Category Archives: Spill prevention and response

Bay Area Refineries, Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Marine transport, Oil prices, Spill prevention and response, Tar sands crude, Water contamination

Refineries Plan To Ship Dirty Tar Sands Oil Into Bay Area; Fracked Crude By Rail Gets Too Pricey

Repost from CBS SF Bay Area

Refineries Plan To Ship Even Dirtier Tar Sands Oil Into Bay Area, Fracked Crude By Rail Gets Too Pricey

Reporter Chrystin Ayers, April 27, 2015 11:53 PM

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — It’s an unexpected consequence of the drop in oil prices. Trains carrying explosive fracked crude oil from North Dakota are no longer rolling through our neighborhoods. Crude by rail has become too expensive.

Instead local refineries are turning to a cheaper alternative, that poses a new kind of danger.

Sejal Choksi-Chugh with San Francisco Baykeeper can’t forget the day the tanker ship Cosco Busan crashed into a Bay Bridge tower, spewing 53,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the bay. “It was getting on boats it was getting on birds it was everywhere,” she said.

But the environmentalist says that’s nothing compared to what could happen if there’s a spill of a new kind of cargo headed our way, called tar sands crude, the dirtiest crude on the planet. “We are looking at a product that sinks. Its very heavy,” she said.

There is huge supply of tar sands crude in Alberta Canada, and it’s cheap. Since they can’t get North Dakota Bakken crude by rail, refineries here in the Bay Area are gearing up to bring the Alberta crude in by ship.

“Today’s refineries are all designed to take ships in,” said energy consultant David Hackett. He says two thirds of the crude supplying Bay Area refineries already comes in on tankers, so adding tar sands to the mix makes sense.

“The California refineries are designed to process crude that is heavy and dense, and relatively high in sulfur. So the Canadian tar sands is the kind of quality that will fit in to the California refineries fairly well,” Hackett said.

The plan is to expand an existing pipeline called Transmountain, that runs from Alberta to Vancouver, and  retrofit a terminal in Vancouver that will transfer the tar sands from pipeline to ship. Then tankers could move it down the coast to refineries in the bay.

Projected route of crude oil from Alberta tar sands to the Bay Area. (CBS)

Hackett predicts tankers full of tar sands crude could be coming into the San Francisco Bay in large numbers by 2018, a delivery route he believes is much safer than trains. “There are significant safety standards and operating practices that are involved,” he said.

But with all the extra ship traffic accidents are more likely to happen. Ande even one even one in the bay could be devastating.  A spill on the Kalamazoo river in Michigan 5 years ago cost $1 billion to mop up, the costliest cleanup in U.S. history. That’s because tar sands crude is so dense, it sinks.

“It’s going to instantaneously cover the bottom of the bay which will almost automatically kill everything that is on the bay floor,” said Sejal. “We shouldn’t even be contemplating having those vessels come in to the bay until we are ready to deal with a spill,” she said.

Environmentalists in Canada are mounting strong opposition to the expansion of the Transmountain pipeline, but Hackett says since there’s already an existing route, the project will likely get the green light.

And by the way – most of the tar sands that will be headed down the Pacific coast will actually be exported to Asia.

Cleanup funding, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Fire, Insurance and liability, Spill prevention and response, State regulation

Green Groups press New York state for $100 million Oil Spill Fund

Repost from the Press-Republican, Plattsburgh NY

Green Groups press for $100 million state Oil Spill Fund

Claim $40M proposed in state budget won’t cover cost of derailments

By Kim Smith Dedam, March 23, 2015

ELIZABETHTOWN — Environmental groups are pushing state lawmakers to bulk up the state’s Oil Spill Fund.

They see a need for $100 million set aside, not $40 million as is currently proposed in the executive and legislative budgets.

And they have asked Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislators to leave the money within the purview of the State Comptroller’s Office and not move the fund to State Department of Environmental Conservation coffers.

“This is a backup fund, mainly because in other cases, where a spill has led to significant cleanup costs, some companies go out of business, including the company whose accident resulted in the explosion at Lac-Megantic in Quebec,” Adirondack Council spokesman John Sheehan said in an interview this week.

“At that point, there is little the state can do to get the money from the company other than to go to court.”

‘DOESN’T TAKE MUCH’

Total liabilities for the Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, rail disaster in July 2013 could easily reach $2.7 billion over the next decade, the coalition said in a news release.

The Adirondack Council joined forces with Environmental Advocates, the Sierra Club and Riverkeeper to press the Oil Spill Fund issue.

“Typically, the requirement for (accident) insurance has not been high enough to cover the cost of an accident that could take place as the result of an explosion,” Sheehan told the Press-Republican.

“And it doesn’t take much oil to contaminate thousands of gallons of water, especially when we’re talking about a drinking water supply for 188,000 people, which Lake Champlain is.”

