Editorial: The real crazy train: moving Bakken crude by rail
SF Chronicle Editorial Board Sunday, October 26, 2014
GOP gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari likes to deride Gov. Jerry Brown’s high-speed rail plan as the Crazy Train, but the loonier rail proposal is the one that would carry explosive Bakken crude 1,000 miles across the country to the Valero refinery in Benicia and other California refiners. Californians must have more assurances of safe rail operation before Valero’s oil-transfer-terminal plans proceed..........Community concerns include environmental risks but center on public safety because Bakken oil is more volatile than most other crudes. A derailed tanker train loaded with Bakken crude exploded in July 2013, killing 47 people in Canada and alerting transportation officials and the public to the real hazards of transporting this easily ignited oil. For Benicians, potentially explosive trains are no theoretical debate as two 50-car trains would pass daily through the north end of town......
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The News Tribune By Ryan Mello and Dow Constantine October 24, 2014
As this editorial page has noted, Washington has
seen a stunning increase in the amount of Bakken crude oil transported
on our railroads, to an estimated 2.87 billion gallons each
year. Much of that highly flammable oil rolls across the central Puget
Sound region, through downtown Tacoma and past Steilacoom in aging tank
cars.
The surge in train traffic has created an
unprecedented risk to our people, our economy, our traffic and our
environment. Our communities assume all of the risks while big oil
companies
get all of the rewards.
There’s the immediate risk to public safety when
flammable fuel passes through heavily populated areas like Tacoma and
Seattle and past our neighborhoods, schools and parks. Since
July 2013, there have been nine serious train derailments across North
America – more than we experienced during the past four decades
combined. An oil-train explosion last year in Quebec, Canada, killed 47
people and wiped out half a downtown area.
There’s also the increased risk of oil spills
contaminating Puget Sound and undermining the progress we’ve made in
waterfront development and cleaning up the Foss Waterway. It’s
a scenario we saw earlier this year when an oil train spilled more than
20,000 gallons of crude oil into the James River just outside
Lynchburg, Virginia..... read more here
When I see the adds lauding Grays Harbor as a beautiful tourist spot...come to Grays Harbor to play, I can't help but think of those proposed 110 crude oil trains coming to our Port and exporting 2.7 billion gallons of crude by barge and tankers. That is the other part of the insane story-- crude by rail and coal by rail planned for export to Asia from our coastal ports. How does that fit into the tourism plan? When the disaster spills into our waters we are sunk along with the crude oil which is sunk to the bottom--and cannot be cleaned up no matter what the Dept. of Ecology tell us with their mitigation. I am so sick of that word--that buzz word which means absolutely nothing can be done to save us in Washington State. Empty words.
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