For Big Railroads, a Carload of Whistleblower Complaints

For Big Railroads, a Carload of Whistleblower Complaints

By Stuart Silverstein and Brian Joseph     October 21, 2015   FairWarning

As both a veteran railroad worker and union official responsible for safety, Mike Elliott became alarmed when he learned of trouble-plagued train signals in his home state of Washington.

Signals, he said, at times would inexplicably switch from red to yellow to green – potentially creating confusion that could lead to a crash. Elliott raised that and other signal issues repeatedly with his managers at BNSF Railway Co. But eventually, Elliott concluded that “these guys are running me around in circles.”

So Elliott, 57, of Tacoma, Wash., pressed his concerns with the Federal Railroad Administration, summarizing the matter in a January 2011 letter. The FRA investigated, and discovered 357 safety violations, including 112 signal system defects.

 Speaking up for safety, though, only made matters worse for Elliott at BNSF, where he already had clashed with managers. Within weeks the company fired Elliott from his job as a locomotive engineer – an act that a federal jury this summer ruled was illegal retaliation by BNSF against a whistleblower.

The June 30 decision by the Tacoma jury, which awarded Elliott $1.25 million but is being appealed, spotlights the unjust punishment that critics say sometimes is meted out to railroad workers who report injuries or safety problems. These critics, including plaintiff lawyers and union officials, along with others who have examined railroad practices, say the harsh treatment reflects old, hard-line management tactics that persist in corners of the industry…..

…. an administrative law judge in 2013 ruled against Union Pacific, declaring: “The actions by Union Pacific have been so egregious in this case, and Union Pacific has been so openly blatant in ignoring the provisions of [federal law], that I find punitive damages are necessary to ensure that this reprehensible conduct is not repeated.” …..

…. Joseph C. Szabo, who headed the FRA from 2009 until this January, said industry supervisors often are under “immense pressure” to curb costs by moving trains quickly out of rail yards. That, in turn, translates into pressure on rank-and-file workers “to ignore safety protocols and to just get the damn train out of town.” That’s why, Szabo said, it’s “critically important” that railroad workers are “very comfortable in doing the right thing without any fear of retribution.” ….   More here

Other News:

WHAT TO LOOK FOR AS CONGRESS SETS A SIX-YEAR AGENDA FOR DANGEROUS GOODS TRANSPORT  - Bloomberg

 

Dayton says oil-by-rail shipments through Twin Cities puts thousands of Minnesotans at risk

Grand Forks Herald

- ‎Oct 21, 2015‎

In the letter to BNSF president and CEO Carl Ice, Dayton says nearly 100,000 more people are within the ½ mile evacuation zone of crude oil rail shipping routes in Minnesota now that BNSF is shipping Bakken crude oil along a rail line through downtown ...

Railroads to miss PTC deadline, threaten shut-down

Dr. John Tunn, FRA

Railroads warn they will miss deadline for safety system, stopping cargo in its tracks

October 19, 2015 | By Jennifer A. Dlouhy    Fuelfix.com

 

 WASHINGTON — Railroads are pushing Congress to extend a deadline for installing safety technology on trains that carry cargo as well as commuters, warning that oil, gasoline and other goods moved by rail could be stopped in their tracks without extra time.

At issue is Positive Train Control, a communications system that is meant to coordinate the movement of trains nationwide, preventing collisions and derailments. Congress mandated railroads use the technology in 2008, after a commuter train’s fatal crash in California killed 25 people.

But most U.S. railroads are on track to miss a Dec. 31 deadline for adopting the complex technology.
Some safety advocates say the industry has moved too slowly to roll out PTC, more than four decades after federal accident investigators first recommended such train control systems.

But installing the vast satellite-based system across multiple railroads — and ensuring the trains, towers and signaling boxes effectively communicate with each other — has proved challenging. Some PTC components had not been developed before Congress mandated the system. And delays were exacerbated by a 13-month federal moratorium on the installation of new communication poles in rights of way to transmit radio signals.

“You cannot purchase PTC systems off the shelf at Best Buy,” said Michael Melaniphy, president of the American Public Transportation Association, which is pushing Congress for more time. Otherwise, Melaniphy warned reporters Monday, “there will be a transportation crisis in this country with severe economic consequences.”...

..... That crude-by-rail traffic and the transportation of other commodities “could grind to a standstill” without at least three more years to install the system — and up to two more years for testing and validating it — said the association’s president, Ed Hamberger.

