Category Archives: Tank car design

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Earthjustice, Local Regulation, McClellan Business Park, Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, Tank car design, Truck transport

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento crude oil transfers halted; air quality official says permit was granted in error

Repost from The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento crude oil transfers halted; air quality official says permit was granted in error

By Tony Bizjak and Curtis Tate, 10/22/2014
A tanker truck is filled from railway cars containing crude oil on railroad tracks in McClellan Park in North Highlands in March.
A tanker truck is filled from railway cars containing crude oil on railroad tracks in McClellan Park in North Highlands in March. Randall Benton

A Sacramento fuel distributor has agreed to stop unloading train shipments of crude oil at McClellan Business Park after the county’s top air quality official said his agency mistakenly skirted the state’s environmental rules by issuing a permit for the operation.

InterState Oil Co. said in a letter Wednesday to the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality District that as of Nov. 7 it will no longer use McClellan as a transfer station for crude oil shipments to the Bay Area.

The move settles a lawsuit filed in September by EarthJustice, a San Francisco-based environmental group, that contended the Sacramento air quality district should not have granted InterState Oil a permit to transfer crude oil from trains to tanker trucks bound for Bay Area oil refineries without a full environmental impact review.

Air district head Larry Greene now says a full review was, in fact, required by the California Environmental Quality Act.

“We made an error when the permit was developed, and it should have gone to full CEQA review,” Greene said Wednesday. “We have notified (InterState) and the environmental group to that effect. InterState is voluntarily giving that permit back.”

Greene said InterState will continue other transfer operations at its McClellan site, including transfers of ethanol.

It is unclear whether the company will apply for a new permit to load crude oil. Its representatives did not respond to a request for comment.

A lawyer for EarthJustice called this a major victory in the group’s fight against potentially unsafe oil shipments.

“It signals that industry and government may not benefit from a lack of transparency and play dice with lives of people who live along the paths of these dangerous oil trains,” attorney Suma Peesapati said. “This is the first crude transfer project that has been stopped dead in its tracks in California.”

The reversal by the Sacramento air quality district could bolster efforts by environmental groups to slow or stop crude oil projects on rail lines elsewhere, particularly in Washington state. A proposed terminal in Vancouver, Wash., would transfer oil from trains to tanker ships that could supply California refineries.

Patti Goldman, a managing attorney in the Seattle office of EarthJustice, said the decision sounded “a wake-up call” for permitting authorities to consider community input.

“We have been seeing local authorities blindly approve crude-by-rail projects without being open with the public and without considering the full effects,” she said.

The McClellan operation is relatively small compared with the kind of crude oil train terminals now proposed elsewhere in California. One, in southwestern Kern County in the southern Central Valley, will be able to receive one 100-car train full of of crude oil each day; the McClellan facility was permitted to unload a similar amount once every two weeks.

The Kern facility, which could begin operating this month, was already zoned for transfer operations, and required no new environmental reviews or public comments.

In September, the Kern County Board of Supervisors approved a separate facility at a Bakersfield refinery that could receive two trains a day. EarthJustice sued the board earlier this month, contending that Kern’s environmental review was inadequate.

Environmental groups lost a legal fight in the Bay Area city of Richmond, where a terminal operated by pipeline company Kinder Morgan unloads crude oil from trains to trucks that take it to local refineries. A judge rejected the lawsuit in September, ruling that the six-month statute of limitations had expired. That project involves 100-car oil trains that come through midtown Sacramento.

Another proposed oil-train terminal at the Phillips 66 refinery in Santa Maria could mean even more of the cargo passing through Sacramento.

A Sacramento Bee story in March revealed the existence of the McClellan operation to a number of surprised local officials, including the head of the county Office of Emergency Management and the chiefs of the Sacramento city and Metropolitan fire departments. It noted that InterState began handling crude oil last year without obtaining a permit.

Some of the crude unloaded at McClellan may have originated in North Dakota’s Bakken region. That type of oil, extracted through hydraulic fracturing, has been under increased scrutiny since a July 2013 derailment killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.

