Category Archives: Risk Assessment

Crude By Rail, Risk Assessment, Train spotting

Carnegie Mellon University, Fractraker team up to monitor crude oil trains through PA region

Repost from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

CMU, Fractraker teaming up to monitor crude oil trains through region

By Don Hopey, December 13, 2014

Trains carrying millions of gallons of crude oil from Midwestern shale oil fields pass through the region daily and at speeds approaching the limit established to reduce derailment risks, according to a pilot study by Fractracker Alliance and Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab.

The study counted 360 tanker cars bearing the Department of Transportation “1075” and “1267” flammable oil and gas placards on 10 trains passing through the city during 11 daylight hours on Oct. 21. Six of those 10 trains were traveling east with a total of 176 full tanker cars The other four were traveling west with 84 empty tanker cars.

The train spotting and rail car counting was done on Norfolk Southern’s Fort Wayne line, which runs along the Ohio River through Sewickley, Glenfield, Ben Avon, Avalon and the North Side. The study, conducted on just one of seven rail freight lines used by oil trains in Allegheny County, is the first to count the number of oil trains passing through, and there are plans to do several more.

The Fractracker news release about the study states that by tracking and monitoring the transport of oil and gas, “we can begin to understand the risks that these trains pose should an incident occur.”

“We want to study the oil trains issue in several ways across Pennsylvania and beyond, examining the communities and populations affected and evaluating the scale and dynamics of the train traffic, including speeds and volumes of cargo,” said Samantha Malone, a Fractracker spokeswoman.

The count totals are generally in line with estimated oil train numbers for the county provided by Norfolk Southern and CSX to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, information that PEMA was ordered to release in October after a Right to Know request by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Ms. Malone said almost all of the trains were moving “very quickly” past the train spotting and counting location along Norfolk Southern tracks at Riverside Park, on Dawson Avenue in Glenfield. One, heading east with a load of full crude oil tank cars, was traveling much faster than the others at an estimated speed of 50 mph.

If accurate, that train violated the 40 mph speed limit cooperatively established in July for safety by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Association of American Railroads in urban areas after several recent derailments involving crude oil tanker cars.

“We didn’t have a radar gun, but most of the trains were traveling faster than I would think would be safe for that area,” Ms. Malone said. “The one moving very fast I do believe was unsafe.”

A spokesman for Norfolk Southern, however, disputed that contention, saying it was “guesswork” and that the railroad complies with all state and federal rules and regulations.

As rail transport of shale oil and gases has increased over the last five years, the number of derailments has increased, too, along with concerns about the dangers the trains pose to towns and cities along their routes.

Oil train derailments, sometimes causing explosions and fires, have occurred in the last two years in Virginia, North Dakota, Georgia, Philadelphia and Vandergrift. The worst was the 2013 derailment of 74 tanker cars carrying crude from the Bakken Shale oil play in North Dakota that killed 47 people and destroyed 30 buildings in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.

Seventy percent of the tankers wore the DOT 1267 placard, used for “Petroleum Crude Oil, Flammable liquid.” The rest had DOT 1075 placards indicating they contained “butane, liquefied petroleum gas, Flammable liquid”

The longest train bearing the “1267” placard, running east, was hauling 97 full crude oil tanker cars with a total capacity of between 2.5 million and 3.4 million gallons of crude oil, according to the release.

David Pidgeon, a Norfolk Southern spokesman, released a statement saying the railroad doesn’t comment about the routing of specific commodities, like crude oil or gas, and declined comment on the study findings. He called the train speeding allegation “speculation and guesswork.”

“What I can say is that we are in compliance with state and federal regulations and are providing important information and training to first responders,” he wrote in the email statement. “That’s a critical part of operating a safe rail network.”

Henry Posner III, chairman of Railroad Development Corp., a rail industry investment firm, said the high-density freight lines passing through the city are well-maintained and, recent accidents not withstanding, the railroads have a “culture of safety.”

