Category Archives: Rail accidents

Bakken Shale, Bay Area Refineries, Berkeley, Local Regulation, Rail accidents, Richmond

Richmond City Council calls for ban on Bakken crude by rail

Repost from The Contra Costa Times
[Editor’s note: See Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia’s letter to Richmond Mayor/City Council here. – RS]

Richmond calls on Congress to halt crude oil transport through Bay Area

By Robert Rogers Contra Costa Times

Posted:   03/25/2014

RICHMOND — A unanimous Richmond City Council voted Tuesday to call on Congress to halt rail transport of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota pending new regulations and explore what local measures could be enforced to thwart truck transport of the volatile fuel mix on local streets.

The resolution, proposed by Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, follows revelations in recent days of massive increases in crude-by-rail shipments into Contra Costa County, including at Kinder Morgan in Richmond, the only facility in the Bay Area that receives crude shipped on Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains and transfers it to trucks for transport to Bay Area refineries.

“There are terrible threats in our midst,” McLaughlin said. “Ultimately, we need to ban (Bakken crude) from coming through our community.”

The resolution directs city staff to send a letter to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Division Director Randy Sawyer, Congressmen George Miller and Mike Thompson, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, State Senators Loni Hancock and Mark Desaulnier and Assemblymember Nancy Skinner urging them to work on new regulations, including halting the transport of crude near Bay Area communities. Councilman Tom Butt added an amendment directing staff to explore whether the city could use its own regulatory powers to ban transport of Bakken crude on city streets.

Railroad activity is typically beyond the scope of local laws and is regulated at the federal level.

The vote followed a presentation by oil industry author Antonia Juhasz detailing the nationwide increase in accidents associated with rail transport of Bakken crude, which is fracked in North Dakota and is more volatile and susceptible to explosion than heavier crude blends.

The volume of crude transported by rail into Northern California increased by 57 percent during 2013, according to California Energy Commission statistics.

About 85 percent of the crude by rail delivered to Northern California in 2013 came from North Dakota, followed by 12.5 percent from Colorado, according to the commission. Four of the five Northern California oil refineries listed by the commission are in Contra Costa County, with the other in Benicia.

“A whole lot more oil is being spilled by trains,” Juhasz said. “It’s dramatically worse.”

From 1975-2012. 792,600 gallons of oil were spilled in train accidents, Juhasz said. In 2013, 1.3 million gallons were spilled in accidents, more than the combined total of every year since 1975.

Juhasz said the problem centers on three factors: More oil is being harvested and moved within the continent, it’s being sent to coastal refineries for processing and export due to higher international prices, and regulation has not kept pace with the rapid changes.

“The National Transportation Safety Board said oil spill response planning requirements are practically nonexistent,” Juhasz said. “They recommend that you require rerouting to avoid transportation of such hazardous materials through populated and other sensitive areas.”

In the past month, critics have hosted town hall meetings in Richmond, Martinez and Pittsburg decrying planned increases in crude-by-rail shipments into the Bay Area. On Tuesday night, the Berkeley City Council passed a resolution directing city staff to oppose efforts to transport Bakken crude through the city.

Juhasz drew specific attention to rising accident numbers, with particular emphasis on a train explosion in July in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where 47 people were killed.

“There is a movement toward more federal regulation,” Juhasz said. “This (resolution) would not just be an exercise, it would add to the cacophony of voices making that demand.”

Not all residents were convinced.

“I read about your agenda item to encourage to regulate this, now I am hearing ban it,” said Don Goseny, a Richmond resident. “That is kind of overregulation isn’t it? No one is even asking is there a safe way to transport this crude.”

Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia released a statement Tuesday saying he is concerned that “there was no clear communication” between BAAQMD staff members and Kinder Morgan before a permit was issued to the offloading company last September, when Juhasz said it began offloading Bakken crude. He said the issue will be discussed at the next BAAQMD meeting on April 21.

“The dramatic increase in the volume of Bakken shale crude oil being transported by rail through Northern California should be of great concern to local government,” Gioia wrote.

