Category Archives: Tank car design

Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Emergency Readiness & Response, Oil spill, Rail inspection, Tank car design

May 9 derailment in Colorado: TV news expose

Repost from KDVR Fox31 Denver
[Editor: This investigative report details a May 9,  2014 derailment and a previous derailment in the exact same location, highly toxic benzene contamination of groundwater and slow notification of local first responders by Union Pacific.  (Apologies for the video’s commercial content.)  – RS] 

Derailed: Railroad delays first responders on riverside oil spill

September 22, 2014, by Chris Halsne

DENVER — FOX31 Denver has confirmed a May 9 crude oil train car derailment near LaSalle, Colorado polluted area groundwater with toxic levels of benzene.

Environmental Protection Agency records from July show benzene measurements as high as 144 parts per billion near the crash site. Five parts per billion is considered the safe limit.

Federal accident records also show six Union Pacific tankers ripped apart from the train and flipped into a ditch due to a “track misalignment caused by a soft roadbed.” One of the tankers cracked and spilled approximately7,000 gallons of Niobrara crude, according to the EPA.

FOX31 Denver’s investigative team also confirmed the oil car accident location, only about 75 yards from the South Platte River, is in the same spot as another Union Pacific derailment four years ago.

Reports show four rail cars full of wheat/grain derailed in October 2010. The cause of that accident was very similar: “roadbed settled or soft” and “other rail and joint bar defects.”

“They did have a derailment at the exact same point. I mean within feet!” witness Glenn Werning, a nearby farmer and local water supervisor, told FOX31 Denver investigative reporter Chris Halsne.

Werning wonders if Union Pacific was negligent in repairing the area after the first crash telling Halsne, “It would have been devastating if it had gotten into the water and flowed down. It would have been, whew! The oil spill would have been a mess to clean up because it would have been on both sides of the river for miles.”

Union Pacific declined FOX31 Denver’s repeated requests for an on-camera interview, but a spokesperson, Mark Davis, sent a statement which says in part:

“The line where the derailment occurred is visually inspected one time per week. The maximum speed limit on the line is 20 mph.  Prior to the derailment the track was visually inspected on April 26, April 28, May 1 and May 5 with no exceptions taken. Our track team visually inspects about 15,500 miles of track daily on our 32,000 mile network in 23 states – this translates into 5.7 million miles annually of visional track inspections.”

There is currently no way to double-check the accuracy or completeness of Union Pacific’s statement because private railroads are allowed to conduct their own safety inspections and keep such records private.

Federal law only allows the Federal Railroad Administration to audit railroad inspections to make sure “the owner of the track” is conducting them appropriately.

However, at least in Colorado, that has not been done for at least three years.

FOX31 Denver’s investigative team sent Freedom of Information Act requests asking how often the FRA audited private railroad safety inspections in Colorado. The answer: From January 1, 2012 to March, 2014 is zero.

San Francisco-based Environmental Attorney and Sierra Club activist, Devorah Ancel, says the fact that private railroads conduct their own rail line and rail car safety inspections with very little federal oversight is a growing problem.

Ancel told FOX31 Denver, “The rail industry wants to get as much of this crude to market as quickly as possible. The more the federal government cracks down on safety standards, inspections, on audits, the more they are going to push back because it`s going to affect their bottom line.”

Ancel is part of a group also pressing the Department of Transportation for improvements in the design of hazardous liquid-carrying rail cars. Currently most crude oil travels across tracks in older-model containers called DOT 111’s.

According to federal authorities, the Union Pacific oil tanker which rolled, cracked and then spewed thousands of gallons of crude onto the ground in May’s accident is considered a DOT 111 design.

“This is extremely volatile crude. The tank cars have thin shells. They have thin head shields that are known to puncture during derailment. They have valves that sheer off and puncture during derailment,” Ancel says.

As if multiple derailments in the same place, unverified safety inspections, and outdated oil tanker containers were not enough of a reason for public concern, FOX31 Denver also discovered that Union Pacific officials are being accused of delaying telling local emergency responders about the latest oil car derailment.

According to Weld County Emergency Manager Roy Rudisill, Union Pacific first rallied its own crews to the scene before putting local firefighters in the loop.

Halsne asked, “Were they a little late to let you know?” Rudisill answered, “In my opinion, yes!”

We checked. According to a federal report, the accident happened at around 8 a.m. on May 9.

