still emphasize the utmost importance of demonstrated compliance with federal regulations by the railroad and petroleum industries. We believe there must be accountability and comprehensive oversight, as well as adherence to the most stringent of standards.”
Specifically, the letter calls on the Department of Transportation (DOT) to:
Provide a report on the level of compliance by the railroad and petroleum industry to the May 7th Emergency Order that requires information be shared in a timely manner with local entities.
Issue a rulemaking that requires stripping out the most volatile elements from Bakken crude before it is loaded onto rail cars.
Expedite the issuance of a final rulemaking to require the full implementation of Positive Train Control (PTC) technology for all railroads transporting lighter crude and provide a status report on the progress of PTC implementation to date.
Expedite the issuance of a rulemaking that requires phasing out old rail cars for newer, retrofitted cars.
The full text of the letter is below:
July 1, 2014
The Honorable Anthony Foxx
Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20590
Dear Secretary Foxx:
As members of the California Congressional Delegation, we are writing to voice our strong concerns over the increased shipment of crude oil by rail in our districts and the safety risks associated with this upsurge. Northern California is already seeing a significant increase in the movement of oil through our local communities, and the number of shipments is only expected to rise in the coming years. We commend the Department of Transportation (DOT) for its focus thus far on more information sharing, slower speeds, and reinforced railcars. As you know, the solutions for this important safety issue must be multi-pronged and implemented as quickly as possible, which requires a strong and coordinated effort by the federal government to achieve an effective solution.
We are especially concerned with the high risks involved with transporting lighter, more flammable crude in densely populated areas. Should spills or explosions occur, as we have seen over the last year, the consequences could be disastrous, costing lives, damaging property, and harming the environment. While we are pleased with the many actions that DOT has taken thus far and we believe that your agency is making steady progress, we must still emphasize the utmost importance of demonstrated compliance with federal regulations by the railroad and petroleum industries. We believe there must be accountability and comprehensive oversight, as well as adherence to the most stringent of standards.
We appreciate your agency’s May 7th Emergency Order that requires carriers to provide State Emergency Response Commissions with advance notice because it is imperative that local emergency managers and first responders are given up-to-date information on what materials are being transported through their regions, when these transports are occurring, and where this crude oil will be stored. But, because improved coordination and communication between the oil companies, railroads, and emergency managers is so fundamental to the safe transport of highly flammable lighter crude, we request a full report on the level of compliance by the oil companies and railroads to date.
Additionally, we urge your agency to prioritize implementing solutions in an expeditious manner that we believe will better protect our communities. One such solution would remove a significant amount of the volatile elements, flammable natural gas liquids (NGLs), from the crude before it is loaded onto rail cars and we understand that regulators are already considering this course of action. In order for industry to comply, they would need to build small processing towers known as stabilizers that shave off NGLs from crude before it is ultimately loaded for transport. Stabilizers are common in other parts of the country and we understand that this could also be feasible through equipment leasing. Because your agency has explicitly stated that all options are on table, we believe that requiring the petroleum industry to make lighter crude shipments by rail less volatile must be a part of the solution. And, although building infrastructure will require time and investment, industry experts have also publicly stated that stripping NGLs from lighter crude is a part of the equation for addressing railcar safety.
Furthermore, we believe that positive train control (PTC) advanced technology should be fully implemented as it is designed to automatically stop or slow a train before accidents can occur. Derailments must be avoided at all costs and PTC should be prioritized due to its accurate prevention of train-to-train collisions and derailments caused by excessive speed and unauthorized movement of trains. We believe that an expedited final rulemaking requiring full implementation of PTC is needed for those railroads that will be transporting lighter crude by rail through our communities.
Yet another solution that has been considered and in some cases the oil industry has initiated, is switching out older rail cars for new, retrofitted ones. We urge your agency to issue a rulemaking to require phasing out and retrofitting older tank cars that do not have the latest safety technologies installed in order to further minimize the impact of an explosion, if a derailment with lighter crude were to occur.
As all of these federal emergency orders and standards are being considered and final regulations are set to come out next year, we request that your agency provide us ongoing information regarding industry compliance and develop ambitious standards that will both prevent derailments and ensure that industry workers and communities are protected in cases where derailments do occur. We cannot allow communities to be in danger when viable solutions are available.
To sum up our requests, we would like your agency to:
Provide a report on the level of compliance by the railroad and petroleum industry to the May 7th Emergency Order.
Issue rulemaking that requires stripping out the most volatile elements from Bakken crude before it is loaded onto rail cars.
Expedite the issuance of a final rulemaking to require the full implementation of PTC technology for all railroads transporting lighter crude and provide a status report on the progress of PTC implementation to date.
Expedite the issuance of a rulemaking that requires phasing out old rail cars for newer, retrofitted cars.
We believe that we must be vigilant and put in place strict safety regulations that can adapt and meet the rapidly changing transportation and energy needs of our country. Thank you for your continued elevation of these important safety issues, and we look forward to working with you on this matter.
By Mary Ann Thomas, June 20, 2014
Jason Bridge | Valley News Dispatch | A Norfolk Southern worker walks past damage from a derailed train next to the MSI Corporation building along First Avenue in Vandergrift on Thursday, on Feb. 13, 2014.
A broken railroad spike likely caused a Feb. 13 train derailment and crude oil spill in Vandergrift.
Federal investigators said the broken spike allowed the track to spread, becoming too wide for the Norfolk Southern train to pass safely.
Mike England, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration, confirmed the cause.
The investigation of the Vandergrift derailment was completed recently by the railroad agency and its report was obtained by the Valley News Dispatch through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Broken spikes do cause train derailments on occasion, England said.