Major U.S. freight railroads, including BNSF, CSX and Norfolk Southern, have said they will shut down many operations on Dec. 31 to comply with the deadline and avoid hefty fines for flouting it. Because railroads will begin shutting down services weeks earlier, they need a clear signal from Congress before the end of October, Hamberger said.

Norfolk Southern says major coal export terminals, chemical complexes, crude oil receivers and power plants likely would lose service.....  more here

 

Bill could shield oil train spill response plans from disclosure

Oil burns at the site of a March 5, 2015, train derailment near Galena, Ill.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article39495555.html#storylink=cpy

House bill could shield oil train spill response plans from disclosure

Six-year transportation bill includes section on oil trains
Obama administration supports public notifications of oil spills, etc.
Future transportation secretary could be empowered to protect data

By Curtis Tate     McClatchyDC  Oct 16, 2015

WASHINGTON-   A House of Representatives bill unveiled Friday could make it more difficult for the public to know how prepared railroads are for responding to oil spills from trains, their worst-case scenarios and how much oil is being transported by rail through communities.

The language appears in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s six-year transportation legislation, which primarily addresses federal programs that support state road, bridge and transit projects. But the legislation also includes a section on oil trains.

The U.S. Department of Transportation is working on a rule to require railroads shipping oil to develop comprehensive spill response plans along the lines of those required for pipelines and waterborne vessels. It would also require them to assess their worst-case scenarios for oil spills, including quantity and location.

The House bill would give the secretary of transportation the power to decide what information would not be disclosed to the public.

The secretary would have discretion to withhold anything proprietary or security sensitive, as well as “specific response resources and tactical resource deployment plans” and “the specific amount and location of worst-case discharges, including the process by which a railroad carrier determines the worst-case discharge.”

The House bill defines “worst-case discharge” as the largest foreseeable release of oil in an accident or incident, as determined by the rail carrier.

Four major oil train derailments have occurred in the U.S. since the beginning of the year, resulting in the release of more than 600,000 gallons, according to federal spill data.....

.... In May, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill that would require railroads operating in the state to plan for their worst-case spills.

In April, BNSF Railway told state emergency responders that the company currently considers 150,000 gallons of crude oil, enough to fill five rail tank cars, its worst-case scenario when planning for spills into waterways. A typical 100-car oil train carries about 3 million gallons.

Washington state requires marine ships that transport oil to plan for a spill of the entire cargo.....

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article39495555.html#storylink=cpy

more here

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article39495555.html#storylink=cpy

Buffett Bluffs Feds- Threatens Shut-down

Regulators blink in standoff with Buffett over shipping oil by rail

Reuters    September 8, 2015

NTSB may let Buffett’s trains keep shipping oil after Jan. 1 deadline for installing better safety controls.

U.S. railroads may not be obligated under federal law to carry freight including crude oil and hazardous materials from Jan. 1 if they fail to meet a year-end deadline for implementing new train safety technology, according to a top federal regulator.

In a Sept. 3 letter to the Senate Commerce Committee, U.S. Surface Transportation Board Chairman Daniel Elliott says the common carrier obligation requiring freight railroads to honor reasonable requests for service from shippers “is not absolute, and railroads can suspend service for various reasons, including safety.”....

.....The approaching deadline has prompted at least one major railroad company to look seriously at suspending service: BNSF Railway Co, the No. 2 freight railroad operator and the leading carrier in the $2.8 billion U.S. crude-by-rail market, which is part of billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc .

“BNSF confirmed that it will not meet the deadline and offered the possibility that neither passenger nor freight traffic would operate on BNSF lines,” Elliott said in the letter, which was addressed to the committee’s Republican chairman, Senator John Thune of South Dakota.

In a July 24 letter provided to Reuters by BNSF, railroad president and chief executive Carl Ice informed Elliott that BNSF is analyzing the possibility of a service shutdown and actively consulting with customers.....

.....Railroad officials in June raised the possibility of shutting down service as a way to avoid potential legal liabilities and fines for operating outside the law.....    

Railroad officials have complained about the cost and complexity of adopting PTC and have produced freight and commuter rail estimates showing full implementation could cost the industry nearly $13 billion.

