Category Archives: Train speed

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DEIR, Fire, Hazmat notification, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Oil spill, Rail routing, Train speed, Valero Benicia Refinery

Sacramento Bee – Report minimizes risk from oil trains through Roseville, Sacramento

Repost from The Sacramento Bee

Report minimizes risk from oil trains through Roseville, Sacramento

By Tony Bizjak and Curtis Tate The Sacramento Bee   |  Jun. 17, 2014
A crude oil train operated by BNSF travels just outside the Feather River Canyon in the foothills into the Sacramento Valley. Jake Miille / Special to The Bee

A much-anticipated report released Tuesday offered new details and some controversial safety conclusions about a Bay Area oil company’s plan to run crude-oil trains daily through Roseville and Sacramento to Benicia.

Valero Refining Co., which operates a sweeping plant on a hillside overlooking Suisun Bay, plans to transport crude oil from undisclosed North American oil fields on two 50-car trains every 24 hours through the Sacramento region to the Benicia site. One would run at night and the other in the middle of the day to minimize conflicts with Capitol Corridor passenger trains, which share the same line.

If the project is approved, Valero would begin shipments later this year or early next year. The trains would cut through downtown Roseville, Sacramento and Davis, and pass within a quarter-mile of 27 schools, 11 of them in Sacramento, according to the draft environmental impact report, which was commissioned by the city of Benicia, lead agency on the project.

In findings that already are provoking debate, authors of the draft report concluded that the shipments would not constitute a significant safety risk for communities along the rail route because those trains are very unlikely to crash or spill their oil.

“Although the consequences of a release are potentially severe, the likelihood of such a release is very low,” wrote the report’s author, Environmental Science Associates of San Francisco. The report notes that safety steps by federal officials and railroad associations, such as slower train speeds through some urban areas and more track inspections, already are reducing the chance of crashes.

A spill risk assessment included in the report calculates the probability of a spill of 100 gallons or more in the 69 miles between Roseville and Benicia as occurring only once every 111 years. The key report section regarding impact on up-rail cities, including Sacramento, Davis, West Sacramento and Roseville, concludes: “Mitigation: None required.”

Several local Sacramento leaders on Tuesday said they had not yet read the Benicia report, which runs hundreds of pages, but that they weren’t soothed by a declaration that oil spills are unlikely.

Mike Webb, director of community development and sustainability in Davis, said the assessment misses a frightening reality for people living along the rail line: “It only needs to happen once to be a real problem.”

Across North America, six major crude-oil train crashes in the last year resulted in 2.8 million gallons of oil spilled, some of it causing explosions and forcing evacuations. The worst of those occurred last July in Lac-Megantic, Canada, where a runaway Bakken train crashed, spilling 1.6 million gallons of crude and fueling an explosion that killed 47 people and leveled part of that city’s downtown.

State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, introduced a bill last week to charge the oil industry a rail-related fee to pay for safety measures. In an interview earlier this week, he said he believes “it is not a matter of will (a spill) happen, it’s when. We have to be prepared.”

The debate over the Valero project is part of a growing discussion nationally about crude oil safety, prompted by increased pumping in recent years of less-expensive crude oil from Canada and the Bakken fields of North Dakota.

The surge in extracting North American oil is enabling some companies, such as Valero, to reduce reliance on overseas shipments of foreign oil. At the same time, it has caused a dramatic increase in the number of trains crisscrossing the country, pulling 100 cars or more of flammable crude through downtowns, with almost no notice to the public and minimal warning to local fire departments.

The debate was heightened by a federal warning earlier this year that Bakken crude may be more volatile than other crudes, and by federal concerns that the fleet of train tanker cars in use nationally is inadequate to safely transport crude oils. Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration issued a report saying California is behind in taking steps to protect cities and habitat from potential oil spills given the increase in crude oil shipments.

The draft environmental impact report released Tuesday does not state whether Valero will be transporting Bakken crude to Benicia. Valero has declined to disclose publicly exactly which crude oils it will ship. But the report lists Bakken as one of the lighter crudes Valero could ship.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is considering amending tank car design standards in light of concerns raised by recent fiery spills. Valero officials say they already have purchased some tank cars that have more safety features than most rail cars in use nationally. Valero spokesman Chris Howe said his company would expect to phase in retrofits of those cars, depending on what the federal government ultimately requires.

