Category Archives: Rail accidents

Bakken Crude, Derailment, Draft EIR, Rail accidents, Tar sands crude, Valero Crude By Rail

Sen. Lois Wolk calls for stronger safety inspection regulations

Repost from The Vacaville Reporter
[Editor: See also coverage in The Daily Democrat, The Davis Vanguard.  – RS]

Wolk urges more regulation on rail crude oil shipments to Solano refinery

By Reporter Staff  |  06/09/2014

The battle over local crude oil rail shipments moved to Sacramento late last week as Senator Lois Wolk, D-Solano, called on legislators Friday to support a proposal to strengthen the state’s railroad safety inspection force.

Wolk is seeking the inspection upgrade in light of the growing volume of crude oil shipments through heavily populated areas of California and numerous crude oil rail accidents in recent years.

In a letter sent in advance of today’s scheduled release of a draft Environmental Impact Report on a proposal to transport crude oil through the heart of the Capitol Corridor to the Valero Refining Company in the city of Benicia, Wolk laments a lack of increased regulatory oversight for such shipments. Rail shipments of crude oil in California like those proposed by Valero are slated to increase 25-fold in the next few years, according to the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and California Energy Commission.

“However, there has not been a corresponding increase in regulatory oversight capacity to address this significant increase in risk to California’s citizens,” Wolk wrote in the letter to members of the Legislature’s Budget Conference Committee, scheduled to hear Governor Edmund G. Brown’s budget proposal to add seven inspectors to the PUC’s railroad safety staff. “Additional oversight is needed to provide some assurance that these shipments are made safely and in compliance with federal and state regulations, as well as other known safety practices.”

Several destructive crude oil rail accidents have taken place in the U.S. and Canada in recent years, including the July 2013 derailment of 72 tanker cars loaded with 2 million gallons of flammable crude oil in Lac-Mégantic, Canada, that resulted in 47 deaths, more than $1 billion in damages, and 1.5 million gallons of spilled crude oil, Wolk noted.

Valero’s proposal has elicited concern from public and elected officials regarding the safety risks of transporting crude oil through Benicia and other densely populated areas of Northern California. Other concerns include the potential for increased commuter traffic.

“An event such as Lac Mégantic could have catastrophic effects if it occurred in any populated area of California,” Wolk said.

The Valero proposal seeks to add three rail tracks and an off-loading track on Valero’s property to allow crude oil to be transported into the refinery. Currently, crude oil is delivered into Valero Benicia through pipeline and ships.

During a meeting in Benicia earlier this spring, company officials said that the railroad addition would make the refinery more competitive by allowing it to process more discounted North American crude oil. They insisted that the railroad traffic up to 100 tank cars per day would not affect the region’s air quality, and safety standards would be met.

“It would not increase crude delivery, just make it more flexible,” John Hill, vice president and general manager of the refinery, told citizens at the meeting.

Another point of contention was the type of crude oil that would be transported into Benicia by rail.

An opposition group, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, said the project will allow the delivery of the highly flammable Bakken crude from North Dakota. Concerns also have been raised about the possible use of Canadian tar sands oil, regarded as more polluting than other crudes.

However, officials said there will be no change in the delivered type of crude. They said the refinery can, and will be able to, handle any blend of crude oil as long as it meets density and sulfur requirements for its facility. They did not disqualify Bakken crude as a possible part of a blend.

Times-Herald, Vallejo staff contributed to this report.

Derailment, Rail accidents, Rail Safety

Latest derailment: dangling oil tank cars in McKeesport, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh)

Repost from The Observer-Reporter
[Editor: When you are done reading about this latest wreck (including light petroleum tank cars), check out this list: 29 derailments in North America Jan 1 – June 8 this year, an average of one every five days.  See also this list of the six notable derailments involving tank car explosions.  – RS]

Derailed train cars dangle over Youghiogheny River

Jun 8, 2014

(Photo Credit: KDKA Photographer Chris Kunicki)

PITTSBURGH (AP) – A couple train cars are hanging partly off a suburban Pittsburgh trestle above the Youghiogheny River after derailing, scaring people below who thought the train was ready to plunge into the river.

CSX said about 12 cars of a train derailed around 11 p.m. Saturday in McKeesport while heading from New Castle to Connellsville.

It said the 88-car train was carrying mixed freight, including carrying scrap metal and “light petroleum.”

CSX spokesman Gary Sease says the petroleum didn’t leak. No injuries were reported.

The McKeesport Marina was evacuated and McKeesport Deputy Fire Chief Don Sabol said there’s a lot of damage to the tracks. CSX said it’s not sure yet what caused the derailment.

– – – – –

MORE:
29 derailments in North America 1 Jan-8 June this year, an average of one every five days.
See also this list of the six notable derailments involving tank car explosions.

Bakken Crude, Explosion, Hazardous cargo transparency, Hazmat notification, Rail accidents, Risk Assessment

Setting the record straight on the oil industry studies of Bakken crude by rail

Repost from Reuters

Industry tests of oil train dangers need scrutiny, U.S. officials say

By Patrick Rucker  |  WASHINGTON, June 2, 2014

(Reuters) – Oil industry studies concluding that Bakken crude oil is safe to move by rail under existing standards may underestimate the dangers of the fuel and should not be the last word, U.S. lawmakers and industry officials said on Monday.

In the past year, several doomed oil trains originated from North Dakota’s Bakken region, including a shipment that jumped the tracks and burst into flames in Lynchburg, Virginia, on April 30. Last July, a fiery derailment destroyed the center of the village of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people.