No violations were reported during the federal review, and the investigation is closed, he said.
“Just because there is an accident, it doesn’t mean that the railroad did anything wrong,” England said
Dave Pidgeon, a spokesman for Norfolk Southern, said he had nothing to add to the investigators’ report.
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey said the nation and industry must learn from rail accidents.
“The derailment in Vander-grift and others across the state should serve as a wake-up call that we need to improve rail safety,” he said in a statement on Friday.
“Dependable rail travel is vitally important to Pennsylvania’s economy and critical to the safety of the millions of Americans who live near rail lines. I will continue to push for improvements to prevent future derailments,” Casey said.
“Among other measures, it is imperative that the Federal Railroad Administration has the resources it needs to hire rail inspectors to prevent this from happening again,” he said.
Report details
According to the report, two trains used the Vandergrift track hours before the derailment without incident.
No injuries were reported among the engineer, locomotive engineer trainee and conductor on board the derailed train. Three MSI Corp. employees were evacuated when one of the rail cars went through the wall of a company building near the tracks.
The first car to derail was the 67th car in the train of 112 loaded cars and seven empty cars. The 67th through 88th cars derailed, including 19 loaded with crude oil and two with liquid propane gas.
The train originated in Conway, Pa., and was on its way to Harrisburg and points east.
After the derailment, the railroad “did a fair amount” of work on tracks in the accident area, where train traffic has resumed, Pidgeon said.
The Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration this year determined the Vandergrift derailment to be the 14th most significant involving crude oil or ethanol in the past eight years. That report stated that 10,000 gallons of oil spilled in the Vandergrift derailment.
In contrast, the Federal Railroad Administration report states that only 4,310 gallons of heavy crude oil was released.
Damage to equipment in the accident is estimated at $1.76 million, according to the report.
In addition, about $240,000 in damage was caused to the track and $30,000 to a signal.
This Is Where Deadly Crude Oil Trains May Be Rolling Through California
By Ken Broder, June 20, 2014
(graphic: Natural Resources Defense Council)
Although this country’s oil boom has been accompanied by an explosion of dangerous crude-carrying trains―literally and figuratively―a much-anticipated environmental impact report (Summary pdf) says the spill threat from Valero Refining Company’s proposal to run 100 tanker cars a day through Roseville and Sacramento to its Benicia refinery is negligible.
The draft EIR, written by Environmental Science Associates of San Francisco for the city of Benicia and released on Tuesday, singled out air pollution, “significant and unavoidable,” as the sole danger among 11 “environmental resource or issue areas.”
The next day, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released seven maps detailing the rail routes through the “Crude Oil Train Derailment Risk Zones in California,” which stretches from the Bay Area to the Central/San Joaquin Valley and encompasses 4 million people.
The NRDC’s assessment of risk was markedly different than in the EIR. Noting that “California has seen a dramatic increase of crude by rail, from 45,000 barrels in 2009 to six million barrels in 2013” without any new safety measures or emergency response put in place, the NRDC report said the aging “soda cans on wheels” are not built to handle the particularly volatile crude being fracked out of the ground in America’s rejuvenated oil fields like those in North Dakota, and shipped to refiners.
Tracks would run within half a mile of 135,000 people in Sacramento and 25,000 people in Davis.
The NRDC wants old tanker cars removed from service, lower speeds for trains, rerouting through less-sensitive areas, disclosure of what kind of crude is being carried, more visible emergency preparedness, fees on shippers to pay for emergency response, high-risk designations for oil-trains and more comprehensive risk assessments.
The EIR was a bit more upbeat.
It concluded that oil spills between Roseville and Benicia would occur about once every 111 years. The project would have no impact on agriculture and forestry resources or mineral resources. It would also have less-than-significant impacts on aesthetics, population and housing, public services, recreation and utilities and service systems.
In other words, the assumption is there won’t be anything like the tragic accident in July 2013 in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where 72 tank cars of crude oil exploded, killing 47 people and destroying much of the town’s core. As Russell Gold and Betsy Morris explained in the Wall Street Journal, “Each tank car of crude holds the energy equivalent of 2 million sticks of dynamite or the fuel in a wide body jetliner.”
The Sacramento Bee said the risk assessment’s author, Christopher Barken, previously worked for the Association of American Railroads, the industry’s leading advocacy group in Washington, and does research supported by the railroad association.
Barken’s website at the University of Illinois, where he is a professor and executive director of the Railroad Engineering Program, says, “Our strong relationship with the rail industry means our research has an impact.”
In describing the twice-a-day snaking of 50-car trains through heavily populated areas, the report offered far more information than has generally been made available by rail companies to state and local governments, as well as disaster first-responders. But the EIR did acknowledge Benicia would not reveal seven Valero “trade secrets” (pdf) at the oil company’s request.
That “confidential business information” included the specific crude Valero would be shipping in by rail and the properties of crude it refined now or in the past. That lack of information would be complicating factors in accurately assessing pollution and risk.
California, like states and localities across the nation, are scrambling just to get a handle on how much crude-by-rail is coursing through their jurisdictions, much less assessing what regulations and safety measures need to be put in place. They are working blind.
A study by Politico analyzed 400 oil-train incidents nationally since 1971 and found a dramatic escalation the past five years. Property damage from 70 accidents through mid-May this year is already $10 million, triple the year before.
“It has become abundantly clear that there are a whole slew of freight rail safety measures that, while for many years have been moving through the gears of bureaucracy, must now be approved and implemented in haste,” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said.
They must. Because the trains are already rolling and Valero would like to get its California project finished by the end of the year. America is waiting.