In California, the Valero crude-by-rail project is one of a handful planned by refineries. Another by Phillips 66 in Santa Maria likely will involve crude oil shipments through Sacramento. Several Kern County refineries also are adjusting or planning to retrofit their sites to receive crude shipments by rail. Trains last year began delivering crude oil to a transfer station at McClellan Park in Sacramento.

Rail companies are insisting that details of those shipments not be disclosed to the public, saying they are worried about security issues and don’t want to divulge “trade secrets” to competitors.

Local officials, including fire chiefs, recently have said they want to know more about the Valero project in particular. The Davis City Council has passed a resolution saying it does not want the shipments to come through the existing UP line in downtown.

Sacramento Rep. Doris Matsui, responding to questions by email Tuesday, expressed concern as well. “As the number of cars coming through Sacramento increases, it is clear that our risk also increases,” she wrote.

Webb, the Davis community development director, said representatives from Sacramento area cities will meet in two weeks to discuss the Benicia environmental report. Several local officials have said they would like Valero and UP to work with them on safety measures, including more communication about train movements and hazardous materials training.

The Benicia report declines to specify the routes trains may take to get from oil fields to Roseville, saying that any potential routes beyond Roseville are speculative. The most likely routes, according to people knowledgeable about rail movements, are through the Sacramento Valley via Dunsmuir and Redding, as well as over Donner Summit or through the Feather River Canyon.

The conclusion that an oil spill between Roseville and Benicia is a once-in-111-years event was made by Christopher Barkan, an expert on hazardous rail transport at the University of Illinois who did a risk assessment attached to the draft environmental impact report. Barkan previously worked for the American Association of Railroads, the industry’s leading advocacy group in Washington, and does research supported by the railroad association, according to his institute’s website.

Barkan, in an email, said his work for Benicia was not influenced by his relationships with the railroad association.

“The AAR had nothing to do with this project,” he wrote. “Whenever I am approached about conducting projects such as this, I discuss any potential conflicts of interest with other sponsors, as I did in this case, and it was mutually agreed that there was none … My role is to apply the best data and analytical methods possible to assess risk, irrespective of the sponsor.”

Benicia city officials did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. The draft EIR will be circulated for public comment this summer. Those comments will be incorporated into a final environmental document, to be voted on by the Benicia City Council. The council has the authority to approve changes at Valero’s plant to allow the oil company to begin rail shipments.

Howe, the Valero spokesman, complimented the city of Benicia on “the thoroughness and detail” of the report.

“We are reviewing the material published today and will be developing comments as part of the process. We look forward to working with the community and the city of Benicia toward completion of this important project.”

Crude By Rail, Hazmat notification, Rail industry, Rail routing, Train speed

Railroads oppose some oil train safety measures

Repost from Politico

Documents: Railroads want to hit brakes on some oil train safeguards

By KATHRYN A. WOLFE | 6/13/14 5:08 AM EDT
A fireball goes up at the site of an oil train derailment in Casselton, North Dakota, on Dec. 20, 2013.
The report previews what the administration may be considering to stop crashes. | AP Photo: A fireball goes up at the site of an oil train derailment in Casselton, North Dakota, on Dec. 20, 2013.

The railroad industry is warning the White House against some potential safety rules for trains carrying explosive crude oil, saying freight and passenger rail traffic could be disrupted for years if companies must obey 30 mph speed limits, install more sophisticated brakes and keep the trains manned at all times.

The arguments, contained in documents posted after a meeting this week between railroad officials and the Office of Management and Budget, also offer a preview of what steps the Obama administration may be considering in response to oil train crashes that have struck the U.S. and Canada in the past year. Those include a disastrous July 6 explosion that killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, after an engineer left a train packed with North Dakota crude oil parked on a steep incline with brakes that may not have been properly set.

The Department of Transportation declined to comment on the documents. DOT submitted a draft rule proposal to OMB in April but has offered no details about what’s in it.

Companies represented at Tuesday’s OMB meeting included the four major freight railroads — BNSF, Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern and CSX — as well as other industry groups and Amtrak, according to White House records.

While Amtrak doesn’t haul crude oil, a BNSF handout arguing against lower speed limits said the passenger rail’s travel schedules on one 1,815-mile route could be lengthened by two hours if oil trains’ top speeds are lowered to 30 mph from 50 mph. That route stretches between Aurora, Ill., and Spokane, Wash., which BNSF called its primary route for crude oil.

