Category Archives: Rail Safety

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Rail Safety, Tar sands crude, Valero Benicia Refinery

Vallejo Times-Herald: Valero’s controversial crude oil plans ranked 4th in top 10 stories of 2014

Repost from The Vallejo Times-Herald

Times-Herald’s Top 10 local stories of 2014

By Times-Herald staff report, 01/01/15

Two wake-up calls by Mother Nature, the passing of a father-figure icon, and a longtime symphony conductor’s surprising ouster were among this year’s news stories in Vallejo.

From a devastating earthquake to the drought, controversial one-year’s notice to Vallejo Symphony maestro David Ramadanoff, to a school board election that isn’t over to a new police chief, a horrific fire truck accident that avoided a fatality, and Valero’s crude oil plans, the 2014 Top 10 Stories list is presented below in its crowning, year-end glory by the Times-Herald staff.

10. The drought

Gov. Jerry Brown declared a statewide drought and the state announced cities would get only 5 percent of their allotment from the State Water Project.

In February, American Canyon council members declared a Stage 1 Drought Emergency and asked all customers to reduce water consumption by 20 percent.

The situation’s seriousness engendered unprecedented cooperation between Napa and Solano counties, with ways considered for Solano to share its reasonably stable Lake Berryessa water source with Napa County in what officials were by March calling a natural disaster. The problems especially impacted American Canyon because it relies most heavily on the State Water Project’s North Bay Aqueduct, which nearly had to be blocked by rocks to prevent falling water levels to allow salt water into the Delta. These plans were abandoned in May.

Stage one drought conditions persisted, however, and by July the state adopted emergency water regulations, and American Canyon officials declared a Drought Emergency Stage 2 mandatory compliance water alert. Authorities enforced a list of prohibited water uses including hosing down driveways, watering lawns, washing cars during the day and filling swimming pools.

Solano County water providers also took action in August to comply with the state’s first-ever emergency regulations mandating water conservation. Benicia mandated outdoor watering restrictions and Vallejo limited landscape watering to three days per week. By October, Benicia had reduced its water use by 18 percent.

9. North Mare Island plans

The future of North Mare Island became a hot-button issue as the city council began a “request for qualifications” process in July for proposals on how to develop more than 150 acres north of G Street.After dismissing three projects for “falling short if the city’s expectations,” the council In November heard information on eight proposals, which include three Indian casino projects, each along the lines of the $800 million Graton Casino & Resort that opened last year in Sonoma County. Other proposals involve industrial parks or mixed-use hotel and conference center projects on the city-owned land between Azuar Street and the Mare Island Strait.

The push to redevelop North Mare Island moved forward in early July when the city council approved the approval a $893,000 contract to demolish three former Navy buildings. The project is part of the city’s overall plan to accelerate the removal of up to 30 abandoned former Mare Island Naval Shipyard structures. Since the base closed in 1996, the buildings have been considered eyesores and an impediment to redevelopment activities.

8. Measure E and the school board election. 

The name “Richard Porter” became well know in the city of Vallejo during 2014, as the school teacher early on in the fall sought election to the Vallejo City Unified School District Board of Education, only to change is mind and cancel his campaign.

Porter — who filed candidacy papers in August — suspended his campaign in early September to teach math and science at the Mare Island Health & Fitness Academy. Despite halting his campaign, more than 7,000 Vallejo voters decided to elect him, placing him second out of three available seats.

Due to state law, Porter can not serve on the board of education and teach in the district at the same time. Porter opted to stay as a teacher at the academy — refusing to be seated as a trustee — creating a vacancy on the board.

The board recently decided to seek a provisional appointment to fill the vacancy, while several community members have asked the board to appoint fourth place finisher Ruscal Cayangyang to fill the empty seat.

While receiving over 60 percent approval from the Vallejo electorate during the November election, Measure E — the school district’s $239 million general obligation bond, which would have helped to renovate various school district sites —failed to receive the required 66 percent approval to pass.

7. Vallejo Symphony gives notice to David Ramadanoff 

The Vallejo Symphony Orchestra board of directors, citing stagnant season ticket sales and attendance, proclaimed David Ramadanoff’s 31st year leading the VSO as his last, upsetting many musicians and classical music supporters.

The symphony’s Jan. 25 concert at Hogan Auditorium and April 12 at Touro University’s Lander Hall will end Ramadanoff’s tenure in Vallejo while the board seeks a replacement.

6. New police chief Andrew Bidou 

Benicia and Vallejo police departments swapped chiefs this year. Andrew Bidou took the Vallejo’s helm in October, replacing Joseph Kreins who led the department for more than two years.

Kreins, who retired from the position, then took over Benicia’s police department as an interim until a permanent chief is hired.

While in Vallejo, Kreins implemented many changes to the department, including community outreach, technology upgrades and policy overhaul.

