Category Archives: Rail routing

California Regulation, Crude By Rail, Hazmat notification, Rail routing, Train speed

KQED: Routes revealed for BNSF trains hauling volatile crude oil in California

Repost from KQED Science
[Editor: Of great interest for many in California, but lacking any comment on the Union Pacific rail line that transports freight to Benicia and over the Benicia Bridge to Contra Costa County and the East Bay.  Latest on the Union Pacific line as of 6/27/14: The Riverside Press Enterprise reports that “Union Pacific submitted a letter May 29 to the state office, saying the company was “compiling and reviewing the data.”  – RS]

Revealed: Routes for Trains Hauling Volatile Crude Oil in California

Molly Samuel, KQED Science | June 25, 2014
A BNSF train carrying crude oil passes through downtown Sacramento. (Courtesy of Jake Miille)
A BNSF train carrying crude oil passes through downtown Sacramento. (Jake Miille)

State officials have released routing information for trains carrying a volatile grade of crude oil through California.

The newly released information reveals that tank cars loaded with oil from the Bakken formation, a volatile crude that has a history of exploding, rumble through downtown Sacramento and through Stockton about once a week. Before they get there, they travel along the Feather River, a major tributary of the Sacramento and a key source of drinking water. They pass through rural Northern California counties — Modoc, Lassen, Placer, Plumas, Yuba and Butte — before reaching their destination in Contra Costa County.

This is the first time that information about the trains’ routing in California and their frequency has been made public. About once a week, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) train enters the state from Oregon, headed for the Kinder Morgan rail yard in Richmond. Each train is carrying a million gallons or more of Bakken crude.

“The purpose of the information is really to give first responders better awareness of what’s coming through their counties,” says Kelly Huston, a deputy director at the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

The notifications (shown below) provided by BNSF to the state list the counties through which the trains pass, and the average number of trains per week. They’re retrospective, reporting what’s already happened, rather than looking ahead to what trains could be coming.

“Right now the information, because it’s not very specific, is being used as an awareness tool,” said Huston.

An emergency order issued by the federal Department of Transportation requires railroads to notify emergency responders about large shipments of Bakken crude. BNSF had asked the OES to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which state officials refused to do. After keeping the notifications secret from the public for a few weeks, the state decided to release them on Wednesday, following the lead of other states that had already done so.

“We think it is very important that those responsible for security and emergency planning have such information to ensure that proper planning and training are in place for public safety,” Roxanne Butler, a spokeswoman for BNSF, wrote in an email. “But we also continue to urge discretion in the wider distribution of specific details.”

The DOT issued the order after a series of fiery derailments involving Bakken crude in Alabama, North Dakota and Virginia, among other states. Last July, a train carrying oil from the Bakken exploded in a town in Quebec, killing 47 people.

MAP: State officials have confirmed that crude is traveling by rail in the counties shaded gray on the map, below. Also shown are rail lines owned by California’s two major railroads, BNSF and UP, which share some of the lines. Click on the rail lines or counties to see identifying information. Not all lines shown in the shaded areas carry Bakken crude. (Map produced by Lisa Pickoff-White)

California Crude-by-Rail Shipments by KQED News

“We want the rail companies to do everything they can to ensure public safety,” said Diane Bailey of the Natural Resources Defense Council. She says there are three things that would help assuage her concerns: safer rail cars, slower speed limits, and making sure the trains are always staffed.

Butler said the railroads themselves have also pushed to phase out the DOT-111 railcars that have been involved in the accidents. “The rail industry also implemented a number of additional safety operating practices several months ago to reduce the risk of moving crude by rail,” she wrote, “including lower speed limits and had addressed the train securement issue in August of 2013 as part of the Federal Railroad Administration’s emergency order.”

California lawmakers have introduced bills that would provide more money for oil spill response, and require more information from railroads about hazardous materials. The recently-passed California budget includes a fee on oil entering California by rail, which would help fund the state’s Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response. It also provides more money to the California Public Utilities Commission for rail safety inspectors.

Transporting crude oil by rail is a burgeoning business, thanks to an oil boom in North Dakota. In 2013, more than 6 million barrels of crude oil came into California by rail. In 2008, there were none.

California Crude-by-Rail Weekly Tracking

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly included Davis in the list of cities the trains pass through.

Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Local Regulation, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Positive Train Control, Rail inspection, Rail routing, Risk Assessment, State regulation, Train speed

Law professor: 9 ways that STATES can help regulate railroad safety and transportation

Repost from LegalPlanet.org
[Editor:  Federal preemption under the Commerce Clause is NOT the last and only word on regulating crude oil trains.  Here are some suggestions for State regulation by Professor Jayni Foley Hein, executive director of UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment.  – RS]

Oil By Rail: Nine Things California Can Do to Increase Safety

While FRA Considers New Federal Regulations, States Can Ramp Up Prevention and Emergency Response
By Jayni Hein, June 24, 2014

At a joint Senate and Assembly hearing last week on oil by rail safety in California, some lawmakers expressed frustration at slow federal action, and asked what California can do to increase public safety. My testimony focused on federal preemption issues, defining areas where the state can regulate, and those where it is preempted by the Commerce Clause, Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA), or ICC Termination Act, or all three.

While the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) have primary authority over railroad safety and transportation, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) shares authority with the federal government to enforce federal rail safety requirements and conduct inspections. And even with strong federal preemption provisions, there are actions that California and other states can take right now to increase public safety in light of the enormous growth of oil by rail.

Here are nine things the state can do:

1. Prioritize track and rail car inspection.

California has more than 5,000 miles of mainline railroad track. Inspection of track and rail cars is vital, as derailments are the most common type of train accident in the United States. A national analysis of freight train derailments from 2001 to 2010 on the Class I freight railroads’ mainline track found that broken track rails or track welds were the leading cause of derailments. Broken rail car wheels and track obstructions are also common causes of derailments. (Liu, et. al. 2012).

Governor Brown’s new budget includes funding to hire seven additional rail safety inspectors for the CPUC, paid for by rail industry assessments. The state should ensure that it has enough CPUC inspectors to accommodate the projected rise in oil by rail traffic each year. If seven new inspectors are needed right now; we will likely need many more by 2016, when oil by rail shipments are projected to increase as much as 25-fold, to 150 million barrels per year.

2. Obtain robust data on rail routing, rail car contents, and accident causes.

California agencies need more information from FRA and the railroads on routes, frequency, and rail car contents, as well as data on train derailments, their causes, and risk factors specific to crude by rail transit. The state should obtain this data from FRA – a recommendation echoed in the June 10, 2014 California Inter-Agency Working Group Report. The CPUC needs both national data and California-specific data in order to do its job.

3. Conduct an analysis of the risks that crude by rail poses to the state, including identification of high-risk areas of track, and propose specific measures to increase safety.

The legislature should consider requiring an annual report from the CPUC on the specific risks that crude by rail poses to the state, and measures that it can take to increase safety. Voluntary agreements with the railroads may also be an important outgrowth of this state-specific analysis that can inform where and how to direct limited state resources. As previewed above, this state analysis should be guided by the most recent data available from FRA and the railroads.

The legislature could also consider requiring information sharing among the relevant state agencies, including CPUC, Office of Emergency Services (OES), Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR), California Environmental Protection Agency, and more.

4. Require state oil spill contingency plans for trains transporting oil into the state.

SB 1319 (Pavley) would require state oil spill contingency plans for trains transporting oil into the state. Such a state-mandated plan would provide an opportunity to secure better emergency response protection for the environment and public safety.

5. Get access to daily information on oil shipments into California, and ensure that state and local emergency personnel can access this information immediately in the event of an accident.

A recent DOT Emergency Order requires that each railroad operating trains containing more than 1 million gallons of Bakken crude oil, or approximately 35 tank cars, to provide states with weekly notice that includes estimated volumes of Bakken oil  transported per week and routing information.

The state should also have immediate access to real-time shipment information, assuming the technology exists to enable this. The state should also ensure that local emergency response personnel are well trained to deal with any crude by rail accident, and can readily identify the contents of any shipment. Training and information sharing with local emergency response personnel can be paid for by the industry, using a fee or assessment like the 6.5 cent/barrel fee on all oil imports recently approved by the state.

6. Advocate for more stringent federal safety regulations.

Legislative pronouncements, as well as the CPUC’s robust participation in the Rail Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) are needed to secure better federal standards.