That accident and a series of fiery derailments since then have prompted the rail industry and its federal regulators to take steps to improve track conditions and operating practices. A stronger construction standard for tank cars used to ship flammable liquids is being finalized by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The California Energy Commission projects that the state could receive more than 20percent of its petroleum supply by rail in the next two years. State emergency officials and fire departments have said they don’t feel they are prepared to handle a major explosion from a derailment.

Earlier this month, BNSF Railway and Union Pacific sued California over a state law that requires railroads to develop oil spill prevention and response plans. The railroads argue that only the federal government has the power to regulate them.

Bay Area Refineries, BNSF Railway, Bridge safety, Derailment, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Rail inspection, Tank car design, Union Pacific Railroad

KQED: As More Crude Oil Rolls In, a Push for Better Track Inspection

Repost from KQED Science
[Editor: Excellent Mina Kim audio interview with Tony Bizjak below.  New information on Union Pacific derailment frequency, bridge inspection and other issues.  – RS]

As More Crude Oil Rolls In, a Push for Better Track Inspection

By Mina Kim and Molly Samuel | KQED Science | October 22, 2014 
Union Pacific owns the tracks that would deliver crude oil to the Valero refinery in Benicia. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)
Union Pacific owns the tracks that would deliver crude oil to the Valero refinery in Benicia. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)

Shipments of crude oil by rail are expected to increase in the Bay Area and the rest of the state in the near future. BNSF Railways is already transporting crude oil into Richmond, including the kind of oil that exploded from a derailment and killed 47 people in a Quebec town last year.

In response to concerns about the risks of crude by rail, the state’s other large rail company, Union Pacific, began to boost its rail inspection program by dispatching vehicles with lasers that can find tiny track imperfections, as the Sacramento Bee reports:

The new cars will patrol the main mountain routes into the state, Union Pacific officials said. Northern California sites will include Donner Pass, the Feather River Canyon and grades outside Dunsmuir. The state has designated all those areas high hazards for derailments.

The Bee’s Tony Bizjack spoke with Mina Kim about the program, which began last month. Bizjack explained that Union Pacific is particularly worried about California’s mountain passes because they’re considered more high-hazard areas, “often because they’re curving, they’re on slopes, and they have to deal with more extreme weather,” he said.

Bizjak rode on one of the track inspection vehicles. He said they’re equipped with ultrasound to look into the rails to find weaknesses and lasers to measure variations in rail height and alignment.

In the last five years, Union Pacific has had about 180 derailments in California, Bizjack said. “Derailments are surprisingly frequent, but generally very minor,” he said. “Most of those derailments, however, the train cars ended up standing up, not falling over.”

About half of all derailments are caused by track problems, said Bizjack. Others are caused by human and equipments errors. “So tracks are important, that’s sort of the front-line of defense — PUC and FRA think — in reducing the chance these new crude oil shipments can derail, explode.”

Union Pacific is not yet bringing volatile Bakken crude to California. But there are plans in the works for Union Pacific to bring crude oil both to and through the Bay Area, Bizjak explains. A project at the Valero refinery in Benicia would bring two 50-car trains a day through Sacramento and along the I-80 corridor. Another proposal in Santa Maria, by Phillips 66, would bring trains through Sacramento, the East Bay, San Jose and down the coast.

“If you ask anybody in the Office of Emergency Services here in California, or first responders, fire departments, there is a real level of concern about the safety with more crude oil coming in,” Bizjak said.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Tank car design, Train braking systems, Volatile gases

Fed Measures on Crude Oil Fall Short, Put Protected Estuaries and Heritage Areas at Risk

Repost from HuffPost GREEN, The Blog
[Editor: Note reference near the end on federally designated National Heritage Areas and Estuaries of National Significance which “require special protection from potential explosions and spills. Rerouting bomb trains away from such specially designated regions would avert a disaster-waiting-to-happen to prime assets along their rail lines.”   The San Francisco Estuary Partnership is one of 28 Estuaries of National Significance.  (I am trying to confirm that the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is a National Heritage Area – their website is out of date.)  How might these agencies be brought into the discussion on Valero Crude By Rail?    – RS] 

Fed Measures on Crude Oil Fall Short, Put Hudson River at Risk

By Ned Sullivan, President, Scenic Hudson and Paul Gallay, President, Hudson Riverkeeper, 10/21/2014

Last May, we wrote about how the Hudson River Valley has become a virtual pipeline for the transport of highly flammable Bakken crude oil in unsafe DOT-111 railcars–the same tankers whose derailment has caused numerous explosions across the U.S. and the death of 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Canada.

