Oil Shipments Turn Albany Into “Houston on the Hudson” As Communities Across Country Fight Oil-By-Rail Proposals (via Desmogblog)
Thu, 2014-03-27 04:18Justin Mikulka Due to a massive increase in the movement of crude oil by rail in the past few years, communities across the country are facing the daunting prospect of becoming part of the oil industry’s infrastructure. In Pittsburg…
Repost from The Miami Herald
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — As rail shipments of crude oil have risen in Northern California, so has opposition in many communities along rail lines and near the refineries they supply.
Concerned about the potential safety and environmental hazards of 100-car trains of oil rolling through population centers, leaders from Sacramento to San Jose say they’re banding together to present a unified voice for “up-line” cities: communities that could bear some of the highest risks as California turns toward rail shipments to quench its thirst for fuel.
“What I suspect will come out of this is more of a regional understanding and interest in the topic,” said Mike Webb, director of community development and sustainability in Davis.
The federal government regulates rail shipments, but the rules haven’t caught up to the surge in oil traffic on the nation’s rail network. That’s left local leaders at the forefront of pushing for changes in state and federal laws.
Last week, the city councils of Berkeley and Richmond voted to oppose crude shipments on rail lines through their towns. The resolutions call for state lawmakers and members of Congress to seek tougher regulations.
Several environmental groups filed a lawsuit last week against pipeline operator Kinder Morgan and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The groups said the agency quietly issued a permit to Kinder Morgan for a crude-by-rail facility in February without reviewing potential environmental and health impacts.
“We don’t accept that as a forgone conclusion,” said Diane Bailey, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups in the lawsuit.
But it may be an uphill fight. State officials anticipate that within two years, California will receive a quarter of its petroleum supply by rail. That could potentially mean several trains of crude oil passing daily through Sacramento, West Sacramento and Davis.
The Sacramento Bee reported last week that crude oil had been transferred from trains to trucks at the former McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento since last year without the knowledge of local emergency response officials and without a required air quality permit.
Webb said Davis’ goal is to be part of the review process to make sure the city’s concerns are heard.
“Our primary objective and interest is in the health and safety of our community,” he said.
A group of community activists in Benicia and Martinez has been trying to stop two oil refiners, Tesoro and Valero, from expanding their crude oil deliveries by rail. And they’re pressing local, state and federal officials to push for tougher oversight of crude oil shipments by rail following a series of derailments with catastrophic fires and spills.
They’re focused on two types of crude oil that are moving by rail in the absence of new pipelines. First is tar sands, a thick, gritty crude that’s produced in western Canada. Tar sands production generates more carbon dioxide emissions, environmentalists say, and is more difficult to clean up when spilled in water because it’s heavy and sinks.
The second is Bakken crude, extracted through hydraulic fracturing of shale rock. Most of the Bakken formation lies in North Dakota, and most of the oil produced there moves out of the state by rail. The oil has proved more volatile than conventional types.
Since last summer, three major derailments have involved Bakken crude. The first, in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killed 47 people in an inferno that also leveled the center of the small lakeside town.
Subsequent derailments in Alabama and North Dakota, though not fatal, showed that disaster could strike again.
“People are afraid that anybody along the rail line could become the next Lac-Megantic,” said Andres Soto, a community activist in Benicia.
Part of the frustration at the local level is the lack of information about how much crude oil is being shipped on rail lines. The companies involved in transporting and refining oil are not required to provide much information on the shipments and usually don’t.
“There is so little oversight,” Bailey said. “This is a new area and people are scratching their heads, saying, ‘Wow, this isn’t covered.’”
West Sacramento Fire Chief Rick Martinez, who has experience fighting oil fires, said national attention on the issue may provide a platform for cities to push for better real-time information on what materials are coming through town, so emergency responders know what to expect as they head to a call.
“Is there way through technology to get more information to local agencies?” he asked. “We are trying to take advantage of the interest to pose the questions.”