Bidou, 45, was among 37 candidates for the job. His education and familiarity with the area were cited as reasons he was picked.

5. Fire truck rolls over 

The Vallejo Fire Department’s tiller truck was involved in a violent traffic collision in August with three other vehicles, which began in the intersection of Maine Street and Sonoma Boulevard.

“The fire truck was responding to a code 3 (emergency) when a collision occurred with the fire truck and at least another vehicle in the intersection,” said Michael Nichelini, a sergeant with Vallejo Police, hours after the collision. “The (VFD) truck rolled down the street, at least once, after the collision.”

The ladder truck, when rolling, took out various street signs along Sonoma Boulevard finally coming to a rest in the intersection of Pennsylvania Street and Sonoma Boulevard after striking a fire hydrant and crushing another vehicle.

The crushed vehicle was flipped on its roof and the driver in the crushed vehicle required extraction.

Much of Sonoma Boulevard looked like a war zone, as glass and pieces from at least three vehicles and the fire truck were scattered in a two-block radius, while the fire truck was twisted into two directions after the collision and rollover. Firefighters Walter Trujillo, Mitchell Stockli, Frederick Taylor and Daniel Saballos, along with those in the other vehicles, survived the collision.

4. Valero’s crude oil plans 

The Valero Benicia Refinery’s controversial proposed rail terminal project fueled debates in the community over crude-by-rail safety issues. If approved, the project would allow Valero to import up to 70,000 barrels of Bakken or Canadian tar sands oil daily by train. In June, the city released the project’s environmental impact report, leading to packed public hearings over the summer. People as far away as Roseville attended to voice opposition or support for the project, which would increase oil train traffic through the Sacramento Valley. 

The city also received letters from state and local officials — including State Attorney General Kamala Harris — criticizing the project safety analysis as inadequate.

3. Homeless fires

A series of wild and structure fires were attributed to the homeless population in Vallejo this year.

The blazes destroyed several abandoned buildings on Mare Island, the now-razed “Badge and Pass Office” on Tennessee Street, and acres of vegetation along State Route 29. One of the structure fires also claimed the life of a Benicia man in October at a garage next to 1117 Florida St., which is known to be used by squatters.

Vallejo Fire Chief Jack McArthur said the department is working with police and city to design a reaction to the issue concerning homeless-related fires, and the safety concerns of the homeless population in the city.

2. Philmore Graham dies

Vallejo lost a legend this year. Philmore Graham, founder of the Continental of Omega Boys and Girls Club, died in June. Graham was 75.

He founded the club in 1966 with just five boys in his garage, and later churned out high school and college graduates who brought pride to their hometown, including ballplayer CC Sabathia, former pro football player Bobby Brooks, scriptwriter Gregory Allan Howard, and most recently Denver Broncos running back C.J. Anderson.

“Everything that we are and everything that we do is because of him,” Superior Court Judge Robert Rigsby, who is also an Omega alumnus, said in a June interview.

Graham suffered from Alzheimer’s in his last years, and had moved to Southern California several years ago to be closer to his daughter, Diedre.

1. South Napa earthquake

The magnitude 6 temblor — the strongest to hit the Bay Area in 25 years — rattled walls and nerves at about 3:10 a.m. Aug. 24, causing damage mostly in Napa and Solano counties.

Centered four miles northwest of American Canyon and six miles south-southwest of Napa, the quake caused brick chimneys to crumble all over the area and did particular damage to many of the older, non-reinforced masonry buildings in downtown Napa and Vallejo, including some on Mare Island.

While few and only minor injuries were reported in Vallejo, nearly 200 were hurt in Napa, two seriously, including a child who was critically injured by a collapsing chimney.

The 400 block of Vallejo’s Georgia street was closed for weeks following the partial collapse of a brick building, the repairs to which remain unfinished at year’s end.

There were a few reports of looting in Vallejo, but in American Canyon officials told of residents replacing items that had fallen out of broken store windows.

The governor issued an emergency proclamation extending relief to Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties. In Napa, some 69 buildings were red tagged. In Vallejo, 155 buildings were yellow-tagged for partial use, and 11 were red-tagged as unsafe to occupy. On Mare Island, crews demolished quake-damaged chimneys on historic officers’ mansions on Walnut Avenue.

The Napa Valley wine industry alone suffering estimated losses of $80,300,000.