The Canadian Pacific Railroad line runs the entire length of Lake Champlain’s western shore, and oil train trips have increased in recent months.

Many places where oil cars have spilled and exploded sustained permanent environmental damage, Sheehan said.

$60 MILLION MORE

The coalition is not trying to force funding contributions from oil transport companies or the railroads to bolster state Oil Spill Funds.

They do believe lawmakers in Albany are on the right track in looking to increase funding for next year.

“However, the $15 million increase to $40 million proposed by (Cuomo) and Assembly budgets could and should be increased.

“In today’s dollars, the $25 million fund created in 1977 would be a $96.4 million fund today,” the coalition said in a news release.

“Thus, we urge that the fund cap be increased to $100 million to bring it back to parity with the monetary protection it afforded nearly four decades ago.”

They also charge that the Oil Spill Fund should be indexed to keep pace with inflation.

10 WRECKS YEARLY

“Federal regulators have told us to expect at least 10 major derailments of crude oil trains a year. There have already been four in the last three weeks,” Kate Hudson, Riverkeeper’s Special Projects director, said in a news release.

“It’s no longer a matter of if, but when, a catastrophe will happen in a New York community. If we are without a robust spill fund, New York citizens could be left to shoulder the cost of the cleanup and damages, just as the citizens of Canada were a year and a half ago.”

SEPARATE ACCOUNTS

Environmental advocates also asked Albany to fund emergency response separately from oil spill response and environmental cleanup.

“We welcome proposed funding for emergency response equipment, supplies and training for state and local emergency services personnel,” the coalition said in a news release.

“We strongly support the Assembly’s proposed legislation, which would keep that funding separate from the account that pays for remediation costs, as well as the damages associated with loss of life and property damage and economic losses suffered by individuals and businesses in the event of a spill.”

If response and spill monies are kept in a joint account, they contend, emergency cleanup costs could deplete the response fund, leaving the state without resources to remediate a spill.

‘TREMENDOUS RISK’

Roger Downs, conservation director for the Sierra Club’s Atlantic Chapter, said New Yorkers assume “tremendous risk and little economic benefit” from the millions of gallons of explosive crude oil that “rumble through our cities and along our precious waterways every day.”

Inaction on the part of the federal government to adequately address the risks or improve oil-tank-car safety should not prevent state lawmakers from building the most robust spill fund possible, he said.

The joint call for heightened oil-spill resources came within a day of the release of reports from state inspections done at railroad yards in Albany and Buffalo.

State inspectors found 93 defects in tracks and crude oil cars, including seven critical safety defects that had to be fixed before cars could continue operation.

Inspections were done on tankers at a CSX rail yard in Buffalo and at the Canadian Pacific yard in Albany.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Hazmat notification, Oil Industry, Oil spill, Rail Safety, Spill prevention and response, State regulation

Washington State rail regulators to Fine BNSF for not reporting leaks immediately

Repost from The Bellingham Herald

State rail regulators: Fine BNSF for not reporting leaks immediately

By Samantha Wohlfeil, March 19, 2015 
Ferndale Siding PAD
BNSF rail cars on the railroad siding in Custer, Friday Aug. 22, 2014. The railroad is building a new siding from Ferndale to Custer. PHILIP A. DWYER — The Bellingham Herald

Washington state regulators have recommended BNSF Railway be fined up to $700,000 for failing to properly report more than a dozen hazardous materials spills in recent months despite the fact state staff had reminded the company how to do so last fall.

On Thursday, March 19, the state Utilities and Transportation Commission staff announced it found BNSF had failed to report 14 releases of hazardous materials, including crude oil leaks, within a half hour of learning about the leaks, as required by state law.

In one case, crews at BP Cherry Point refinery found crude oil had leaked onto the sides and wheels of a tank car, which was found to be 1,611 gallons short. That was on Nov. 5, but the UTC didn’t find out about it until Dec. 3, when it got a copy of the report BNSF sent to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Railroads have 30 days to file that type of report.

When contacted about the incident by a McClatchy reporter in January, BNSF said the train was “not in transit, not on our property and not in our custody” when the spill was detected, and the company had submitted the required reports to state and federal regulators.

In another case from Jan. 12 and 13, a train hauling 100 cars of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota to the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes had more than a dozen leaking cars discovered in multiple stops as it crossed the state.

Although the UTC sent an investigator to look at the leaking cars as part of a Federal Railroad Administration investigation, BNSF didn’t report the incident to the state’s 24-hour hotline at the Emergency Management Division until two weeks later. The hotline duty officer is in charge of alerting the various state agencies that might need to respond to a spill.

When asked by The Bellingham Herald in February why the January incident was reported more than a week later, BNSF spokeswoman Courtney Wallace replied that BNSF staff members thought they were following proper protocols, and had amended their Washington reporting policy following discussions with the UTC in January.