By Roger Straw, BenIndy Editor
With expert analysis by Dr. Phyllis Fox
In her background materials and in the resolution, Vice Mayor Maio made the extraordinary claim that Phillips 66 was seeking a permit to ship extreme crudes by rail from “Donner Pass, through Auburn, Rocklin, and Roseville, proceed along the Sacramento River through Sacramento and Davis to Benicia and along the San Francisco Bay through Martinez, Richmond, Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland. From Oakland the trains would use the Coast Line via Hayward, Santa Clara, San José, Salinas and continue along the Pacific Coast into San Luis Obispo County.”
Railroads are notably secretive about routing of hazardous materials, so I asked Maio to clarify exactly how she determined that these crude oil trains would pass through Benicia and across the 85-year-old Benicia rail bridge (built in 1929) to Martinez, along the Carquinez Strait and down through the East Bay.
Vice Mayor Maio asked her “subject matter expert,” Dr. Phyllis Fox, to be in touch, and below is her detailed and I think rather conclusive explanation. It looks like Benicians are facing not only the offloading of 100 train cars of crude each day, but another 100 cars passing through on tracks shared by Amtrak.The following is by Phyllis Fox, Ph.D, PE, BCEE, QEP, Environmental Management, Rockledge, Florida:
I’m the subject matter expert that ferreted out the route of the Santa Maria trains for the CBR Berkeley Resolution.
I reviewed the full DEIR for the Santa Maria Rail Spur Project for the Sierra Club. The DEIR (and my comments) are at: http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/planning/environmental/EnvironmentalNotices/railproject.htm
The DEIR fails to disclose the route the trains will take from their entrance to California to San Jose, a fundamental flaw in the DEIR. However, there are important clues.
First, the DEIR on p. 4.12-7 suggests the Mulford line out of Oakland to Santa Clara would be used. The only way to get to Oakland is through Richmond and Berkeley.
Second, on p. 4.12-22, the DEIR notes “However, north of San Jose through the Bay area there are areas of multiple mainline tracks, and a large number of commuter trains. Therefore, it is unclear how much the crude oil unit train would overlap with the Coast Starlight. Given this uncertainty, the EIR has limited the analysis to the Coast Line.” (e.g., the DEIR only discusses the route from San Jose to Santa Maria, leaving the reader to guess which East Bay cities will be affected.) The implication is that any route with capacity is fair game.
Third, throughout the DEIR, interference between “commuter” trains and the crude unit trains is discussed. See, e.g., Sec. 4.12. The Union Pacific Coast Starlight line is apparently a key option. Figure 4.12-3 shows it passes through Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, and down the East Bay.
Fourth, finding no clear statement in the DEIR as to the East Bay route, I did an exhaustive survey of railroad maps. This work indicates that rail lines go either: (1) down the Central Valley, roughly parallel to I-5, or through Benicia, Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, and down the East Bay. There is no connection between these two routes except for the Altamont Corridor Express or ACE commuter line from Stockton, over the Altamont Pass into Livermore, Pleasanton, and Fremont. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_Corridor_Express. The ACE line would be an unlikely choice given the challenges posed by the Altamont Pass in handling unit trains with 80+ cars weighing up to 18,000 tons that are a mile long. The line has significant operating limitations including limited capacity, single track for much of the route, slow average operating speeds, and service limitations. Further, the line alarmingly, passes through the Niles Canyon, which also contains the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct, carrying the water supply for San Francisco. The DEIR is silent on the ACE line. Thus, the only route that appears viable, coming from northern California, is through Sacramento (Roseville), the refinery towns and into Berkeley, Oakland etc. The most likely route is from the northern part of CA, as both Bakken crude and tar sands crude come from the far north and will most likely be sent first west into WA or OR into northern California or through Reno.