Slowdowns would cause “severe” impacts for the railroad’s operations, including both oil and grain shipments, BNSF said in the handout, calculating six-hour delays for freight trains along the same route. All told, the railroad said it would have to spend $2.8 billion to rebuild its lost shipping capacity during the next four years, while facing $630 million in additional annual expenses such as additional crew wages and lost productivity.

The Association of American Railroads, the freight railroad industry’s main trade group, offered a similar document on the speed limit issue.

None of the documents address the main issue people are expecting the DOT rule to address: increased safety requirements for the tanker cars that carry the oil.

Oil train traffic across the U.S. has increased 40-fold since 2008 because of booming production in places like North Dakota and western Canada. It’s also become an increasingly contentious issue for communities from California and Washington state to Albany, N.Y., and Lynchburg, Va.

The documents may not accurately reflect DOT’s undisclosed draft — the railroads may have been blindly making a case for what they don’t want to see happen. But they reveal that industry insiders have given thought to potential regulations that would go much further than the mostly voluntary measures DOT has imposed so far.

Earlier this year, DOT announced that railroads had voluntarily agreed to restrict some oil trains to 40 mph in certain populous areas.

But lowering the speed limit to 30 mph would harm “delivery capability” for BNSF’s oil customers, the railroad said in the document. To keep up with demand, it said, it would have to add an additional 11,280 tank cars to its crude oil fleet.

In the other documents posted on OMB’s website:

— A handout from CSX argues against requiring electronically controlled pneumatic braking systems, saying the technology is “expensive and only works if the entire train is equipped.” The company says the brakes would have “limited use and minimal safety impact.”

As part of an existing voluntary agreement between the industry and DOT, railroads agreed to equip all trains pulling 20 or more carloads of crude oil with other types of advanced braking systems — either distributed power or two-way telemetry end-of-train devices.

— And a final handout, whose authorship is unclear, argues against requiring that crude oil trains never be left unattended. It says “attending crude oil trains from origin to destination will increase congestion, require additional handling, and significantly drive up costs,” including $96 per hour for a two-person crew.

It also says that “appropriate securement and security measures are already in place to ensure safe movement of crude oil shipments.”

Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Rail routing, Train speed

Oil tank cars pose a hazard when moving and when parked

Repost from  The Post-Standard, Syracuse, NY (Letters to the Editor)

Oil tanker rail cars pose a hazard when moving and when parked

To the Editor:

Every sports person knows that a moving target is harder to hit than a stationary one. When you can read graffiti on oil tanker cars parked in the train yards in Minoa, and other areas around Syracuse, you know you have a serious safety problem.

Interstate commerce allows Bakken crude-oil rail shipments from North Dakota to “pass” through Central New York State. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., wants the U.,S. Department of Transportation and the Association of American Railroads to reduce the speed limit of these oil tanker trains from 50 mph to 40 mph through Syracuse and other heavily populated areas. Between 200 to 300 tanker cars “pass” through the Syracuse area daily. Presently, the 40 mph speed limit only applies to Buffalo and the New York City area.

These antiquated, poorly designed DOT-111 tanker cars pose a potential danger to the populace and the environment regardless of their speed! This was evidenced by the recent CSX derailment of crude oil tanker cars in Lynchburg, Va.

It doesn’t make one iota of difference if these trains travel at speeds of 40 or 50 mph, as long as they keep “passing” through the Syracuse area. Parking, however, for indefinite periods in small populated communities, like Minoa, is not acceptable.

Are we, Minoa residents, considered collateral damage – dispensable, if an accident, man-made or otherwise happens?

Come on, CSX … move these hazardous oil tankers out of my village; my front yard is not a bomb depot.