Since then, very little has changed, which means the situation has just gotten worse.

Each day, more than 320 of these oil-laden cars continue to pass through our communities and along the shores of the Hudson River, one of the world’s most biologically diverse tidal estuaries. To date, we’ve escaped disaster, although three trains pulling empty DOT-111s have derailed in the Hudson Valley. Each time a rail accident occurs in the region, as it did just last week, the environmental community holds its breath, expecting the worst.

What will happen if cars full of Bakken crude do go off the tracks? The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA), quoting the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), recently provided the answer: They “can almost always be expected to breach,” making them “vulnerable to fire.” The result would be catastrophic to the public health, vital natural and historic resources, and drinking water supplies of a region stretching from Albany to New York Harbor. It would cause long-lasting, if not permanent, damage to the estuary’s entire ecosystem and the foundation of a vibrant, $4.75-billion tourism economy.

Both Scenic Hudson and Riverkeeper have been advocating vigorously for increased federal protections, including an immediate ban on the use of DOT-111s for transporting crude. Therefore, we were bitterly disappointed and frankly frustrated by new draft regulations proposed by the PHMSA regarding tanker redesign and other measures for reducing the risks of explosions and spills from these “bomb trains.” They just don’t go far enough fast enough, meaning our communities remain at grave risk. It also means the proposed rules don’t comply with federal law, which requires strict safety upgrades that will protect the public.

In formal comments on the regulations our organizations submitted jointly, we outline how the PHMSA’s rules are replete with loopholes and weak safety proposals.

  • Despite acknowledging the safety hazards of DOT-111s, the proposed regulations would very slowly phase out their use for transporting Bakken crude and allow 23,000 of these outdated, dangerous cars to remain on the rails for shipping heavy Canadian tar sands crude, which presents different but equally serious safety and environmental risks.
  • The regulations fail to require full disclosure of rail traffic information to first responders, and instead ask the industry if it would prefer to keep this information confidential.
  • The regulations fail to require the most protective braking improvements or speed restrictions, and fail to even consider limits on the length of trains that could reduce accident risks and impacts of a derailment.
  • The regulations would allow railroads to continue operating 120-car trains of Bakken crude oil without requiring any train-specific spill response plans–despite the fact that a 120-car train carries as much oil as an oil barge or tanker, both of which must have spill response plans approved by the Coast Guard.

Put simply, these rules defer to the rail and oil industries at every turn–and they won’t stop the next bomb train disaster. As the NTSB warned in its official comments on these proposed rules, “Each delay in implementing a new design requirement allows the construction of more insufficiently protected tank cars that will both increase the immediate risks to communities and require costly modification later.” Further, the NTSB concludes that the government’s proposed standards for new and existing tank cars offer options that “do not achieve an acceptable level of safety and protection.”

We deserve real protection for our communities and the environment. And we deserve it now.

For these reasons, Riverkeeper and Scenic Hudson have called on the PHMSA to issue an emergency order requiring immediate adoption of the most stringent tank car standards, speed restrictions and use of electronic controlled pneumatic braking in all trains carrying crude, as well as closing loopholes in the rule that leave heavy tar sands crude and trains carrying fewer than 20 cars of Bakken crude completely unaddressed. (Scenic Hudson also has called for rules requiring Bakken crude to be processed at its source in North Dakota, making it much less volatile for shipment. This is done at many Texas oil fields.)

In addition, we are calling on federal rail regulators to designate the Hudson River Valley, as well as other similarly situated regions, highly important natural and cultural resources under PHMSA routing regulations. This means that the natural and cultural resources within this federally designated National Heritage Area (one of only 49) and Estuary of National Significance (one of 28) require special protection from potential explosions and spills. Rerouting bomb trains away from such specially designated regions would avert a disaster-waiting-to-happen to prime assets along their rail lines. In the Hudson Valley, those assets include six drinking water intakes; 91 state, county and municipal parks; 40 Significant Coastal Fish and Wildlife Areas; nine colleges; 69 public schools and 80 medical facilities.