“There is no motivation for the trains to speed, and I’ve never seen it (speeding) permitted in my career,” said Mr. Posner, who has worked in various capacities in the railroad industry since 1977. “No one is going to put their job on the line to speed. It’s just not a part of our culture.”

Ms. Malone said Fractracker, in partnership with CMU’s CREATE Lab, will continue to collect rail shipping data from other states and regions to determine where the crude oil tank cars rolling through Pittsburgh are originating.

Working again with volunteer train spotters from the Group Against Smog and Pollution, Three Rivers Waterkeeper, and Women for a Healthy Environment, the Create Lab and Fractracker plan to conduct additional train tank car counts to confirm their initial count is representative of the train traffic going through the region. She said some of those counts will be held overnight, when some residents of the Glenfield area say trains are more numerous.

Top transportation officials from Canada and the United States are due to meet next week to hash out differences about safety regulations for trains that carry oil, sources familiar with the planned meeting told Reuters.

Both governments are drafting safety rules for trains that move fuel from North Dakota’s Bakken energy patch to refineries.

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.

Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, Local Regulation, Rail routing, Risk Assessment

Newly elected mayor of Toronto says he wants oil trains out of his city

Repost from rabble.ca

Newly elected mayor of Toronto says he wants oil trains out of his city

By Roger Annis | December 6, 2014

Newly elected mayor of Toronto says he wants oil trains out of his cityThe Toronto Star has a front page story on Dec. 5 saying newly elected  mayor John Tory wants trains carrying oil and other dangerous cargos through his city to be rerouted through less populated areas. Pretty big news, even if the conservative mayor is an unlikely candidate to carry this fight very far. Indeed, the Star says the mayor was “unavailable” for follow-up comment after delivering his one-off pronouncement on the matter.

Such rerouting would cost billions of dollars in new railway construction. Also, those communities upon which new, dangerous cargo rail lines would be imposed might, just maybe, say ‘no thanks’.

The Star also reports that the rail companies and Transport Canada are continuing to stonewall munipalities (and provinces?) over the release of studies of risk assessments of the movement of dangerous cargos. It writes:

In Toronto, the CP rail line runs through the city along Dupont St., while Canadian National’s line runs across the northern GTA, roughly parallel to Highway 407. Residents in downtown neighborhoods where trains carrying dangerous goods frequently travel have been clamoring for more information since the July 2013 Lac-Mégantic train derailment disaster, which killed 47 people. But neither Transport Canada nor the rail companies will provide the details they want, saying the information is commercially sensitive.”

The newspaper writes further:

Under an April 2014 emergency directive, rail companies must conduct a risk evaluation on every route that carries 10,000 or more tankers bearing dangerous goods per year, along with trains holding 20 or more carloads of dangerous goods.

A Transport Canada spokeswoman told the Star the risk assessments are reviewed by the federal regulator, but are not made public because the information still belongs to the rail companies and the documents “contain sensitive commercial information.”

The railways are sticking to their guns that they will only meet their supposed requirement to provide dangerous cargo information to municipalities on condition that the latter sign confidentiality agreements. CN says 360 municipalities, including Toronto, have signed on. Only one has refused–Windsor, Ontario. (It’s not clear from the Star report if the numbers are for Ontario or for all of Canada.) The Star writes:

Windsor Fire Chief Bruce Montone said he has yet to be authorized by city council to sign the document due to the last clause, which stipulates that the individual signing the agreement agrees that if they violate the agreement, CN can seek an immediate injunction in court.

“We would be giving up our inalienable right under the Charter to argue our case. That’s the piece that’s difficult,” he said. “We acknowledge that they can take injunctive action, and we won’t disagree with that. But who knows what the circumstances might be (for revealing information) …This is removing our ability to undertake due process.”

Unbelievable. What a show of feigned concern over Lac Mégantic that federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt has been staging during this past year and a half.