A six-year transportation bill approved by the Senate last month would allow the Obama administration to extend the deadline for up to three years....  more here

 

Oil train risks affect many U.S. schools, group says

Reuters   Sept. 8, 2015

Thousands of U.S. schools sit along rail corridors used to carry toxic substances such as crude oil and would be at risk in the event of a derailment, an environmental group said on Tuesday as it called for a temporary halt on oil trains.

ForestEthics said its analysis of U.S. Department of Education data show nearly 15,000 schools with 5.7 million students sit inside the so-called 'blast zone', the one-mile area along railroad tracks the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) recommends be evacuated in case of crashes.....    more here

Update: better article here

Learning 'Inside the Blast Zone': Oil Trains Put Millions of Children at Risk

"Railroad disasters shouldn’t be one of the 'three Rs' on the minds of school kids and their parents."   - CommonDreams

 

Are US Regulators Trying to Cover Up Influence Of Oil Lobbyists?

Are US Regulators Trying to Cover Up Influence Of Lobbyists On New Oil-By-Rail Regulations?

By Mike Gaworecki • Sunday, August 9, 2015     DeSmogBlog 

 

It’s no secret that the oil and rail industries lobbied the Obama Administration heavily during the creation of new oil-by-rail regulations released this past May, with lobbyists reportedly not even taking a break the day after a major oil train accident.

But just how much influence did lobbyists actually have in the drafting of the regulations?

Environmentalists who criticize the new rules as far too weak to stop business-as-usual — which has already resulted in five oil train explosions so far this year — are endeavoring to find out by submitting Freedom of Information Act requests for correspondence between lobbyists and five federal agencies within the US Department of Transportation that worked on the oil train safety rules.

So far, they say, they’ve been stonewalled by the Obama Administration.

The FOIA requests were originally filed in January by La Crosse, WI’s Citizens Acting for Rail Safety, Communities for a Better Environment, Albany, NY’s Ezra Prentice Homes Tenants Association and ForestEthics. The rules came out on May 1.

The groups were seeking all records of communications exchanged between lobbyists and staff at the Federal Railroad Administration, the Surface Transportation Board, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Office of the Secretary of Transportation since January 1, 2012.

Some 97 individual lobbyists were named in the requests, among them representatives from trade groups like the American Petroleum Institute and the Association of American Railroads as well as oil and rail companies including Chevron, Tesoro, and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF).

Six former members of the US Congress, including Trent Lott, Vin Weber, John Breaux, Steve LaTourette, Max Sandlin and Bill Lipinski, are also among the lobbyists named in the requests.

Under FOIA regulations, the federal agencies had a deadline of 30 days to respond, with an optional ten-day extension. Yet only two agencies have responded so far, the Surface Transportation Board and the National Transportation Safety Board — both of which are advisory bodies, as opposed to the regulatory agencies that are tasked with actually writing the rules.

“Can’t think of another reason why they wouldn’t take common-sense, immediate measures”

ForestEthics filed appeals with the remaining three agencies in March, well after they'd already missed the deadline. On May 19, the Office of the Secretary of Transportation’s general council granted the appeal and ordered the agency’s FOIA official to schedule the release of the documents. But two months later, no documents have been released.

The acting administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration granted another of the appeals on July 27, but no timeline for the release of those documents has been proposed.

DeSmog has previously uncovered White House meeting logs that show the oil and rail industries had privileged access to key administration personnel.   ~continued below~

DOT-117 final specifications; Plumas Co alarmed at derailment possibilities

DOT-117 defined

Written by  David Thomas, Contributing Editor     June 5, 2015      Railway Age
 

The wait for a new tank car specification is over. Now comes the “fun” part: Retrofits to older cars, and potentially onerous operating rules.

The final spec for the now-official DOT-117 (TC-117 in Canada) non-pressurized tank car adopts the most demanding of the technical requirements first offered for comment in the notice of rulemaking: jacketed and thermally insulated shells of 9/16-inch steel, full-height half-inch-thick head shields, sturdier, re-closeable pressure relief valves, and rollover protection for top fittings.

Of most concern to carbuilders and buyers is the tight timeline for the retrofitting or retirement of existing DOT-111s and the newer industry-sponsored CPC-1232 cars constructed since 2011, before the 2013 disaster at Lac-Mégantic forced regulators to finally heed years of warnings by accident investigators in the U.S. and Canada. Those “good faith” cars now need to be upgraded to meet DOT-117 standards by May 1, 2025.