Finally, the DEIR suggests Union Pacific would be the carrier and it includes a map of the UP rail lines in CA. This map is on p. 4.12-7. It shows what I describe above in item #4, two parallel rail lines with the only connections leading into the East Bay through Benicia, or out of Stockton over the Altamont Pass. See also the UP Gross Weight Map: http://www.up.com/cs/groups/public/@uprr/documents/up_pdf_nativedocs/pdf_gross_weight_full_up_maps.pdf
There are no other connecting rail lines between the Central Valley route and the East Bay. Thus, by process of elimination, I (and others who did similar analyses) concluded the most likely route is through the East Bay.
Regardless, the DEIR does not restrict the route. Thus, any route can be used, so the East Bay cannot be eliminated.
Phyllis Fox, Ph.D., PE
Repost from The Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Since at least last September, trains carrying tank cars filled with crude oil have been rolling into the former McClellan Air Force Base, where the oil is transferred to tanker trucks that take it to Bay Area refineries.
Until this week, Sacramento’s InterState Oil ran the operation without a required permit. Local fire and emergency officials who would be called upon to respond in case of a spill or fire weren’t informed it was happening. The McClellan transfers include at least some Bakken crude, extracted from shale by hydraulic fracturing, which regulators say is particularly flammable.
Jorge DeGuzman, supervisor of permitting for the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, said an inspector first discovered in the fall of 2012 that InterState Oil was unloading ethanol from rail cars at McClellan without a permit. The company then applied for a permit and received it in October 2012.
Last September, another inspection revealed that InterState was transferring crude oil from rail cars to trucks taking their loads to Bay Air refineries; again without a permit.
The company was not fined, and continued the ethanol and crude operations during the permitting process. The crude oil permit was approved this week.
Fuel transfer operations such as the one at McClellan have popped up in California and other states amid an energy boom driven by hydraulic fracturing of shale oil formations in North Dakota and elsewhere. While the oil furthers economic growth and energy independence, it’s also bringing unforeseen safety risks to communities, catching many state and local officials off guard.
“As long as it’s not stored, I don’t think it’s required for them to inform me,” said Steve Cantelme, Sacramento’s chief of emergency services. Still, he said, “I would like to know about it.”
State and local governments have scant jurisdiction over the movement of goods on rail lines, which is generally a matter for the federal government.
Federal regulators and the rail industry have taken voluntary steps to improve the safety of such shipments, including reduced speeds, more frequent inspections and using safer routes. They’re also working on a safer design for tank cars. But some state and local officials feel the response hasn’t matched the risk they face.
Fiery derailments in Alabama, North Dakota and Canada in the past several months have raised safety and environmental concerns about rail shipments of crude. On July 6, a 72-car train of crude oil from North Dakota broke loose, rolled down a hill and derailed in the lakeside village of Lac-Megantic, Quebec. The unusually volatile oil fed a raging fire and powerful explosions that leveled the center of town. Of the 47 people who were killed, five vanished without a trace.
The issue has received limited attention in California because the state has continued to rely on its traditional petroleum supply, which arrives on marine tankers.
But that’s changing. In December 2012, the state received fewer than 100,000 barrels of oil by rail. A year later, it was receiving nearly 1.2 million, according to the California Energy Commission.
“It potentially could be a fatal issue here in Sacramento,” Cantelme said.
The state projects that within two years, California could receive a quarter of its petroleum supply by rail. That would mean at least six trains of 100 tank cars every day, or 500,000 barrels of oil, passing through the capital. The capacity of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is 830,000 barrels.
InterState officials declined a request by The Sacramento Bee to observe the McClellan operations. The company also declined to answer questions The Bee sent last week about the facility, including how frequently the transfers take place and what safety precautions are taken.
In an emailed statement, the company’s president, Brent Andrews, said InterState has “the highest regard for safety procedures” and is “very thorough in our education and training with our employees.”
InterState’s new permit allows it to transfer about 11 million gallons of crude oil and ethanol a month at McClellan.
“That’s a lot,” said Darren Taylor, assistant chief of operations at the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire Department.
Neither McClellan Business Park, where the operation takes place, nor Patriot Rail, the short line railroad that switches the cars there, were required to verify that InterState had the necessary permits.
