Category Archives: Water quality

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Oil stabilization, Rail Safety, Reid vapor pressure levels, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail, Volatile gases, Water quality

Federal, state and local officials gather in Davis California to discuss oil train safety legislation

Repost from The Vallejo Times-Herald
[Editor:  Thanks to Rep. Garamendi for his sponsorship of HR1679 to require Bakken oil stabilization before it is loaded onto oil trains.  But you can add Garamendi’s name to the long list of officials who show little interest in stopping bomb trains, who operate under the illusion that “safer” is ok.  Quote: “He added that the push isn’t to stop transportation of oil by rail, but to make it safer….”  – RS]

Crude oil-by-rail safety focus of proposed bill

By Melissa Murphy, 04/08/15, 10:05 PM PDT
U.S. Congressman John Garamendi, D-Solano, pauses as a freight train passes during a press conference at the Davis Amtrak Depot on Wednesday to highlight the need for state and federal action to improve the safety of crude oil-by-rail transports. Joel Rosenbaum — The Reporter
Solano County Supervisor Skip Thomson expresses his concerns about rail safety as he participates in a press conference on the issue Wednesday in Davis. Joel Rosenbaum — The Reporter

Transportation of crude oil by rail was a hot topic Wednesday as federal, state and local government officials gathered at the train depot in the city of Davis.

Congressman John Garamendi, D-Solano, addressed media during a press conference about his legislation, H.R. 1679, which would prohibit the transport of crude-by-rail unless authorities have reduced the volatile gases in the oil prior to transportation.

Specifically, maximum Reid vapor pressure of 9.5 psi, the maximum volatility permitted by the New York Mercantile Exchange for crude oil futures contracts.

“Further analysis and debate is warranted, and H.R. 1679 is intended to move debate forward and stress the urgency of action before more lives are needlessly lost,” Garamendi said. “It doesn’t have to be explosive.”

He added that the push isn’t to stop transportation of oil by rail, but to make it safer and that the federal government needs to get its “train in gear” to adopt regulations.

Sarah Feinberg, acting administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, said even though the issue is complicated, they’re working on a comprehensive approach.

She explained that there has been a 4,000 percent increase in the amount of crude by rail. It continues to be transported by rail, pipeline and truck.

While it will take a long time to create and pass new regulations and standards, interim steps have been taken, including additional emergency regulations, speed reductions, increased inspections and more emergency equipment.

“We’ll continue to do more,” she said.

Standing next to photos of two fiery oil car train explosion, one that occurred as recently as February in West Virginia, Davis Mayor Dan Wolk said the trains go through the heart of the city, and there is a high risk if crude-by-rail starts moving through the corridor.

“It could have catastrophic effects in our community,” he said. “Garamendi’s legislation is in perfect alignment with city objectives. Safety is the priority.”

Solano County Supervisor Skip Thomson agreed and added that the legislation needs to be passed as soon as possible.

Other steps have been taken by the California Office of Emergency Services.

Eric Lamoureux, inland regional administrator for OES, said six hazardous materials vehicles stand ready to respond throughout the state and within the next few months local exercises will test the systems and procedures in place.

Lamoureaux also explained that explosions are a concern, but there also is a risk to water supply. He shared that a derailment in November sent eight train cars and loads of corn into Feather River Canyon near Lake Oroville.

He added that it could have been a bigger issue if it was crude oil.

Garamendi also explained that the process of removing volatile gases isn’t new, but a regular standard for refineries in Texas.

Meanwhile, the city of Benicia is considering an application that would allow Valero Refinery to receive and process more crude oil delivered by rail. The proposed crude by rail project would be a third means to deliver crude oil. So far, Valero receives the crude oil by marine deliveries and pipeline.

According to the city of Benicia website, the city has determined that sections of the Draft Environmental Impact Report, when it comes to the Valero project, will need to be updated and recirculated. The anticipated release of the Recirculated Draft EIR for public comment is June 30. The Recirculated Draft EIR will have a 45-day comment period. After the comment period on the Recirculated DEIR closes, the city will complete the Final EIR which will include responses to all comments on the original Draft EIR and the Recirculated Draft EIR.

Canadian regulation, CPC-1232, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Fire, Rivers, Tar sands crude, Water quality

Gogama derailment – 35 oil tanker cars go off rails — 5 of them into the Makami River

Repost from CBC News

Gogama derailment – 35 oil tanker cars go off rails — 5 of them into the Makami River

Mar 08, 2015 6:14 PM ET

As crews continued to tackle a fire Sunday set off after 35 CN Rail cars carrying oil went off the tracks just outside of Gogama, Ont., the province’s transportation minister and his caucus colleague went after the federal government for its rail safety record.​

“The federal government, responsible for rail safety, must do more to protect our communities and the environment,” tweeted Glenn Thibeault, Liberal MPP for Sudbury and parliamentary assistant to Ontario’s environment minister.