The phaseout/retrofit schedule will see unjacketed DOT-111s removed from the most-volatile Packing Group I crude oil service by January 2018, jacketed DOT-111s by March 2018, unjacketed CPC-1232s by April 2020. For Packing Group II, jacketed and non-jacketed DOT-111s may remain in service until May 2023, non-jacketed CPC-1232s until July 2023, and jacketed CPC-1232s until May 2025.

To enforce the timeline, the regulations require stricter testing and classification of crude oil offered for transport.

The regulatory package is to be enforced by the USDOT’s sibling regulators, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
Cost of fleet renewal is estimated by regulators to be about $1.7 billion. Total costs for the entire regulatory package, including train routing and speed restrictions, is projected to be $2.5 billion......   more here

Spilled corn covers a hillside in the Feather River canyon after a derailment

Plumas Co. Grand Jury: Scathing indictment of hazardous material transportation through Feather River Canyon

June 5, 2015  Plumas County News
 
[Roger Straw comments:  This Grand Jury report is thorough and well written - an excellent resource and alarming in its analysis.  Its findings and recommendations (near the end of the report) might be a valuable resource for communities everywhere.  There are a number of references to "after-action reports."   Question for our research: how can concerned citizens obtain such reports?]

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of midterm reports submitted by the 2014-15 Plumas County Civil Grand Jury.

SUMMARY
Early in the morning Nov. 25, 2014, a Union Pacific freight train derailed in the Feather River Canyon just east of Belden, sending 11 railcars full of corn off the tracks and down the steep embankment. In a press statement shortly afterward, a State Office of Emergency Services official was quoted as saying, “We dodged a bullet” because the train was only carrying corn.

Based on a rash of recent derailments and spills of hazardous materials happening throughout the United States and Canada, “a bullet” in fact grossly underestimates the potential devastation, magnitude and scope of the consequences left from these horrific incidents. Luckily, it was only corn that spilled. With the recent surge in crude-by-rail domestic crude oil transports between oil fields in North Dakota, Texas, Colorado and Pennsylvania and Bay Area refineries through the Feather River Canyon, the aftermath could have wrought far-reaching disaster had it been the high-flammable Bakken crude in the tanker cars.

According to sources, the number of crude-by-rail trains passing through the Feather River Canyon has tripled in number within the past three years. With developments in hydraulic fracking technology coming about in domestic oil fields, the petroleum market has seen a profound shift from importing foreign oil to extracting it in domestic oil fields in the United States. As a result, thousands of jobs have been created and oil prices have plummeted since this recent boon in domestic oil production. In addition, other hazardous chemicals are transported throughout the United States by rail and by truck. According to the Federal Railroad Administration, only the railroads are required to know what’s in the cars they’re shipping.

The grand jury found it extremely important to examine the recent corn derailment other recent crude-by-rail disasters in the U.S. and Canada to determine whether Plumas County agencies and private transportation operators are adequately prepared in “worst-case” scenarios. In respect to the Plumas County corn derailment, because the corn was relatively harmless and could be immediately dealt with without invoking hazardous material protocols, local, state and railroad officials and crews did an excellent job in containment of the spill and clearing and repairing the tracks within the impact area.

As a result of a quick and well-coordinated response, the Feather River Canyon rail route was restored and passing rail traffic three days after the initial derailment. Nonetheless, the grand jury has found the incident to be a practical review for a county hazardous material spill and useful opportunity to compare and contrast the corn spill with other recent more disastrous spills. Plumas County did indeed “dodge the bullet,” and from this incident the grand jury believes it will provide valuable findings and recommendations which may in turn act as a catalyst and cast fresh perspectives and insights on dealing with future potential spills and hazardous material disasters.......  continued here

 

Russian roulette on the railways

Butte County train tracks are Bakken-free for now, but emergency responders fear a return of the volatile fuel

By Evan Tuchinsky, 05.21.15     ChicoNewsReview.com

Cal Fire Battalion Chief Russ Fowler says the Department of Transportation’s new rules regarding traincar safety are insufficient. 

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAL FIRE

What is ‘Bakken’?

The light crude oil known as Bakken comes from fracking a geologic formation of that name under North Dakota, Montana and Canada. Less dense and with less carbon, light crudes yield more gasoline than heavier crudes, but also are more volatile.

