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APNewsBreak: Oil train dangers extend past Bakken

via KIRO7

By MATTHEW BROWN

The Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. — 

The dangers posed by a spike in oil shipments by rail extend beyond crude from the booming Bakken region of the Northern Plains and include oil produced elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada, U.S. safety officials and lawmakers said.

Acting National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Christopher Hart said all crude shipments are flammable and can damage the environment — not just the Bakken shipments involved in a series of fiery accidents.

Pipeline prospects take a hit as Supreme Court grants land title to B.C. First Nation

via Financial Post

Canada's Supreme Court hands down a shocking unanimous decision upholding First Nations' aboriginal rights that predate colonialism. The Tsilhqot'in Nation v. British Columbia ruling has special significance in B.C., nearly all of which was never ceded by treaties, and where First Nations have been blockading oil pipelines and other resource extraction projects.

What Happened in Last Summer's Oil Train Disaster in Quebec That Killed 47

via Truth-Out

Details of the events leading to last July's oil train disaster in Lac Mégantic, Quebec, have been made public for the first time. They reinforce an existing portrait of the accident as a perfect storm of corporate malfeasance.The information comes from a freedom of information request by the Montreal English-language daily The Gazette and the French daily Journal de Montréal. The two newspapers obtained a 29-page document prepared by Quebec provincial police in its application for a search warrant of the offices of Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) several weeks following the disaster.On the night of July 5-6, 2013, an un-crewed runaway crude oil train derailed and exploded in the center of the town of Lac Mégantic, killing 47 people.

With 18 oil trains weekly, Columbia River Gorge is the key route for Pacific Northwest's crude-by-rail

via OregonLive

BNSF Railway Co. notified Washington authorities that it hauled 19 oil trains through Klickitat County in one week between May 29 and June 4, the state's most heavily traveled route. All but one continued on through the gorge to Clark County, en route to Seattle and Portland.At that pace, nearly 1,000 oil trains would move through the Columbia Gorge annually. That could grow to almost 2,500 trains a year – carrying between 70,000 and 90,000 barrels of oil apiece -- if a major Vancouver oil train terminal proposed by Tesoro-Savage is approved. And that doesn't include crude oil from Utah hauled by Union Pacific on the Oregon side of the gorge.