M. Claire Crull
Minoa

Bakken Crude, California Regulation, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazardous cargo transparency, Tank car design, Train speed

Bakersfield High School worst-case derailment scenario

Repost from the Bakersfield Californian
[Editor: this is a MUST READ article, a comprehensive and graphic description of first-responder requirements and readiness.  Someone needs to interview first responders in each of our Bay Area refinery towns, ask every single question referenced in this article, and lay out similar scenarios for the all-too-imaginable catastrophes that threaten our communities.  – RS]

Increased oil train traffic raises potential for safety challenges

By John Cox, Californian staff writer  |  May 17, 2014
Bakersfield High School is seen in the background behind the rail cars that go through town as viewed from the overpass on Oak Street. By Casey Christie / The Californian
Bakersfield High School is seen in the background behind the rail cars that go through town as viewed from the overpass on Oak Street. By Casey Christie / The Californian

First responders think of the rail yard by Bakersfield High School when they envision the worst-case scenario in Kern County’s drive to become a major destination for Midwestern oil trains.  If a derailment there punctures and ignites a string of tank cars, the fireball’s heat will be felt a mile away and flames will be a hundred feet high. Thick acrid black smoke will cover an area from downtown to Valley Plaza mall. Burning oil will flow through storm drains and sewers, possibly shooting flames up through manholes.

Some 3,000 BHS students and staff would have to be evacuated immediately. Depending on how many tank cars ignite, whole neighborhoods may have to be cleared, including patients and employees at 194-bed Mercy Hospital.  State and county fire officials say local 911 call centers will be inundated, and overtaxed city and county firefighters, police and emergency medical services will have to call for help from neighboring counties and state agencies.

While the potential for such an accident has sparked urgency around the state and the country, it has attracted little notice locally — despite two ongoing oil car offloading projects that would push Kern from its current average of receiving a single mile-long oil train delivery about once a month, to one every six hours.

One project is Dallas-based Alon USA Energy Inc.’s proposed oil car offloading facility at the company’s Rosedale Highway refinery. The other is being developed near Taft by Plains All American Pipeline LP, based in Houston.

Kern’s two projects, and three others proposed around the state, would greatly reduce California’s thirst for foreign crude. State energy officials say the five projects should increase the amount of crude California gets by rail from less than 1 percent of the state’s supply last year to nearly a quarter by 2016.

But officials who have studied the BHS derailment scenario say more time and money should be invested in coordinated drills and additional equipment to prepare for what could be a uniquely difficult and potentially disastrous oil accident.

Bakersfield High Principal David Reese met late last year with representatives of Alon, which hopes to start bringing mile-long “unit trains” — two per day — through the rail yard near campus.

He said Alon’s people told him about plans for double-lined tank cars and other safety measures “to make me feel better” about the project. But he still worries.

“I told them, ‘You may assure me but I continue to be concerned about the safety of my students and staff with any new (rail) project that comes within the vicinity of the school,'” he said.

Alon declined to comment for this story.

Both projects aim to capitalize on the current price difference between light crude on the global market and Bakken Shale oil found in and around North Dakota. Thanks to the nation’s shale boom, the Midwest’s ability to produce oil has outpaced its capacity to transport it cheaper and more safely by pipeline. The resulting overabundance has depressed prices and prompted more train shipments.

There are no oil pipelines over the Rockies; rail is the next best mode of shipping oil to the West Coast. Kern County is viewed as an ideal place for offloading crude because of its oil infrastructure and experience with energy projects. Two facilities are proposed in Northern California, in Benicia and Pittsburg; [emphasis added] the other would be to the south, in Wilmington.

A local refinery, Kern Oil & Refining Co., has accepted Bakken oil at its East Panama Lane plant since at least 2012. The California Energy Commission says Kern Oil receives one unit train every four to six weeks.

NATIONAL CHANGES

Shipments of Bakken present special safety concerns. The oil has been found to be highly volatile, and the common mode of transporting it — in quick-loading trains of 100 or more cars carrying more than 3 million gallons per shipment — rules out the traditional safety practice of placing an inert car as a buffer between two containing dangerous materials.

The dangers of shipping Bakken crude by unit train have been evident in several fiery derailments over the past year. One in July in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada, killed 47 people and destroyed 30 buildings when a 74-car runaway train jumped the tracks at 63 mph.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said 99.9 percent of U.S. oil rail cars reached their destination without incident last year. Two of its divisions, the Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, have issued emergency orders, safety advisories and special inspections relating to oil car shipments. New rules on tank car standards and operational controls for “high-hazard flammable trains” are in the federal pipeline.

Locally operating companies Union Pacific Railroad Co. and BNSF Railway Co. signed an agreement with the DOT to voluntarily lower train speeds, have more frequent inspections, make new investments in brake technology and conduct additional first-responder training.

Until new federal rules take effect next year, railroads can only urge their customers to use tank cars meeting the higher standards.