Trains crash. That fact hit home last week when a passenger train derailed in Philadelphia and also last year, on Nov. 26, when a cargo train derailed in the Feather River Canyon.

The risk of devastation multiplies when the derailed train carries volatile crude oil. A recent spate of those accidents has garnered national attention, too, prompting the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) to release new regulations governing the conveyance of flammable liquids. The measures have drawn near-unanimous opposition, though, and done little to assuage lingering local fears.

“My constituents have raised concerns and the Board [of Supervisors] is concerned,” said Butte County Supervisor Maureen Kirk, who represents Chico. “We’re hoping that some of the legislation and some of the discussion that comes forward will make even stiffer requirements on the transport of this Bakken oil.”

The DoT regulations came out May 1. Five days later, another oil train crashed, in North Dakota. By last Friday (May 15), both the petroleum industry and environmentalists had filed legal challenges to the DoT’s so-called “final rule.”

The International Association of Fire Fighters also has voiced objections. Representing more than 300,000 firefighters in North America, the IAFF protested a provision that allows railroads to keep the contents of their trains confidential—under the banner of national security.

Russ Fowler, battalion chief with Cal Fire Butte County and coordinator of the local Interagency Hazardous Materials Team, has additional concerns. DoT regulations phase out tank cars that are not up to the current safety standard, rather than pull them off the rails for retrofitting or retirement. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has argued that the alternative would result in increased oil-tanker traffic on highways.

Fowler says one particular railcar commonly used to carry volatile Bakken crude oil, the DOT-111, “just [wasn’t] designed for that product.” Since railroads have until 2018 to get those cars up to standard, “we have three years of potential Russian roulette on our hands if light crude oil is transported down the Feather River Canyon like it was done last fall.”

Cal Fire has communicated with BNSF Railway, Fowler said, and has been told no crude oil deliveries have come through Butte County this year. “I have no reason not to believe them,” he added, though he’s seen DOT-111s riding on Chico tracks.

Lena Kent, BNSF’s spokeswoman for California, confirmed by email that “we are not currently transporting Bakken crude in your county.” She also wrote: “We do provide information to the Office of Emergency Services in California.”

That’s in contrast with last year, when train cars carrying millions of gallons of the explosive oil, reportedly around one shipment per week, did make their way way along the Feather River Canyon. Experts tie the reduction of imports to a reduced demand for the fuel, a lighter type that’s similar to gasoline and thus extremely volatile.

While Cal Fire dreads the prospect of an urban crash, the Feather River Canyon presents a distinct set of frets.

Train tracks head into remote areas that are difficult for emergency responders to reach. Access roads don’t always run adjacent to the rail route—not even parallel in certain spots. Depending on where a crash occurred, spilled oil could contaminate the Feather River and Lake Oroville—a major source of water for California—or could start a forest fire should it ignite.

Even without a blaze or river release, “it would make an ugly, oily mess in the canyon,” Fowler said. “It would be a terrible environmental disaster.”

Butte County supervisors articulated such concerns to the California Public Utility Commission and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, before the DoT released its regulations. OES responded by saying the state is investing in “purchasing new Type II hazardous material emergency response units” and in “local training specific to … rail safety incidents.”

For Supervisor Doug Teeter, the board chair who represents the Ridge, that’s little assurance. He has a powerless feeling—believing “it’s just a matter of time” before an accident happens locally, yet knowing “as a county we have no control” over the rails.

“We’re at the mercy of the federal regulators,” he continued. “All we’re really getting is a little response on improved training and equipment. That is not nearly enough to handle a 100-car spill.”

Either in populated or unpopulated areas.

“We as a hazmat team plan for worst-case scenarios,” Fowler said. “Just because you plan for a worst-case scenario doesn’t mean you can mitigate the worst-case scenario, because there are things that can happen that are so catastrophic that it would overwhelm local resources until more regional or statewide resources could come in to help.”

Should legal challenges fail, and in the absence of local authority, a remedy to the DoT regulations remains: Congress. Teeter recently met with a representative of Sen. Barbara Boxer. Meanwhile, North State Congressman John Garamendi has introduced legislation to make light crude safer for rail transport.

Teeter encourages constituents to write congressional representatives and senators. He finds encouragement even in the controversial DoT regulations, which arose amid an uproar.

“Maybe now we’ll have a voice,” Teeter said. “Maybe something can happen.”