Two industry-funded studies conclude Bakken fuel is rightly classed as a flammable liquid that can safely move in standard tank cars. The cargo is nothing akin to flammable gasses like propane that must move in costlier, heavier vessels, the oil industry has said.

But the industry findings hinge on incomplete and out-of-date methods for determining vapor pressure, an important indicator of volatility, that may miss the true dangers of Bakken fuel, according to several industry officials.

Lawmakers say they expect regulators to scrutinize the industry’s findings.

“These studies should be taken with a grain of salt,” said Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, a state that is a major pass-through point for Bakken fuel.

One study released May 20 by the North Dakota Petroleum Council (NDPC) collected samples with open bottles rather than a precision instrument, known as a floating piston cylinder, that is being adopted by the industry.

Gas can escape with bottle sampling and such tests are unreliable, said the Canadian Crude Quality Technical Association, a trade group.

“We would consider the data suspect,” the group said.

ASTM, an international standard-setting body, last month deemed the floating piston cylinder the right tool for Bakken fuel samples. Open bottle samples can skew vapor pressure nearly 10 percent lower, according to research from Ametek, which manufactures testing equipment.

Industry officials say that any underestimation of vapor pressure would be negligible.

Vapor pressure results did not exceed 15 pounds per square inch (psi) in the NDPC report.

A separate study by the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) returned readings below 17 psi.

The threshold pressure for flammable gas is 43 psi under those same conditions.

Rich Moskowitz, general counsel for the AFPM, the refining industry trade group, said its report “clearly found that Bakken crude oil is properly transported as a flammable liquid. That’s the bottom line.”

Industry officials note that the U.S. Department of Transportation has not issued any of its own findings on Bakken fuel despite collecting samples since the summer.

The issue will likely be raised on Tuesday at a panel of the Senate Commerce Committee which will feature testimony from railroad regulators, among others.

“It is my hope that any private data collection and studies on this issue will be highly scrutinized,” said Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, who sits on the panel.

(Reporting by Patrick Rucker; Editing by Grant McCool)
Bakken Crude, DOT-111, Explosion, Oil spill, Rail accidents, Tank car design

DOT-111 tank cars: “the Ford Pinto of rail cars”

Repost from Mother Jones
[Editor: The Casselton ND video has a nearly inaudible audio track.  The Lynchburg VA video at end of this article is an amazing drone flyover of the derailment and spill in Lynchburg, with no audio, and with an annoying advertisement at the beginning.  Ignore the ad and it will disappear.  – RS]

Why Do These Tank Cars Carrying Oil Keep Blowing Up?

Millions of gallons of crude oil are being shipped across the country in “the Ford Pinto of rail cars.”

—Michael W. Robbins on Tue. May 27, 2014
Above: DOT-111 tank cars carrying crude oil exploding in Casselton, North Dakota, in December 2013  [Note: this video seems to have no sound, but it does have audio, only turned extremely low.]

Early on the morning of July 6, 2013, a runaway freight train derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, setting off a series of massive explosions and inundating the town in flaming oil. The inferno destroyed the downtown area; 47 people died.

The 72-car train had been carrying nearly 2 million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken fields. While the recent surge in domestic oil production has raised concerns about fracking, less attention has been paid to the billions of gallons of petroleum crisscrossing the country in “virtual pipelines” running through neighbor­hoods and alongside waterways. Most of this oil is being shipped in what’s been called “the Ford Pinto of rail cars”—a tank car whose safety flaws have been known for more than two decades.

Holey Roller: The DOT-111
The original DOT-111 tank car was designed in the 1960s. Its safety flaws were pointed out in the early ’90s, but more than 200,000 are still in service, with about 78,000 carrying crude oil and other flammable liquids. The DOT-111 tank car’s design flaws “create an unacceptable public risk,” Deborah Hersman, then chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, testified at a Senate hearing in April. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has compared the car to “a ticking time bomb.” While the rail industry has voluntarily rolled out about 14,000 stronger tank cars, about 78,000 of the older DOT-111s remain in service. Retrofitting them would cost an estimated $1 billion.

The DOT-111Chris Philpot

The Bakken Factor
The sudden flood of Bakken crude (currently 1 million barrels a day), which is potentially more flammable, volatile, and corrosive than traditional crude, also poses a new hazard. The violence of the Lac-Mégantic blast and other recent wrecks involving this variety of crude stunned railroads and regulators. In May, the Department of Transportation issued an emergency order requiring state crisis managers to be notified about large shipments of Bakken oil. The agency also advised railroads to stop carrying the oil in older DOT-111s, citing the increased propensity for accidents. Meanwhile, as US officials decide what to do next, Canada has ordered its railways to stop all crude shipments in the cars by 2017.

Lac Megantic oil train accidentTank cars carrying crude oil derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in July 2013, killing 47 people. AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Paul Chiasson

More Trains, More Spills
Trains carry more than 10 percent of all US oil, particularly from areas without major pipelines, such as the Bakken. The sudden surge of oil shipments has so clogged the rails that farmers in North Dakota complain that they can’t get fertilizer shipped in or their crops shipped out.

Not waiting for a final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, oil companies are also building rail terminals in Canada’s tar sands region. The Association of American Railroads says that the vast majority of rail shipments arrive without incident. But more oil on the rails has also meant more spills. Trains leaked more crude in 2013 than all years since 1971 combined. (These figures don’t include the Lac-Mégantic disaster, in which 1.6 million gallons of oil spilled.)

Oil by rail

Off the Rails: Recent DOT-111 Accidents
Watch a video of tank cars exploding in Casselton at the top of the page. Watch video of the aftermath of the recent derailment and spill in Lynchburg, Virginia, below.

Oil rail spills

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