News Release from Center For Biological Diversity [Editor: see this story also in INFORUM (Fargo ND), which shows an interesting photo of a cross section from a damaged oil tanker car. – RS]
Department of Transportation Ignores Congressional Deadline for Upgrading Safety Rules to Prevent Oil Train Disasters
PORTLAND, Ore.— Ignoring a congressional stipulation in the 2015 budget bill calling for new safety rules for oil trains by Jan. 15, federal transportation officials now say they won’t update the rules until May. Amid mounting concerns over the unchecked rise in shipments of highly volatile crude oil by train that has resulted in several explosive derailments and dozens of fatalities in the past two years, the federal Department of Transportation has yet to enact any on-the-ground safety improvements.
“Every day of delay is another day of putting people and the environment at risk of great harm,” said Jared Margolis, an attorney at the Center who focuses on the impacts of energy development on endangered species. “Continuing to allow these bomb trains to operate under current regulations is simply rolling the dice as to where and when the next disaster will occur.”
While several explosive oil-train accidents have occurred since the rulemaking process began in September 2013, the agency has failed to take any immediate action to resolve well-established concerns, such as the use of unsafe, puncture-prone DOT-111 tank cars.
“DOT-111 tank cars were never intended to transport these hazardous products,” said Margolis. “Failing to ban them immediately is a failure of the government’s duty to protect us from harm.”
Congress, understanding that rapid action is essential to protect the public, put a requirement in the 2015 budget bill for federal transportation officials to issue new safety rules by Jan. 15; but the industry has been fighting to delay and chip away at any efforts that would make moving oil by rail more expensive, regardless of safety concerns.
“Bomb trains are just one of many dangers posed by our continued dependence on fossil fuels,” Margolis said. “Ultimately, if we’re going to avoid dangerous oil-train derailments, as well as avoid the climate catastrophe that is currently being caused by our emissions, we must move away from these dangerous fossil fuels.”
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The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 800,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Most N.D. loads to Albany now under new volatility limits
By Brian Nearing, December 10, 2014
FILE – This Nov. 6, 2013 file photo shows a warning placard on a tank car carrying crude oil near a loading terminal in Trenton, N.D. Thousands of older rail tank cars that carry crude oil would be phased out within two years under regulations proposed in response to a series of fiery train crashes over the past year. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said the government’s testing of crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana shows the oil is on the high end of a range of volatility compared with other crude oils, meaning it’s more likely to ignite if spilled. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)
New safety rules on Bakken crude oil shipments imposed by North Dakota will not affect about 80 percent of oil arriving daily on massive tanker trains at the Port of Albany. Some oil opponents in the Capital Region are criticizing the limit as toothless.
Amid opposition from oil companies, the North Dakota Industrial Commission set a limit late Tuesday that is supposed to reduce the volatility of Bakken crude — or potential explosiveness — before it can be shipped out of state on trains. Officials in New York and other states along the routes of oil trains had been pushing for a limit in after major accidents in Canada, and states including Alabama and Pennsylvania.
The new North Dakota standard is well above volatility found in Bakken crude by Canadian safety officials after 47 people were killed in a massive explosion and fire when a crude oil train derailed in Quebec in July 2013.
North Dakota’s new measure was praised as “aggressive” in a joint news release by state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens and Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald.
“Reducing the volatility of Bakken crude at the source protects public health, protects the environment and provides an additional safeguard for New Yorkers and communities across the country,” according to the prepared statement. Attempts to obtain further comment Wednesday from DEC were not successful.
“This does not really provide much of a margin of safety for the public. It still does not address the (Bakken) flammability issue,” said Chris Amato, a staff attorney with Earthjustice, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental legal group and DEC deputy commissioner for natural resources from 2007 to 2011.
In October, Amato’s group filed a petition with DEC claiming the state has the power to immediately ban the most common type of oil tanker rail cars — called DOT-111s — from entering the port loaded with flammable Bakken oil. DEC disagreed that it had the power to take such a step, which would have made Albany the first place in the country to bar the aging tankers, which in derailments have been prone to rupture, leading to fires and explosions.
Amato called the North Dakota volatility standard “better than nothing,” adding that DEC “has its head in the sand on all crude-by-rail issues.”
“The new rule has no effect, zero,” said Sandy Steubing, a spokeswoman for the group People of Albany United for Safe Energy, which wants crude oil shipments into Albany halted. “It is like setting a speed limit of 100 miles an hour and saying we will catch the cars going 120,” she said. “I don’t know if North Dakota just did this for show.”
“Reducing the volatility of crude oil at the source before shipping is welcome news and is something for which I have been advocating. But North Dakota hasn’t set a standard that challenges the oil industry enough,” said McCoy. And Steck, a fellow Democrat, said North Dakota also failed to require removal of hydrofracking chemicals from the Bakken, which he said makes the crude more flammable.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said “any step that makes our community safer is a step in the right direction.”
Starting April 1, Bakken crude shipped out of the shale oil fields of North Dakota can have a vapor pressure of no more than 13.7 pounds per square inch (psi), slightly below a federal hazardous materials stability standard of 14.7 psi.
Bakken crude above this new standard would have to be treated with heat or pressure at the wells to remove its most volatile components.
North Dakota Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms has said about 80 percent of Bakken crude being shipped already falls below this standard. But he also told the Associated Press that the change would “significantly change the characteristics of crude oil that’s going into market.”
A vapor pressure rating is a measurement of how rapidly a liquid evaporates into a gas and spreads into the air, making it more volatile and prone to explosion. The Bakken crude that caused the massive fireball in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people had a psi of between 9 and 9.3, which is well below the new North Dakota safety standard.