FOX31 Denver pulled call logs surrounding the accident and found Union Pacific first notified the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management at 9:10 am.

Radio traffic shows Weld County fire crews and emergency managers were still scrambling another hour later, trying to figure out exactly where the accident had occurred and whether oil was leaking into the South Platte River.

Rudisill told FOX31 Denver, “A quicker phone call, quicker communication, faster communication to local jurisdiction would have been prudent in my opinion. Now we’ve had two incidents out there. What can we do to make sure the proper actions are taking place so we don’t have another one?”

Werning hates to lay blame entirely on Union Pacific admitting “accidents do happen,” but he`s closely watching their latest track repair efforts, never again wanting to count on “pure luck” as a disaster prevention plan.

“Had they perhaps done a better repair (after the first derailment), they wouldn`t have dropped those cars,” Werning said.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it continues to monitor the groundwater contamination issue. Monitoring wells have been installed in the area surrounding the oil spill. Benzene is a common chemical in oil and gasoline and it does naturally dissipate over time.

Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Fracking, Lac-Mégantic, Natural gas, Tank car design, US Department of Transportation, US Government Accountability Office

Fed GAO report critical of Department of Transportation, warns of more accidents

Repost from NBC News

More Fiery Oil Train, Pipeline Accidents Unless Government Acts: Report

September 22, 2014

If the U.S. doesn’t quickly address the safe transportation of oil and gas, Americans could pay the price with more fiery train and pipeline accidents, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office.

“Without timely action to address safety risks posed by increased transport of oil and gas by pipeline and rail, additional accidents that could have been prevented or mitigated may endanger the public and call into question the readiness of transportation networks in the new oil and gas environment,” found the report.

The GAO report focused on the safety of moving crude oil by train and the growing network of “gathering lines,” largely unregulated natural gas pipelines. Both have been subjects of recent investigations by NBC News. The GAO determined that the Department of Transportation had “not kept pace with the changing oil and gas transportation environment.”

Oil and gas production in the U.S. increased more than fivefold between 2007 and 2012, a boom brought on by technological advances in drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Vast volumes of oil and gas production soon outstripped the pipeline infrastructure in place to move them.

Crude producers began to load their oil on trains. More than 400,000 carloads of crude ran over North American rails in 2013, up from just 9,500 in 2008. But a series of explosive wrecks have raised concern about the safety of oil trains — the worst, a 2013 derailment outside a small Quebec town, killed nearly 50 people.

A 2013 NBC News investigation found regulators had long known that the tank cars used to ship oil were vulnerable to rupture in an accident.

The DOT has since issued proposed rules to improve the train cars that carry oil. In its report, the GAO applauded the move, but emphasized safety improvements must go beyond the cars, including testing the makeup of the oil, which the DOT has said is particularly flammable.

The GAO also warned better oversight was needed over the growing network of “gathering pipelines” that move natural gas from the well. In August, an investigation by NBC News found that 250,000 miles of these lines are in rural areas and subject to little or no federal or state safety oversight, despite sometimes running beside homes.

Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Local Regulation, Tank car design

New Jersey town council presses for moratorium on use of older tank cars

Repost from NORTHJERSEY.COM
[Editor: Significant quote by Teaneck Town Councilman Mark Schwarz: “‘If we’re all going to sit here and wait for our [Legislative] District 37 leadership and Congress’ to act, ‘then we’re going to die of old age.'”  – RS]

Teaneck Council presses for moratorium on use of older tank cars on oil trains through town

SEPTEMBER 11, 2014, BY AARON MORRISON

TEANECK — Local officials are pushing for a moratorium on the use of old tankers to carry millions of gallons of highly explosive materials on rail tracks through town.

Tank cars lining the CSX tracks near Cedar Lane in Teaneck in May. Fifteen to 30 oil trains pass each week through 11 Bergen County towns.
Tank cars lining the CSX tracks near Cedar Lane in Teaneck in May. Fifteen to 30 oil trains pass each week through 11 Bergen County towns. | CHRIS PEDOTA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Residents and members of the Township Council have expressed concern about the safety risks posed by crude oil traveling in substandard railcars that federal regulators have cautioned against.

The Record has reported that at least 7 million gallons per day of highly combustible Bakken crude oil comes through 11 Bergen County towns — Northvale, Norwood, Harrington Park, Closter, Haworth, Dumont, Bergenfield, Teaneck, Bogota, Ridgefield Park and Ridgefield – on the CSX River Line.