Bakken Shale, Bay Area Refineries, Berkeley, DOT-111, Environmental Impacts, Kinder Morgan, Local Regulation, Oil Industry, Rail accidents, Rail industry, Richmond, Santa Maria Refinery, Tar sands crude

East Bay Express: Richmond and Berkeley oppose oil by rail

1 Comment

Repost from East Bay Express

Richmond and Berkeley Oppose Fracked Oil and Tar Sands Rail Shipments

Jean Tepperman —  Wed, Mar 26, 2014

The city councils of both Berkeley and Richmond unanimously passed resolutions last night calling for tighter regulation of the shipping of crude oil by rail through the East Bay. The Berkeley resolution went further, committing Berkeley to oppose all shipment of crude oil by rail through the city until tighter regulations are in place.

Information has recently come to light about crude-by-rail activity in both cities. In September, with no public announcement, the Kinder Morgan rail yard in Richmond quietly switched from handling ethanol to crude oil. And a new proposal calls for shipping crude oil to the Phillips 66 refinery in Santa Maria on train tracks that run through the East Bay.

Fracked oil from Bakken shale is highly explosive.
USGS – Fracked oil from Bakken shale is highly explosive.

At the Richmond City Council meeting, oil-industry expert Antonia Juhasz presented evidence from both the BNSF railroad and Kinder Morgan websites showing that the crude oil coming into the Richmond rail yard is fracked from the Bakken shale fields in North Dakota. This Bakken crude has been responsible for several recent disastrous explosions when trains carrying it have derailed, with the worst accident in Lac Megantic, Quebec, where 47 people were killed and the downtown destroyed.

Juhasz added that there were more derailments and accidents involving crude by rail in 2013 than in the previous thirty years combined. More crude is being shipped by rail because of the huge increase in production of crude from North Dakota Bakken shale and Canadian tar sands, both far inland, and the need to get the fossil fuel to the coasts to refine and export.

Juhasz also reported that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has said that emergency response planning along the rail routes is “practically nonexistent” and that current regulations are “no longer sufficient” — and that it’s not safe to carry crude oil in the type of car currently being used. Because of all this, the NTSB has recommended that trains carrying crude oil be rerouted “away from populated and other sensitive areas.”

Several Richmond council members and community speakers expressed surprise that the switch to crude oil happened with no public notice. Andres Soto of Communities for a Better Environment said the “real culprit” was the staff of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which approved Kinder Morgan’s application to make this change without notifying the public or even the air district board members.

City councilmembers wrestled with the fact that the city has no jurisdiction over railroads — only the federal government can regulate them. But Juhasz and McLaughlin said a resolution by the city was important as part of a demand from many cities and organizations for more regulation of crude by rail.

The resolution called on federal legislators to move quickly to regulate the transportation of the new types of crude oil from Bakken shale and Canadian tar sands. Many speakers argued in favor of a moratorium on shipping crude by rail until adequate regulations were in place.

Meanwhile in Berkeley, another oil-industry expert, environmental engineer Phyllis Fox, described the plan to ship crude oil through the East Bay to Santa Maria — probably through Richmond, Berkeley, and Oakland — since these tracks are built to carry heavy trains. She projected a map showing that rail lines in California parallel rivers and go through the most populated areas, so accidents would be “disastrous.”

Information released about the plan doesn’t reveal the source of the crude oil, but Fox said the two main kinds of crude oil being shipped by rail are from Bakken shale — oil that is highly volatile and prone to explosion — and Canadian tar sands — very heavy oil that is especially toxic and difficult to clean up. “One catastrophic event,” Fox said, “could cause irreversible harm.”

Other sources have pointed out that the Phillips 66 refinery in San Luis Obispo County is geared to refining heavy crude oil, so it’s most likely that the crude headed to that plant would come from the Canadian tar sands.

Many speakers in the public comment period supported the resolution, including residents of Crockett/Rodeo and Martinez, who are waging similar battles in their communities. Speakers pointed out a wide range of problems with shipping crude by rail in addition to the immediate danger. In a pre-meeting rally in support of the resolution, Mayor Tom Bates said the issues “go beyond the danger to our community to our whole carbon future. If we don’t get off fossil fuel we’re all doomed.”

The resolution commits Berkeley to file comments opposing crude-by-rail projects in any draft permit-approval process, starting with the Santa Maria project; to file comments opposing new projects in the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo and the Valero refinery in Benicia; and to support the federal Department of Transportation in creating strict regulation of rail shipments of crude oil. In presenting the resolution, Maio also said Berkeley should form a coalition with other cities fighting crude-by-rail projects.