In a report after the tragedy, the Canadian Transportation Safety Board found the Bakken crude involved was as volatile as gasoline. The volatility, combined with “large quantities of spilled crude oil, the rapid rate of release, and the oil’s … low viscosity were likely the major contributors to the large post-derailment fireball and pool fire,” the board found.
By comparison, crude oil pumped from beneath the Gulf of Mexico has a psi of about 3, making it much less likely to explode in an accident, according to figures reported this spring in the Wall Street Journal. In Texas, crude oil produced in the Eagle Ford shale formation has a psi of about 8.
According to the North Dakota Petroleum Council, the average Bakken crude has a psi of between 11.5 and 11.8, again below the new state safety standard.
The North Dakota standard is “far from a solution that the communities that are dealing with oil trains on a daily basis are looking for,” said Connor Bambrick, an analyst with Environmental Advocates of New York.
Repost from The Jamestown Sun, Jamestown, ND [Editor: Significant quote: “An oil conditioning standard must be framed in the broad context of public safety, not what might or might not inconvenience the industry. The ‘winners’ must be homeowners, businesspeople and others who live near oil train rail lines.” – RS
Flexibility in oil rule has limits
By Forum Editorial Board on Nov 5, 2014
“Flexibility” has emerged as the operative word in a proposed crude oil conditioning standard being developed by the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources. Director Lynn Helms said he is summarizing some 1,200 pages of comment and testimony about how best to prepare volatile Bakken crude for transport. All well and good, but just how flexible “flexibility” will be should be a primary concern.
The drive to “condition” Bakken crude that is transported in rail tank cars accelerated following several derailments and explosions of oil trains, including a spectacular collision/derailment and explosion near Casselton, N.D., last December. Three reports about characteristics of Bakken crude are in the public record and will play a part in Helms’ work.
The aim is to remove certain volatile components of North Dakota’s light crude oil, thus making it less likely to flash to flame and explode in a train accident. Helms said his department will propose a standard to the Industrial Commission next month. The means by which the industry meets the standard likely will include various operating practices. The commission imposes the rule. Good, as far as it goes.
Helms added that his department’s flexibility approach is the best way to go because, “We certainly don’t want at this point … to pick a winner or loser in that discussion.” Really?
Once again, Helms and company are so focused on the industry’s priorities that his view of “winner or loser” is constricted. An oil conditioning standard must be framed in the broad context of public safety, not what might or might not inconvenience the industry. The “winners” must be homeowners, businesspeople and others who live near oil train rail lines. The means to achieve a meaningful oil safety standard could be flexible, but only if procedures can achieve the standard.
Transporting oil by rail can never be 100 percent safe. By its nature, oil on the rails entails risk. But if rail oil traffic is to be as safe as possible, anything that compromises that goal is unacceptable. North Dakota’s standard must be written with that in mind.
Repost from The Chicago Sun Times [Editor: See the Inspector General’s audit announcement here and the PDF notice to the Federal Railroad Administrator here. – RS]
Federal IG to audit transport of volatile crude by rail cars
Rosalind Rossi, October 29, 2014
A CSX train from Chicago carrying crude oil derailed in April in Lynchburg, Va., forcing the evacuation of hundreds.
A federal inspector general is launching an audit of whether hazardous materials are being carried safely over the nation’s rails — including highly-volatile Bakken crude that travels through the Chicago area.
“Due to the public safety risk posed by increases in the transportation of hazardous materials by rail, we are initiating an audit assessing the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) enforcement of hazardous materials regulations using inspections and other tools,” a memo on the website of the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation said Wednesday.
The memo specifically cited a fatal July 2013 Bakken oil train derailment in Lac Megantic, Canada, that “highlighted the importance of oversight of hazardous materials being transported by rail.” The Lac Megantic blast decimated more than 30 downtown buildings in the Canadian town and killed 47 people.
At least eight rail lines carry Bakken crude through Illinois, according to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. They are BNSF, Norfolk-Southern, Alton & Southern, CN, CSX, Indiana Harbor Belt, Union Pacific and Canadian Pacific. Maps provided by BNSF to the Illinois emergency agency indicated BNSF rails carry Bakken through Cook County.
A candlelight vigil about what protestors called “bomb trains” was held July 10 at the BNSF terminal at 16th Street and Western Ave out of fear that black tank cars observed there with placards indicating they held flammable petroleum were actually carrying Bakken crude. The protest was among those waged nationally to observe the one-year anniversary of the Lac Megantic disaster.
“We saw 47 people killed in Lac Megantic,’’ Debra Michaud, an organizer of the Pilsen protest, said at the time. “A bomb train explosion in Pilsen or Little Village would be many times that.’’
In April, a CSX train traveling from Chicago and loaded with crude oil derailed and exploded in Lynchburg, Va.. The incident shut down roads and bridges and forced the evacuation of hundreds. No one was injured or killed.
The crash was among series of accidents across North America involving railroads’ crude oil shipments, which have surged dramatically as oil production rises in regions like North Dakota’s Bakken shale and western Canada.
Wednesday’s inspector general memo noted that crude oil shipments have increased from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 407,761 in 2013 — a more than 4000 percent jump.
Mayors Karen Darch of Barrington and Tom Weisner of Aurora have been particularly vocal about the increasing transport of volatile crude and other dangerous products. They say their residents face frequent traffic jams caused by long trains carrying volatile liquids and worry about the sturdiness of tank cars holding such liquid.
Some volatile fluids are being transported in the equivalent of the “Ford Pinto” of rail cars and such tankers should be upgraded, Darch has contended.
Darch Wednesday welcomed the IG audit as a positive development.
“We are all concerned about public safety risk and hopefully this report will have suggestions for further enhancing public safety,” Darch said.
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