“The rail cars involved are new models, compliant with the latest federal regulations. Yet they still failed to prevent this incident,” Thibeault said in a statement.

Gogama Train Derailment 2
Five of the oil tankers are in the Makami River, four kilometres outside of Gogama. This is the third CN derailment in northern Ontario in less than a month, (@GlennThibeault/Twitter)

​CN Rail has confirmed that five of the 35 tanker cars that detailed are in Makami River, which is part of the Mattagami River System. The train was 94 cars long and all were tanker cars carrying crude oil from Alberta.

Firefighters are working to control the flames and smoke from the burning oil tankers, about four kilometres outside of Gogama.

This is the third CN derailment in northern Ontario in less than a month, and the second in the same area. Crews are still working to clean up a similarly fiery derailment near the community just three weeks ago.

That prompted Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca to say in a statement Sunday that he “will be contacting Federal Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, CN and CP this week to reiterate our government’s serious concerns with respect to ensuring our railways are safe.”

There’s no sign that drinking water or air quality near the site of the train derailment have been affected, according to CN Rail’s latest update Sunday afternoon.

The company has launched its emergency response plan, bringing in experts in engineering, operating, environment and dangerous goods. CN crews have already started constructing a 460-metre stretch of bypass track to divert around the derailment site.

Chief operating officer Jim Vena apologized to local residents for the disruption caused by the derailment, adding that he is heading to the scene.

‘Very hard to accept’

Rick Duguay, who runs Gogama’s general store, woke early Saturday morning to what he described as a strange banging noise. Duguay has lived in the community his entire and is accustomed to the sound of trains, but said this sound was different.

He’s relieved the derailment happened outside of town.

“Luckily it’s not right here at the railroad crossing, but it’s close enough and very hard to accept the things going on,” Duguay said.

He wants to see changes put in place to make railroads safer, but doesn’t think the two recent crashes are enough to prompt change.

“The worry was always there that a train wreck could happen in town … but I mean, we lived with it all our life.”

Morris Neveau said the two derailments so close together have left many in the Mattagami First Nation, just downstream from the recent derailment, unnerved.

“It affects our thinking and how we live, you know, because we live in fear, eh?”

‘What can we do now?’

Gogama residents spent much of the weekend looking up at the large plume of black smoke looming over the town.

Gogama Train Derailment
CN says indications are that ‘the drinking water supply to Gogama Village and the nearby First Nation are not affected at this time.’ (@GlennThibeault/Twitter)

Dawn Simoneau, 33, said her two daughters have been asking questions about the derailment.

“Like, ‘Are the fish going to be okay?’ and they are concerned as well,” said  .

Simoneau, a life-long Gogama resident, has lived her entire life with trains rumbling past and an ever-present fear that something might happen.

“This is just always the way it’s been. And now … we’re thinking, ‘What can we do now to make sure this doesn’t happen again?'”

The derailment has some residents talking about the Energy East oil pipeline, which has faced opposition in other parts of northern Ontario.

Nickel Belt New Democrat MP Claude Gravelle said he didn’t want to get into that debate while visiting Gogama on Saturday.

“Well, that’s a different discussion for a different day, but there certainly are some concerns about pipelines. But there are concerns about rail cars. What’s the safest? Accidents are accidents.”

The intense heat of the fire has kept investigators away from the site so far, but investigators hope to find some answers Sunday about how much oil was spilled and what caused the derailment.

With files from The Canadian Press
California Regulation, Fracking, Oil Industry, Water quality

Hundreds of illicit oil wastewater pits found in Kern County

Repost from The Los Angeles Times
Editor: See also LA Times follow-up stories: 2/27/15, Who’s behind the chemical-laden water pits in Kern County? and 2/28/15 Jerry Brown must enforce California’s environmental laws.   

Hundreds of illicit oil wastewater pits found in Kern County

By Julie Cart,   2/26/15 10:10PM
Oil wells
Pits containing production water from oil wells in Kern County. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Water officials in Kern County discovered that oil producers have been dumping chemical-laden wastewater into hundreds of unlined pits that are operating without proper permits.

Inspections completed this week by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board revealed the existence of more than 300 previously unidentified waste sites. The water board’s review found that more than one-third of the region’s active disposal pits are operating without permission.

The pits raise new water quality concerns in a region where agricultural fields sit side by side with oil fields and where California’s ongoing drought has made protecting groundwater supplies paramount.

Clay Rodgers, assistant executive officer of the water board’s Fresno office, called the unregulated pits a “significant problem” and said the agency expects to issue as many as 200 enforcement orders.