Concerns over the crude on the railways have mounted in recent months after a series of fiery accidents and derailments in North Dakota, Alabama and Virginia. Last summer, 47 people were killed when a train carrying Bakken crude derailed in a small Quebec town.

The Teaneck Council passed a resolution Tuesday night calling for the temporary ban until federal regulators have deemed the tankers adequate. Though ceremonial, the council hopes neighboring North Jersey communities will join in amplifying the message.

“The transportation of this material in such close proximity to homes, businesses and our water supply, raises serious public safety concerns and requires that we take immediate action to eliminate this hazard,” the resolution states.

Mayor Lizette Parker on Tuesday night said the township should hold federal lawmakers accountable, while other members of the council asked for development of a township emergency response plan, in the event of a derailment.

“This is a safety issue that needs to be important to them,” Parker said. “We do have the power of influence. And I don’t mean the seven of us” on the council. “I mean the 39,000 of us.”

Councilman Jason Castle urged his colleagues to consider an emergency management plan he said he circulated “two sessions ago.”

“My daughter just started school at the Rodda Center — she’s at the preschool there and the tracks run right by the Rodda Center,” he said.

Councilmen Henry Pruitt and Mark Schwartz said the township should find other strategies that don’t rely on action from officials in Trenton and Washington.

“If we’re all going to sit here and wait for our [Legislative] District 37 leadership and Congress” to act, “then we’re going to die of old age,” Schwartz said.

Enlisting other towns

While New Jersey officials declined to reveal the number of trains that travel on the rail line, citing security risks, documents provided by New York State officials showed between 15 and 30 oil trains are entering Bergen County from Rockland County each week. The trains also travel through Hudson, Essex, Union, Middlesex, Somerset and Mercer counties, according to a map on CSX’s website.

Rail executives this year agreed to more track inspections and a reduction in train speeds in highly populated areas, but they haven’t been swapping out their fleet of old tanker cars. Even though the National Transportation Safety Board has called the tankers inadequate for transporting such flammable materials, federal officials are only recommending that railway companies stop shipping crude in the old cars.

Two weeks ago, the Teaneck Council asked Township Manager William Broughton to send letters to the other Bergen County municipalities along the CSX line. Broughton told the council he had not received any responses as of Tuesday.

The manager also said the township is already working with CSX “on this issue of preparedness and response.” This week, CSX paid for one of the township’s deputy fire chiefs to attend safety training in Pueblo, Colo. The course deals specifically with fires from crude oil, Broughton said.

Residents at Tuesday’s meeting praised the council’s attention to the issue. Some even vowed to take drastic measures to stop the trains from coming past their homes and businesses and force federal reforms.

“I will personally sit on those tracks, and anyone else who wants to can join me,” said Paula Rogovin, who organized a protest at one of the railway bridges in town.

Bakken Crude, Blast zone, Crude By Rail, Fracking, Hazmat notification, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail routing, Tank car design, Traffic, Train braking systems, Train speed

Bill Moyers & Company: America’s Exploding Oil Train Problem

Repost from Bill Moyers & Company

America’s Exploding Oil Train Problem

by John Light, September 2, 2014
FILE - In this July 16, 2013, file photo, railroad oil tankers are lined up at the Port of Albany, in Albany, N.Y. While the federal government has ordered railroads to give states details about shipments of volatile crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken shale region, New York officials haven't decided whether to share that information with the public. (AP Photo/Mike Groll, File)
In this July 16, 2013, photo, railroad oil tankers are lined up at the Port of Albany, in Albany, NY. (AP Photo/Mike Groll, File)

If you reside in the US, there’s around an eight percent chance that you live in an oil train’s blast zone. And there’s a fight going on at the state and federal levels, between monied interests and regulatory agencies, over efforts to ensure that these trains — which have shown a tendency to burst into flames — will be relatively safe.

The increased use of hydraulic fracturing — fracking — has made oil that was previously inaccessible available to drillers. The crude then has to make its way to refineries, and while the boom in pipeline projects has received quite a bit of attention, roughly 60 percent of it travels by rail.

On Friday, California legislators passed a bill that would require railroads to tell emergency officials when oil trains filled with explosive Bakken crude — oil from a particularly productive region in western North Dakota — would pass through the state. The law reflects growing concern, across America, about the dangers of these trains moving through dense communities, including Sacramento, California’s capital.