One of the very big problems for CN and CP to transport oil from the west to the east is that they gave up their lines through the Ottawa Valley over the past 20 years. CP’s abandonment is quite recent; CN’s was 20 years ago. Oops, now we have a surge of oil rail traffic from western Canada and U.S. to Montreal and points east with nowhere else to direct it but through Toronto, be it via Michigan through Windsor and Sarnia or across and down from northern Ontario. There is an interesting Star article from earlier this year detailing the line abandonments. Excerpt here:

The second malady is line abandonment, which has spread aggressively since the 1970s. CP is ripping up its Ottawa Valley main line and, as a result, sending western crude oil bound for eastern refineries through Toronto, where it meets the flow of crude and ethanol coming from the U.S. via Windsor. This makes the trip 250 kilometres longer, strains CP’s busy southern Ontario network and increases the safety risks.

CN abandoned its Ottawa Valley line back in 1995 and has sent traffic for Montreal and points east through Toronto ever since. Its Toronto-Montreal line is busier than CP’s, handling numerous Via Rail passenger trains and all manner of freight, including U.S. crude oil entering Canada at Sarnia.

Today, another 975 kilometres of track is slated for scrapping. This includes the original CN Maritime main line. When the Plaster Rock derailment closed its primary Maritime freight artery, CN sent all Atlantic Canadian traffic, including crude oil, over this alternate route, proving its strategic value.

If I were a rail or an oil company executive in Canada right now, I would be praying very hard that another oil train disaster does not happen. Their disastrous oil by train expansion projects are hanging on very thin ribbons of steel.

I have a vague recollection from my younger years of a CN rail line that crossed central-northern Quebec and connected to the CN main line somewhere in northern Ontario or in Winnipeg. Turns out my recollection was good, but that line, built originally as the National Transcontinental Railway some 100 years ago and merged into CN rail later, has also been abandoned, in bits and pieces over the years. You can view an historic map of the line here. CN’s present-day route map is here. Like CP Rail, CN’s transcontinental connection in Ontario runs through Toronto.

This news from Toronto recalls the complaints of some mayors in the Vancouver region during the past year about the location of the BNSF rail line that carries coal and some (not a lot) of oil into the region from the U.S. along the Pacific coastline. They want the line moved inland and modernized. But who will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new, rail line that doesn’t have a lot of traffic (less than 20 trains per day in total) unless there is lots of anticipated growth? The largest cargo on the line presently is coal, and we know where the future of that lies, as in ‘not so rosy’.

The business case and financing issues involved in a line relocation inland are troublesome details that the mayors overlook mentioning. I’m thinking here of the previous mayor of Surrey, Dianne Watts, who annointed her successor. When Mayor Watts mentioned last year (faintly echoing the demands of transportation experts going back decades) the creation of a fast passenger rail service to connect Vancouver to the large U.S. cities all the way to California, it sounded like she was serious about moving the rail line. But I can’t help but conjure an image of dazzling baubles being dangled before the citizenry.

Presently, Amtrak takes four hours to reach Seattle. An auto can make it in two and a quarter hours, plus whatever is the border wait time. Amtrak runs supplementary buses that are much faster than the train. Sadly in BC, we have federal and provincial governments that couldn’t give a hoot about rail passenger traffic. They have done nothing to promote it; worse, they have closed services and allowed rail lines and service to deteriorate to the point where closure seems just plain good sense. Who would want to travel in slow, dilapidated passenger trains over slow and dilapidated rail lines except for retired folks with a love of train travel and time on their hands?

The past and present mayors of Surrey are very close to the federal government. Dianne Watts will be a candidate of the Conservative Party in next year’s federal election. This is who we will expect to lead the very big, radical and necessary transition to railway travel to replace trucks and cars on highways? Not a chance.

As for the ‘green’ city council of Vancouver, I’m not aware that its majority party has an opinion on the whole matter. If it does, it didn’t voice it during last month’s municipal election.