But the investigation released by the UTC on Thursday shows that on Oct. 22, 2014, the UTC had emailed a copy of the state’s reporting requirements to Patrick Brady, BNSF’s director of hazardous materials and special operations, in an effort to make sure BNSF knew how to report accidents.

As copied into the body of the Oct. 22 email to Brady, the state law regulating accident reports ( WAC 480-62-310) lists the hotline number, which types of incidents must be reported, and states that railroad companies must call within 30 minutes of learning of the event.

On Dec. 3, Brady emailed the UTC again asking, “Can you send me the regulatory reference to spill notification to the UTC?” Staff members again emailed Brady the state law on reporting requirements, according to emails included in the investigation.

From Nov. 1, 2014, to Feb. 24, UTC staff found BNSF committed 700 violations of the reporting requirement. Every day an incident goes unreported counts as a separate violation, per state law.

In addition to the leaking crude oil incidents, the UTC announcement lists a variety of leaks that occurred throughout the state: a tank car dripping gas/oil from a bottom valve in Spokane Valley on Dec. 8, 2014; cars leaking “primary sludge” found in incidents in Seattle, Vancouver and Everett in December; two 100-gallon spills of lube oil from locomotives in December and January, among others.

The commission could opt to fine the company $1,000 per violation of the reporting law, but no fine has been issued yet. The commission will set a final penalty after BNSF gets the chance to have a hearing.

“When a company fails to notify the (state Emergency Operations Center) that a hazardous material incident has occurred, critical response resources may not be deployed, causing potential harm to the public and the environment,” the UTC announcement states.

BNSF was still reviewing the report when contacted for comment on Thursday.

“In regards to reporting releases in Washington state, we believed we were complying in good faith with the requirements from our agency partners,” BNSF’s Wallace wrote in a statement. “Following guidance from the UTC in January 2015, BNSF reviewed its reporting notification process and amended its practices to address concerns identified by the UTC. We will continue to work closely with the UTC moving forward on this issue.”

BNSF is the largest railroad company operating in Washington.

Crude By Rail, Marine transport, Spill prevention and response, Tar sands crude

Pacific Northwest editorial: Tar sand expenses must stick on those who profit

Repost from The Daily Astorian, Columbia Pacific Region

Editorial: Tar sand expenses must stick on those who profit

Up to 10 mile-long tar sands trains per month are now moving between Canada and destinations on Puget Sound, Portland and California.

February 12, 2015, The Daily Astorian

Compared to ordinary unrefined petroleum, crude oil originating in the vast tar sand deposits of Alberta, Canada and nearby areas of the U.S. is distinctly more challenging to clean up if it spills.

There is surprising news this week that a great deal of it is moving along the Columbia River and elsewhere in Washington and Oregon — without any spill-response plan in place among state environmental agencies.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter Tony Schick did a good job illuminating tar sands issues in a story Monday. Due to a gap in the law that required communications between shippers and agencies for U.S. tar sands but not the same material from Canada, regional train traffic has rapidly expanded just since late November 2014. Up to 10 mile-long tar sands trains per month are now moving between Canada and destinations on Puget Sound, Wash., Portland and California.

There are “good news” components in this. Petroleum processed from tar sands is a large part of why gasoline prices have gone down, as North America again becomes a net exporter of energy. This surge in domestic production, transportation and shipping of crude oil generates profits, jobs and taxes.

But it is nevertheless surprising to learn that vast quantities of a distinctly hazardous substance are being transported around the Pacific Northwest without anything like an appropriate level of preparation for spills — disasters that are virtually inevitable.

Plain old crude oil and petroleum are bad enough from the perspective of spills. In the latest of in a series of excellent stories, Sightline Daily notes that U.S. Coast Guard Sector Columbia River already responds to about 275 oil pollution incidents a year. But pending plans for additional fossil fuel shipments could triple the number of tankers crossing the Columbia bar and double major vessel traffic on the river as a whole.

A good deal of this traffic would involve tar sands crude, which OPB describes as much worse to clean up. Canadian tar sands produce bitumen, a heavy tar-like material that is sticky and heavier than water. Because it sinks and adheres to everything it touches, cleanups are time consuming and expensive — more than $1 billion in the case of a burst bitumen pipeline in Michigan.

All this has caught U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s attention. “It is unacceptable that volatile tar sands oil has been moving through our communities for months, and yet Oregon officials only found out about it last week,” he told OPB. He is working on a strong rule that would ensure that local and state emergency responders are kept in the loop about tar sands shipments.

Beyond this, it is vital that the expense of insuring against spills and making things right afterward are fully absorbed by those profiting from tar sands exploitation. Northwest citizens must be guaranteed that we won’t get stuck holding an empty bag when a tanker wrecks on the bar or an oil train derails in some formerly pristine location.

The oil industry is rife with examples of leaving messes behind for others to deal with. This time, things absolutely must be different. Those who profit must shoulder all the financial risk.