The federal government has the responsibility to ensure the public’s safety. Until Washington steps up and fulfills this obligation, we’ll have to keep on holding our breath.

BP Cherry Point, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Tank car design

ForestEthics: switch to newer rail cars for crude still not safe

Repost from ABC News
[Editor: Significant quote: “Matt Krogh, of the group ForestEthics, which has sued the U.S. Department of Transportation over the shipment of volatile crude oil in older railroad tank cars, told The Associated Press on Saturday that there’s little evidence the newer tank cars will truly prevent explosive spills. He argued that the newer cars are tested at slower speeds than the speed at which most derailments occur, and he noted that it was one of the CPC-1232s that exploded in a fireball during a derailment in Lynchburg, Virginia, in April Krogh called switching to the newer cars ‘a red herring.’   ¶  ‘It’s a marginal improvement, but it’s nowhere near safe,’ he said. ‘They’re essentially grasping at straws to convince people that they can do it safely. I don’t think you can safely and profitably run trains of crude.'”  – RS]

Refinery Switching to Newer Rail Cars for Crude

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Oct 11, 2014

A refinery in northwest Washington state says it will no longer accept any volatile North Dakota crude oil unless it arrives on newer-model tank cars.

By the first week of October, the BP Cherry Point facility had stopped using pre-2011 standard tank cars, known as DOT-111 cars, for the shipments, The Bellingham Herald reported ( http://is.gd/XmHxHN ).

The change comes amid public concern about the safety of shipping crude by train. Since 2008, derailments of oil trains in the U.S. and Canada have seen the older 70,000-gallon tank cars break open and ignite on multiple occasions, resulting in huge fireballs. A train carrying Bakken-formation crude from North Dakota in the older tanks crashed in a Quebec town last year, killing 47 people.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which recommended upgraded regulations for crude oil and ethanol cars in 2011, is working on updating rail safety standards and could require companies to phase out the DOT-111 cars for shipping crude oil during the next couple of years

Cherry Point was already using newer, safer tank cars to receive about 60 percent of its crude oil, but expedited the switch to the newer cars in response to community concerns, BP spokesman Bill Kidd said. The refinery now uses a fleet of about 700 newer cars, called CPC-1232s.

The newer cars have thicker shells, head shields on both ends and improved valve protection.

But Matt Krogh, of the group ForestEthics, which has sued the U.S. Department of Transportation over the shipment of volatile crude oil in older railroad tank cars, told The Associated Press on Saturday that there’s little evidence the newer tank cars will truly prevent explosive spills. He argued that the newer cars are tested at slower speeds than the speed at which most derailments occur, and he noted that it was one of the CPC-1232s that exploded in a fireball during a derailment in Lynchburg, Virginia, in April.

Krogh called switching to the newer cars “a red herring.”

“It’s a marginal improvement, but it’s nowhere near safe,” he said. “They’re essentially grasping at straws to convince people that they can do it safely. I don’t think you can safely and profitably run trains of crude.”

Trains carrying Bakken oil from North Dakota have been supplying Washington refineries at Tacoma, Anacortes and Cherry Point. Oil-train export terminals are proposed at Vancouver and Grays Harbor on the Washington coast.

About 70 percent of the crude-oil rail cars that BNSF Railway currently moves through Washington state are already the newer design, railway spokesman Gus Melonas said.

For two decades, the Cherry Point refinery received crude oil only by pipeline, Kidd said. It later added shipments by sea.

But Alaskan crude oil has turned into the last type the refinery is interested in because of the higher price. Crude oil from mid-continent shale formations has become a cheaper option for the refinery, Kidd said.

“It’s completely turned the industry on its head,” Kidd said. “Without access to crude by rail, this refinery cannot compete.”

Refinery Manager Bob Allendorfer said the facility is always going to be progressive when it comes to safety. “Safety is always first, and you have to get it right,” Allendorfer said.