California joins others states such as New York in advocating for more stringent rail car design standards (phasing out DOT-111 cars, for example), mandatory placards on rail cars identifying Bakken crude oil,  expediting Positive Train Control, and requiring electronically-controlled pneumatic brakes on all crude oil trains. The state can also advocate for further federal analysis of possible routing changes, to avoid sensitive population and habitat areas.

7. Monitor compliance with new voluntary measures that the railroads agreed to implement this year.

As part of a February 2014 agreement with DOT, the Class I railroads will perform one additional internal-rail inspection each year than required by the FRA on routes over which trains carry 20 or more tank cars of crude oil, and will conduct at least two track geometry inspections over these routes. The  railroads also agreed to use end-of-train braking systems on all oil trains, and lower train speed in federally-designated “high-threat-urban-areas.”

The CPUC should monitor the railroads’ compliance with these voluntary measures. At the same time, CPUC and the state should advocate for making these voluntary measures mandatory, by issuing new or revised FRA regulations.

8. Consider issuing guidance to local permitting agencies on requirements for offloading facilities and oil refinery expansion.

There are currently at least five crude-by-rail refinery projects being pursued in California: one in Pittsburg, one in Benicia, two in Bakersfield, and one in Wilmington. There is a patchwork of local permitting agencies responsible for land use, air, water, and other local safety and environmental issues that may be relevant to offloading sites and refineries.

Local government and permitting agencies can deny land use and other permits for refineries and offloading facilities if they find safety risks or improper environmental mitigation under statutes like the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). But, local agency personnel may have varying levels of expertise in oil and rail issues and may apply permitting criteria inconsistently. As such, the state, through the Office or Planning and Research (OPR), should consider issuing guidance to local permitting agencies on necessary permits and requirements for offloading facility or refinery expansion.

9. Provide guidance on CEQA review and the public comment and participation process, especially relevant to environmental justice communities that may be located near offloading sites or refineries.

While rail accidents can happen anywhere, communities near offloading sites and refineries are especially vulnerable to oil by rail transport risks. The state can provide information and guidance to these communities on opportunities for engagement, comment and participation.

In addition, the state can encourage railroads, industry and refineries to work directly with potentially affected communities to disclose as much information as possible about shipments, safety measures, and how community members can participate in the process to make their communities safer.

Federal Rail Administration, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazardous cargo transparency, Hazmat notification, Rail routing, State regulation

Feds: Oil train details not security sensitive

Repost from Associated Press

Feds: Oil train details not security sensitive

By Matthew Brown  |  Jun. 18, 2014

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. transportation officials said Wednesday that details about volatile oil train shipments are not sensitive security information, after railroads sought to keep the material from the public following a string of fiery accidents.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has ordered railroads to give state officials specifics on oil-train routes and volumes so emergency responders can better prepare for accidents.

Railroads have convinced some states to sign agreements restricting the information’s release for business and security reasons.

But the Federal Railroad Administration determined the information is not sensitive information that must be withheld from the public to protect security, said Kevin Thompson, the agency’s associate administrator.

Thompson added that railroads could have appropriate claims that the information should be kept confidential for business reasons, but said states and railroads would have to work that out.

Montana officials said they intend to publicly release the oil-train information next week.

The move is mandated under the state’s open records law and will help protect public safety by raising community awareness, said Andrew Huff, chief legal counsel for Gov. Steve Bullock.

“Part of the whole reason the federal government ordered that this information be given to states is to protect the communities through which these trains roll,” Huff told The Associated Press. “If there’s not some federal pre-emption or specific regulation or statute that prevents release of this information, then under our records laws we have to release it.”

Washington state officials also have said the oil-train details should be made public under state law. Last week, they gave railroads 10 days to seek a court injunction challenging the release of the information.

An oil-train derailment and explosion in Quebec last July killed 47 people. Subsequent derailments and fires in Alabama, North Dakota, Virginia and New Brunswick have drawn criticism from lawmakers in Congress that transportation officials have not done enough to safeguard against further explosions.

In response to the accidents, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in last month’s order that railroads must provide the details on routing and oil-train volumes to states. The order covered trains hauling a million gallons of oil or more from the Bakken region of North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada.

The Bakken’s light, sweet crude is more volatile than many other types of oil. It’s been involved in most of the major accidents as the crude-by-rail industry rapidly expanded during the past several years.

Some states have agreed to requests from BNSF Railway, CSX and Union Pacific to keep the information confidential after the railroads cited security concerns. Those include California, New Jersey, Virginia, Minnesota and Colorado.