“UP does not choose the tank car,” Union Pacific spokesman Aaron Hunt wrote in an email. “We encourage our shippers to retrofit or phase out older cars.”

The San Joaquin Valley Railroad Co., owned by Connecticut-based Genesee & Wyoming Inc., is a short line that carries Kern Oil’s oil shipments and would serve the Plains project but not Alon’s. A spokesman said SJVR is working with the larger railroads to upgrade its line, and the company inspects tracks ahead of every unit train arrival, among other measures designed just for oil shipments.

STATE LEVEL PROPOSALS

Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed a big change in the way California protects against and responds to oil spills.

His 2014-15 budget calls for $6.7 million in new spending on the state’s Oil Spill Prevention and Administration Fund to add 38 inland positions, a 15 percent staffing increase. Currently the agency focuses on ocean shipments, which have been the norm for out-of-state oil deliveries in California.

To help pay for the expansion, Brown wants to expand a 6.5 cent-per-barrel fee to not only marine terminals but all oil headed for California refineries.

“We’ll have a more robust response capability,” said Thomas Cullen, an administrator at the Office of Spill Prevention and Response, which is within the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

A representative of the oil trade group Western States Petroleum Association criticized the proposal March 19 at a legislative joint hearing in Sacramento. Lobbyist Ed Manning said OSPR lacks inland reach, and that giving such responsibilities to an agency with primarily marine experience “doesn’t really respond to the problem.”

WSPA President Catherine Reheis-Boyd has emphasized the group has not taken a position on Brown’s OSPR proposal.

Also at the state capitol, Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, has forwarded legislation requiring railroads to give first responders more information about incoming oil shipments and publicly share spill contingency plans. The bill, AB 380, would also direct state grants toward local contingency planning and training. It is pending before the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.

LOCAL PREPARATIONS

In recent years Kern County has conducted large-scale, multi-agency emergency drills to prepare for an earthquake, disease outbreak and Isabella Dam break. There has not been a single oil spill drill.

Emergency service officials say that’s not as bad as it sounds because disasters share common actions — notification, evacuation, decontamination.

Nevertheless, State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris, County Fire Chief Brian Marshall and Kern Emergency Services Manager Georgianna Armstrong support the idea of local oil spill drills involving public safety agencies, hospitals and others.

Kern County is well-versed at handling hazardous materials. Some local officials say an oil accident may actually be less dangerous than the release of toxic chemicals, which also travel through the county on a regular basis.

There have been recent accidents, but all were relatively minor.

Federal records list 18 oil or other hazardous material spills on Kern County railroads in the last 10 years. No one was injured; together the accidents caused $752,000 in property damage.

Most involved chemicals such as sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid. Only two resulted in crude oil spills, both in 2013 in the 93305 ZIP code in the city of Bakersfield. Together they spilled a little more than a gallon of oil.

But the risk of spills rises significantly as the volume of oil passing through the county grows.

“The volume is a big deal,” Bakersfield Fire Chief Douglas R. Greener said. “Potentially, if you have a train derail, you could see numerous cars of the same type of material leaking all at once.”

Kern County firefighters are better prepared for an oil spill than many other first responders around the state. They train on an actual oil tanker and have special tools to mend rail car punctures and gashes. The county fire department has several trucks carrying spray foam that suffocates industrial fires.

But Chief Marshall acknowledged a bad rail accident could strain the department’s resources.

He has been speaking with Alon about securing additional firefighting equipment and foam to ensure an appropriate response to any oil train derailment related to the company’s proposed offloading facility.

What comes of those talks is expected to be included in an upcoming environmental review of the project.

“We recognize the need to increase our industrial firefighting program,” Marshall said.

Chief Zagaris said Kern’s proximity to on-call emergency agencies in Tulare, Kings and Los Angeles counties may come in handy under the Bakersfield High spill scenario, which is based on fire officials’ assessments and reports from several similar incidents over the past year.

He and Marshall would not estimate how many people would require evacuation in the event of a disaster near the school, or what specific levels of emergency response might become necessary.

But Zagaris said local public safety officials would almost certainly require outside help to assess injuries, transfer people in need of medical care, secure the city and contain the spill itself.

“I look at it as, you know, depending what it is and where it happens will dictate how quickly” outside resources would have to be pulled in, he said.