Another company, Carson Oil, was unloading ethanol at McClellan without a permit, but has since received one. Carson, based in Portland, Ore., is also seeking a permit to unload crude oil at McClellan in hopes of securing a contract. Carson did not return phone messages and emails requesting comment.
“If we don’t see anything alarming, we don’t shut a business down just because they missed some paperwork,” DeGuzman said. “The inspector felt it was a paperwork procedure.”
The McClellan operation straddles the boundary between Metropolitan Fire’s jurisdiction and that of the Sacramento Fire Department. Both departments could be involved in an emergency response to the site.
After a reporter told him about the facility last week, Dan Haverty, the city fire department’s interim chief, sent his battalion chief and a hazardous materials inspector to McClellan, where they reported finding 22 tank cars loaded with crude oil.
Haverty said far more hazardous commodities move by rail through Sacramento, including toxic chemicals, such as chlorine and anhydrous ammonia, and that his department has planned and trained for emergencies involving those materials.
Taylor said he was “comfortable and confident” in his department’s capabilities.
But Niko King, Sacramento’s assistant fire chief, said he didn’t have a lot of information on what was coming through the region by rail and new risks his department might face.
“I don’t want to say we’re in front of the curve,” he said. “We’re definitely reacting.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation has required that petroleum producers test and properly label and package Bakken oil before it is transported. But once the oil reaches its destination, whether a refinery or a transfer facility, such as the one in Sacramento, it’s handled no differently than conventional crudes.
The McClellan operation falls outside of some agencies’ jurisdiction. The Sacramento County Environmental Management Department regulates crude oil storage facilities, but McClellan isn’t considered one.
“We regulate the stuff that’s there” for more than 30 days, said Elise Rothschild, chief of the department’s Environmental Compliance Division, “not the stuff in transit.”
The railroads bringing crude oil to Sacramento, meanwhile, are not required to tell local officials that they’re doing so. One of them, BNSF Railway, is the nation’s largest hauler of crude oil in trains, mostly from North Dakota.
Earlier this month, CSX, the largest railroad on the East Coast, reached an agreement with Pennsylvania’s emergency management agency to share information on the shipment of hazardous materials on its network, including crude oil.
But the agreement requires state officials not to make the information public. It is possible to determine where shipments are going, however. BNSF, for example, lists Sacramento as one of its crude-by-rail terminals on a marketing website. A Sacramento Bee photographer who visited the McClellan site recently found crude oil being transferred from rail cars to trucks, activity that was plainly visible.
Cantelme said he’s begun in recent weeks to organize a regional task force with other local officials and the state Office of Emergency Response in an effort to better understand the risks of such operations and develop a coordinated response plan.
“This is preliminary for us,” he said. “We’re just now getting into it.”
A McClatchy analysis of federal data showed that more than 1.2 million gallons of crude oil spilled from trains in 2013 alone. In contrast, fewer than 800,000 gallons had been spilled nationwide from 1975 to 2012.
“Nobody saw this incredible increase in volume,” said Tom Cullen, administrator of the oil spill prevention office in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. In his January budget proposal, Gov. Jerry Brown proposed increasing funding for the Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response and shifting its focus from marine spill to inland spills.
Other states where crude oil shipments have increased are taking action.
In January, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed several state agencies to review safety procedures and emergency response plans. That state’s capital, Albany, has become a hub for rail shipments of North Dakota and Canadian oil for East Coast refineries. Earlier this month, Albany County placed a moratorium on the expansion of a train-to-barge facility blocks from state offices until the completion of a health study.
Washington lawmakers considered several measures to address increased oil shipments, including a 5-cents a barrel tax on crude oil shipped by rail into the state, but the efforts died before the session adjourned last week.
Activists in the Bay Area cities of Benicia, Richmond and Martinez are fighting the expansion of crude oil deliveries to local refineries. Earlier this month, Elizabeth Patterson, the mayor of Benicia, called on Brown to sign an executive order similar to Cuomo’s.
Tate reported from Washington. Bizjak of the Sacramento Bee reported from Sacramento.
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