Insurance Industry, Oil Industry, Rail accidents, Reinsurance, Risk Assessment

Insurance industry figures on 2013 natural and human-caused disasters

Repost from Business Insurance
[Editor’s note: The text here lumps together losses from natural catastrophes and “man-made” disasters.  But the link at the end of this story downloads a PDF that shows detailed information about oil and rail disasters. – RS]

Catastrophes caused global insured losses of $45B in 2013: Swiss Re

Sarah Veysey
March 26, 2014

Global insured losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters totaled about $45 billion in 2013, down from about $81 billion a year earlier, according to a report released Wednesday by Swiss Re Ltd.

Economic losses from natural and man-made disasters were about $140 billion in 2013, down from $196 billion in 2012, according to the Swiss Re sigma report.

The most costly insured event in 2013 was flooding in parts of central and eastern Europe during May that caused insured losses of about $4.1 billion, according to the study.

Hailstorms in France and Germany in July caused insured losses of about $3.8 billion, the report showed, while floods in Canada in June resulted in insured losses of about $1.9 billion.

In the United States, thunderstorms and tornadoes in May caused insured losses of $1.8 billion, while severe thunderstorms, tornadoes and hail later that same month caused insured losses of $1.4 billion. A winter storm bringing ice, tornadoes and heavy rain in April resulted in insured losses of $1.2 billion.

Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in November, left about 7,500 people dead or missing, and caused insured losses of about $1.5 billion, according to the report.

Windstorm Christian, which hit parts of northern and central Europe in October, caused insured losses of about $1.5 billion, according to Swiss Re, while Typhoon Fitow in China and Japan in September caused insured losses of about $1.1 billion.

“Risk prevention and mitigation measures have progressed in recent years,” Swiss Re said in a statement.

“For instance, the losses from the floods in central and eastern Europe last year would have been much worse had the flood protection measures not been strengthened after the same region suffered severe flooding in 2002,” it said.

The study can be found here: Natural catastrophes and man-made disasters in 2013 sigma1_2014_en.PDF.

Bakken Shale, Environmental Impacts, Public Health, Rail accidents, Tar sands crude, Valero Crude By Rail

NRDC report on Valero meeting – Valero’s Magic Box

Repost from NRDC Switchboard, Diane Bailey’s Blog

Valero’s Magic Box, balancing sludge v. stink of crude oil

Posted March 26, 2014

valero meeting.jpgLast night I learned all about the magic box of Valero’s “operating envelope” at their Benicia (San Francisco Bay Area) refinery during their public meeting for the proposed Crude Oil Rail Terminal.  Valero staff described the proposal to a packed audience, speaking cheerfully about bringing two 50-tanker car trains of crude oil in and out of Benicia each day. The friendly façade crumbled a little during the lengthy explanation to concerned community residents about the type of crude oil that could be coming in those tanker trains, confirming that they may carry dirty tar sands and volatile Bakken crude oil.

Valero - Feedstock Profile (any crude can fit in the blend box) (2).png

This slide from Valero’s presentation shows the magic box that bounds the density of the crude oil – the sludge factor, and the sulfur levels – aka the stink factor – of the crude oil that the Valero Benicia refinery is capable of handling.  It turns out though that the refinery can take a lot of different kinds of crude oil outside the magic yellow box; these are the yellow triangles.  The yellow triangles outside the magic box include both Bakken and tar sands crude oil.  That is to say that they can get the world’s dirtiest and most dangerous crude oils into the magic box of the refinery operating envelope by mixing them.  That’s right, they can brew up an exceptionally hazardous cocktail of tar sands sludge mixed with volatile Bakken crude oil to get inside the magic box.

So, Valero can take the sludgiest, highest stink crude oil and cut it with lighter oil.  Then, voila, they say there are no changes to the balance of sludge and stink in the crude oil refined.  Although this mix may look like the same old conventional crude oil according to Valero’s magic box theory, the reality is that this kind of blend of extreme crude oils creates the greatest public health hazards. Why? It retains the toxic heavy metal contamination from sludgy crudes and that comes out as air pollution; It is much harder to process, which means even more air pollution; it is unstable, prone to volatilizing toxic hydrocarbons like benzene; and it is highly corrosive, putting the refinery and infrastructure at greater risk of accidents.

Will Valero come clean with a real analysis of the public health, safety and environmental risks of the project when the draft Environmental Impact Report comes out next month? Or will they hide these impacts in magic boxes?