Crude By Rail, Rail industry subsidies, Rail Safety

Reuters: U.S. taxpayers help fund oil-train boom amid safety concerns

Repost from Reuters
[Editor: Significant quote: “‘Look at the towns. All they’re getting are more trains in their backyard and all the risk with no financial benefits,’ said Dan McCoy, the County Executive in Albany, New York, where taxpayer funds have contributed to growing oil-train shipments.”  – RS]

U.S. taxpayers help fund oil-train boom amid safety concerns

By Jarrett Renshaw, Dec 14, 2014
A crude oil train moves past the loading rack at the Eighty-Eight Oil LLC's transloading facility in Ft. Laramie, Wyoming July 15, 2014. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
A crude oil train moves past the loading rack at the Eighty-Eight Oil LLC’s transloading facility in Ft. Laramie, Wyoming July 15, 2014. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

(Reuters) – For the past 18 months, Americans from Albany to Oregon have voiced growing alarm over the rising number of oil-laden freight trains coursing through their cities, a trend they fear is endangering public safety.

In at least a handful of places, the public is also helping fund it.

States and the federal government have handed out tens of millions in public dollars to rail companies and government agencies to expand crude oil rail transportation across the country, a Reuters analysis has found.

The public assistance in states like New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma and Oregon comes as railroads are posting record profits, and as state and federal authorities press for safety overhauls that the oil and rail industries have opposed, following several explosive derailments.

The Reuters analysis identified 10 federal and state grants either approved or pending approval, totaling $84.2 million, that helped boost the number of rail cars carrying crude oil across the nation.

The funds are a fraction of total public funding for railroads each year, and look small compared to the $24 billion railroads themselves are spending annually on infrastructure.

But with oil-train safety under heavy scrutiny, the public grants could be controversial and add to growing strains between the industry and some local communities who say they are ill-prepared to deal with oil spills or derailments.

“Look at the towns. All they’re getting are more trains in their backyard and all the risk with no financial benefits,” said Dan McCoy, the County Executive in Albany, New York, where taxpayer funds have contributed to growing oil-train shipments.

In May, Albany’s sheriff, Craig Apple, warned that regional emergency crews weren’t equipped to respond to any major derailment.

“I am not seeing any increases in tax revenue, but I am seeing an increase in the cost of emergency services,” McCoy said.

Since 2008, there have been at least 10 major oil-train derailments across the U.S. and Canada, including a disaster that killed 47 in a Quebec town last July.

Officials and rail executives offer a counter-argument: the funds help improve safety for an industry that is helping revive the economy in some places.

Last year, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo awarded CSX Railroad a $2 million grant to add a second 3.6-mile rail line just south of the state capital in a county that now handles about a fourth of the Bakken’s oil, a light, volatile crude whose vapors have exploded in several past derailments.

CSX spokesman Rob Doolitle said the new line allows the railroad to idle fewer trains in the region, block fewer crossings, and serve at least 200 different businesses more efficiently.

“Local communities benefit from increased capacity,” Doolittle said. CSX posted record revenues of $3.2 billion in the third quarter.

AN INDUSTRY TRANSFORMED

The taxpayer dollars are going to a rail industry that has transformed the U.S. energy market: Amid a shale-drilling boom that has overwhelmed the nation’s pipeline network, oil-train traffic has surged at least 42-fold since 2009, and 415,000 railcar loads of oil plied the nation’s tracks last year.

As oil-trains increasingly make up for a lack of pipelines, they share the tracks with passenger and other freight trains on some of the busiest U.S. rail corridors. Emergency responders in several regions have complained that they lack information to track them and quickly respond to accidents.

While federal law now requires rail operators carrying Bakken crude to report routes and the number of trains that transit through each state, railroads have been reluctant to share specifics publicly, citing security risks.

Philadelphia is one of the unlikely locales that has been both alarmed and enriched by the oil-by-rail industry.

In 2012, The Carlyle Group led a rescue of the East Coast’s biggest refinery, which had been slated for closure, aided in part by a state-backed aid package that included $10 million to build a new rail terminal.

The 335,000-barrel-a-day plant is making money once again thanks in large part to the rail terminal, which receives six miles of oil-laden railcars daily from North Dakota’s Bakken.

In September, Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), an oil refining complex controlled by hedge fund Carlyle Group, announced plans to sell shares in its crude-by-rail terminal, a move that may fetch hundreds of millions of dollars and reduce its corporate tax burden.

Carlyle declined comment, but the company has previously said that government assistance helped to save at least 850 jobs at PES and boost Pennsylvania’s economy.

Earlier this year, six railcars transporting Bakken oil to the PES rail terminal derailed on a bridge over the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia’s Center City. No oil spilled from the CSX-operated train, but images of railcars teetering above the city’s vital waterway shocked locals and prompted protests.

“It spooked a lot of people in Philadelphia, and really raised the profile of the issue of crude by rail, an issue most people don’t think about,” said Matt Walker, a director with the local Clean Air Council.

CONGESTION RELIEF

Citing high costs, oil and rail industry groups have resisted some of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s recent proposals to enhance crude-by-rail safety, which include quick retirement or retrofitting of older, accident-prone railcars, lower speed limits, and mandatory electronic railcar braking systems.

Railroads and local transport authorities say public grants are a public good.