Oil tanker cars move along a web of routes that crisscross the United States. In 2013, about 400,000 cars made the journey, a 4,000 percent increase over the previous five years. The boost in oil cars has been so great that less lucrative industries are having trouble finding rail transport for their products. In March, General Mills announced that it had lost 62 days of production on such favorites as Cheerios because the trains that had shipped agricultural products were being leased by the fossil fuel industry.

Most oil reaches its destination without any problems, but as production has skyrocketed, the railroads have become increasingly taxed. Those who live near railways have noticed the uptick, with trains rumbling through towns much more frequently, and at much higher speeds.

Last July, a tanker train filled with North Dakota crude derailed in the middle of the night in Lac-Mégantic, a small Canadian town near the border with Maine; the resulting inferno killed 47 people. Since then, derailments in Casselton, North Dakota, and Lynchburg, Virginia, have led to evacuations. The Lac-Mégantic disaster spurred protests from fire chiefs and town officials who said that they were ill-equipped to deal with a possible derailment.

In the year since, officials have moved to formalize several safety measures. This July, the Obama administration proposed a plan that involves banning certain older tank cars, using better breaks on car, restricting speeds and possibly rerouting trains.

That first point, phasing out old tank cars, is a key area of contention. For the most part, the opposition isn’t coming from the railroads; it’s the oil companies that lease the tank cars that are fighting the new regulations. As Bloomberg Businessweek’s Matthew Philips explained earlier this summer:

It’s helpful to understand the three industries with something at stake here: railroads, energy companies, and tank-car manufacturers. The railroads own the tracks but not the tank cars or the oil that’s inside. The oil often belongs to big energy companies such as refiners or even trading firms that profit from buying it near the source—say, in North Dakota—and selling it elsewhere. These energy companies tend to lease the tank cars from large manufacturing companies or big lenders such as General Electric (GE) and CIT Group (CIT).

Although it is never their oil on board, the railroads usually end up in the headlines when something goes wrong. That’s why they have been eager for a rule to make energy companies use stronger tank cars. Meanwhile, the oil industry has been busy issuing studies trying to prove that the oil coming out of North Dakota is safe enough to travel in the existing tank cars. The energy lobby also thinks railroads need to do a better job of keeping the trains on the tracks. Tank-car manufacturers, meanwhile, simply want some clarity around what kind of cars they need to build.

Canada, following the Lac-Mégantic disaster, announced plans to phase out one older tank car that has been linked to several accidents over the next three years; the Obama administration proposal would do it in two.

But the oil industry doesn’t want that. Leading the charge is the American Petroleum Institute, an organization that, so far in 2014, has spent $4 million lobbying regulators and Congress. They’ve pushed back against labeling Bakken crude as more hazardous than other crude oil, even though many studies have found that it is.

Environmental groups blame this lobbying effort for several weaknesses in the proposed rules. For one, they would only apply to trains that have 20 or more carloads of Bakken crude. “If the rule is approved as drafted, it would still be legal to transport around 570,000 gallons (the equivalent of the fuel carried by seven Boeing 747s) of volatile Bakken crude in a train composed of 19 unsafe, [aging] tank cars—and none of the other aspects of the new rules, including routing, notification, train speed, and more would apply,” wrote Eric de Place of the sustainability think-tank Sightline Institute, who also criticized the proposal for not immediately banning older tankers.

And even if the regulations were to be put in place despite the API’s attempts to weaken them, there’s the distinct possibility that regulators will fall short. The government has often taken a hands-off approach in determining what gets shipped, and how — and in enforcing existing rules requiring that officials in the cities it passes through be informed that potentially hazardous shipments are coming. In These Times reported that government inspections to make sure railroads are properly labeling the product they are shipping (the Bakken crude was improperly labeled in the Lac-Mégantic disaster) are supposed to be unannounced, but are sometimes pre-arranged. Meanwhile, railroads are cutting back on the number of crew members manning trains, a move that some workers feel will lead to less safe travel.

“No one would permit an airliner to fly with just one pilot, even though they can fly themselves,” wrote John Previsich, the president of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation union’s transportation devision. “Trains, which cannot operate themselves, should be no different.”

John Light blogs and works on multimedia projects for Moyers & Company. Before joining the Moyers team, he was a public radio producer. His work has been supported by grants from The Nation Institute Investigative Fund and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards, among others. A New Jersey native, John studied history and film at Oberlin College and holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University