State regulators face federal scrutiny for what critics say has been decades of lax oversight of the oil and gas industry and fracking operations in particular. The Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources has admitted that for years it allowed companies to inject fracking wastewater into protected groundwater aquifers, a problem they attributed to a history of chaotic record-keeping.

“The state doesn’t seem to be willing to put the protection of groundwater and water quality ahead of the oil industry being able to do business as usual,” said Andrew Grinberg of the group Clean Water Action.

The pits — long, shallow troughs gouged out of dirt — hold water that is produced from fracking and other oil drilling operations. The water forced out of the ground during oil operations is heavily saline and often contains benzene and other naturally occurring but toxic compounds.

Regional water officials said they believe that none of the pits in the county have linings that would prevent chemicals from seeping into groundwater beneath them. Some of the pits also lack netting or covers to protect migrating birds or other wildlife.

Currently, linings for pits are not required, though officials said they will consider requiring them in the future. Covers are mandated in some instances.

The pits are a common site on the west side of Bakersfield’s oil patch. In some cases, waste facilities contain 40 or more pits, arranged in neat rows. Kern County accounts for at least 80% of California’s oil production.

The facilities are close to county roads but partially hidden behind earthen berms. At one pit this week, waves of heat rose from newly dumped water, and an acrid, petroleum smell hung in the air.

Rodgers said Thursday that the agency’s review found 933 pits, or sumps, in Kern County. Of those, 578 are active and 355 are not currently used.

Of the active pits, 370 have permits to operate and 208 do not. All of the pits have now been inspected, he said.

The possible existence of hundreds of unpermitted pits came to light when regional water officials compared their list of pit operators to a list compiled by the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. The oil regulator’s list contained at least 300 more waste pits than water officials had permitted, Rodgers said.

His staff began inspecting the wastewater sites in April. Initial testing of water wells has not revealed any tainted water, he said.

The pits are an inexpensive disposal method for an enormous volume of water that is forced out of the ground during drilling or other operations, such as fracking. Rodgers said that just one field, the McKittrick Oil Field, produces 110,000 barrels of wastewater a day. According to figures from 2013, oil operations in Kern County produce 80 billion gallons of such wastewater — an amount that if clean would supply nearly a half-million households for a year.

More than 2,000 pits have been dredged over decades of oil operations in Kern County, according to water board records. Oil field companies have not always properly disposed of water, Rodgers said. As recently as the 1980s, it was customary to dump wastewater into drainage canals that line the San Joaquin Valley’s agricultural fields.

But using unlined pits to dispose of wastewater is becoming less common. Some states ban the practice, and many in the oil and gas industry do not consider it effective.

The water board’s long-term plan to address the problem includes requiring remediation of some abandoned pits so that contaminants left behind don’t pollute the air, Rodgers said.

In pits located near clean water sources, Rodgers said, operators will be required to install monitor wells to test water quality. The companies will pay for the testing and provide the results to water officials.

The water board will publish a series of general orders that he said will more tightly control the operation of wastewater pits.

“Our goal is to protect water quality,” Rodgers said. “Our goal is not to shut anybody down, but by the same token, they do not own the waters beneath them. Those waters are for the public good.”

Blast zone, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Environmental Impacts, Evacuation, Explosion, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Water quality, Wildlife

Report: Oil Trains Threaten 25 Million Americans, Wildlife

Repost from Endangered Earth, Center For Biological Diversity

Center For Biological Diversity Report: Oil Trains Threaten 25 Million Americans, Wildlife

No. 762, Feb. 19, 2015

North Dakota oil train explosionAs the investigation continues into the two latest explosive oil-train derailments in Ontario and West Virginia, the Center for Biological Diversity released a report this morning outlining striking new details about the risk oil trains pose to people and wildlife across the country. Our analysis, called Runaway Risks, finds that 25 million Americans live within the one-mile “evacuation zone” and that oil trains routinely pass within a quarter-mile of 3,600 miles of streams and more than 73,000 square miles of lakes, wetlands and reservoirs.

These dangerous trains also pass through 34 national wildlife refuges and critical habitat for 57 threatened and endangered species, including bull trout, salmon, piping plovers and California red-legged frogs.

Oil-by-rail transport has increased 40-fold since 2008 without any meaningful new safety measures. As a result, destructive accidents and spills are now occurring with disturbing frequency.

“The federal government has failed to provide adequate protection from these bomb trains,” said the Center’s Jared Margolis. “We clearly need a moratorium on crude-by-rail until the safety of our communities and the environment can be ensured.”

Read about the report, check out this interactive map of oil train routes around the country, and then tell the Obama administration to protect us from these dangerous trains.