Since 2011, Oklahoma has received two federal grants worth $8.6 million that were used to fund privately-held FarmRail System, a regional rail operator, to move more crude by rail out of the state’s Anadarko Basin.

“We see these grants as improving public safety, much like you spend money on improving a highway,” said Gary Ridley, the head of the Oklahoma’s transportation agency. Trains are better than oil trucks, which clog up roads, he said. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin recently announced a $100 million spending package to upgrade rail crossings in the state.

In Oregon, oil terminal giant Global Partners successfully lobbied state and county officials to fund $8.9 million in upgrades to the Portland and Western Railroad, which runs next to the Columbia River. As a result, Global was able to increase the number of oil-trains to its private rail hub in the state by more than a third, to 38 per month. Global declined comment.

“It really doesn’t matter whether the train is carrying crude oil or cotton puffs, they have the right to pass through,” Jerry Cole, the mayor of Rainier, Oregon, where oil-trains pass through daily. “All I can do is to make it as safe as possible.”

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, editing by Jonathan Leff and John Pickering)
Crude By Rail, Homeland Security, Rail Safety, Risk Assessment

Obama gets Thompson rail security and safety legislation

Repost from The Benicia Herald

Obama gets Thompson rail safety legislation

December 12, 2014 by Donna Beth Weilenman
REP. MIKE THOMPSON'S H.R. 4681 passed the House on Thursday. File photo
REP. MIKE THOMPSON’S H.R. 4681 passed the House on Thursday. File photo

President Barack Obama is poised to sign legislation from U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, that would require security assessments of American oil refineries, including Valero Benicia Refinery, and railroad infrastructure, such as Union Pacific that has tracks through Benicia.

Austin Vevurka, Thompson’s spokesperson, said Thursday that Thompson’s legislation is part of House of Representatives Bill 4681, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015.

The bill requires the Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis (DHSI&A) to conduct the intelligence assessment. Once the assessment is done, the department would send the results to the House and Senate intelligence committees and supply recommendations for improvements.

Thompson, Benicia’s representative in the House, said the recommendations would help officials better protect communities surrounding refineries and railways.

“Public safety is my number-one priority,” he said, “and through enhanced reporting we can better know if threats exist and how we can fix them.” He said the law “will help make sure we’re transporting and holding crude oil and other cargo through and in our communities in a safe manner.”

He said the improved reporting required by his legislation would help officials in their assessment of the types of threats American oil refineries and railways face, so those threats can be mitigated.

This could include improvements to security at refineries or upgrades to rail infrastructure that could decrease the likelihood of derailments, he said.

Many trains transporting crude oil from the Bakken shale formation of North Dakota run through Thompson’s California District 5. He said the crude oil from that region is regarded as highly flammable. He said his legislation would increase the likelihood the crude would be transported safely.

H.R. 4681 passed the House by a vote of 325-100, and has been sent to Obama to be signed into law.

Crude By Rail, Homeland Security, Rail Safety, Risk Assessment

Thompson bill addresses rail security and safety concerns

Repost from The Vallejo Times-Herald

Thompson bill addresses two important safety concerns

By Times-Herald staff report,

Legislation by U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson to improve security at America’s embassies and for rail and refineries passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday and now heads to the president’s desk for his signature, the St. Helena Democrat’s office announced.

H.R. 4681, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015, grew partially out of the 2012 terrorist attack out the U.S. Consular facility in Benghazi, Libya, Thompson said.

Studies done since the attack have identified the need for security personnel at U.S. diplomatic posts to receive threat information from the intelligence community in a more timely manner so they can request and receive security enhancements as needed, according to the announcement. Thompson’s legislation will address this need by enhancing information sharing, he said.

“Studies since the Benghazi attack have shown that we need to improve communication between our intelligence community and our diplomatic outposts, and this will make sure that happens,” Thompson said in the announcement.

Thompson’s legislation directs the Director of National Intelligence to provide a status assessment to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees of threat information sharing between the intelligence community and diplomatic security personnel, and to propose remedial action to help make sure security personnel at U.S. embassies can request and receive enhanced security in a timely manner.

The same bill also enhances rail and refinery security by requiring the Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis to conduct an intelligence assessment of domestic oil refineries and related rail infrastructure security, Thompson’s office said. The assessment’s results are then to be submitted to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, along with any recommendations for improving those operations’ security. This aims to help officials better protect the communities surrounding refineries and railways from potential harm.

“Public safety is my number one priority and through enhanced reporting we can better know if threats exist and how we can fix them,” Thompson said.“This law will help make sure we’re transporting and holding crude oil and other cargo through and in our communities in a safe manner.”

Many trains transporting crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale formation run through Thompson’s congressional district. The crude oil from this region is regarded as highly flammable and this legislation will help make sure it’s transported safely, he said.

H.R. 4681 passed the House by a vote of 325-100.