Officials in New York, North Dakota and Wisconsin said they still were weighing whether restrictions on the information would violate state open-records laws.

State officials who questioned the confidentiality agreements sought by the railroads have said the notifications about oil trains were not specific enough to pose a security risk.

BNSF — the main carrier of crude oil in many western states — was notified late Tuesday of Montana’s intentions. A representative of the Texas-based company had said in a June 13 letter that BNSF would consider legal action if Montana moved to release the details on oil shipments.

“We must be cognizant that there is a real potential for the criminal misuse of this data in a way that could cause harm to your community or other communities along the rail route,” wrote Patrick Brady, BNSF’s director of hazardous materials, in a letter to a senior official at the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.

Company spokesman Matt Jones said Wednesday that at this time BNSF has no plans to ask a court to intervene.

While it’s important for emergency planners to have the information, Jones added, BNSF will “continue to urge discretion in the wider distribution of specific details.”

A second railroad, Montana Rail Link, submitted notifications earlier this month revealing that its tracks were carrying three oil trains a week along a route from Huntley, Montana, to Sandpoint, Idaho. The railroad said the trains pass through as many as 12 counties across southern and western Montana and through Bonner County in Idaho, according to copies of the documents obtained by the AP.

U.S. crude oil shipments by rail topped a record 110,000 carloads in the first quarter of 2014. That was the highest volume ever moved by rail, spurred by the booming production of shale oil from the Northern Plains and other parts of the country, according to the Association of American Railroads.

Bakken Crude, Capitol Corridor, Crude By Rail, DEIR, Derailment, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Local Regulation, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail accidents, Rail inspection, Rail routing, Risk Assessment, Spill prevention and response, Tank car design, Train speed, Valero Benicia Refinery

Sacramento Bee: NRDC report – thousands face the risk of crude oil train spills

Repost from The Sacramento Bee

Advocacy group: Thousands in Sacramento face the risk of crude oil train spills

by Tony Bizjak  |  June 19, 2014

More than 135,000 Sacramentans live within a half-mile of rail tracks and could find themselves in harm’s way should a crude oil train derailment cause a spill, according to a report published Wednesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council in California. The group’s maps show 25,000 residents in Davis within a half-mile of train tracks.

The NRDC study includes maps of rail lines through seven California cities, showing areas likely to require evacuation in case of serious rail incident. It is unclear which lines might carry crude oil trains. Oil companies and railroads closely guard information about crude oil rail movements. NRDC said its analysis of a handful of oil company refinery and terminal projects indicates more than seven trains, each a mile long, could soon run through metropolitan areas daily.

Oil companies increasingly are turning to rail shipments of crude oil, responding to the availability of less expensive deposits in North Dakota and Canada. Diane Bailey, a scientist with NRDC, said the state does not yet have safety measures and adequate emergency response plans in place to handle the expected increase.

The NRDC report follows a report Tuesday authorized by the city of Benicia that said a plan for the city’s Valero Refining Co. to run 100 crude oil train cars a day through Sacramento, Roseville, West Sacramento, Davis and other cities is unlikely to cause a spill.

Those trains could begin operation later this year and are expected to run on the rail line shared by the Capitol Corridor passenger train service. That line loops into Sacramento near Business 80, and runs westward along the top of the downtown perimeter, passing through the downtown railyard, then over the I Street Bridge to West Sacramento. It continues through downtown Davis on its way to Benicia.

Acknowledging the growing concern, federal officials have issued warnings about the potential higher flammability of one crude oil type, Bakken oil, and have been exploring implementing tougher safety designs for crude oil tankers to replace the current fleet, which has been deemed inadequate to safely transport volatile crude oils.

In its report, the NRDC called for officials to:

•  Remove antiquated oil tankers from service.

•  Impose lower speed limits on crude oil trains.

•  Reroute trains around sensitive areas.

•  Require railroads to disclose the contents of trains.

•  Make emergency procedures available to local residents.

•  Assess fees on shippers to cover costs of improved emergency response to incidents.

•  Elevate crude oil trains to the highest risk category for hazardous material shipments.

•  Require oil companies to conduct “cumulative risk analysis” for oil rail infrastructure projects, so that the overall impact of all projects is adequately analyzed.