BNSF Rail Fined $86,000 for Dumping Toxic Chemicals in Washington Waters

BNSF Railway Fined $86,000 for Dumping Toxic Chemicals in Washington Waters

By David - August 11, 2015  Clapway

 

The BurlingAton Northern Sante Fe Railway (BNSF)—the second largest railroad network in North America—was recently fined by Washington for illegally dumping toxic materials in bodies of water located in Whatcom and Skagit county water bodies. This recent misconduct comes as no surprise to Washington officials, who have been fining BNSF for such illegal practices for years.

 

Illegal Dumping

The Department of Ecology has fined the BNSF Railway $86,000 for dumping treated railroad materials in local water bodies. While the Department of Ecology says they understand the need for railroad companies to treat their materials with toxic chemicals, as treatment is an important step for repair and maintenance, they expect BNSF to figure out ways to comply with the same rules and regulations that all other railway companies do. The decision to fine the railway came after multiple warnings and technical assistance from Washington, all of which were largely ignored.

The BNSF is currently under fire for four different illegal activities, including leaving debris coated with toxic chemicals near Chuckanut Bay, water systems in Van Zandt and Burlington, and in seasonal waterways that drain into Bellingham Bay.

 

The Toxic Treatment

The BNSF Railway treats their materials with chemicals called creosotes—a toxic brew made up of distilled tar, and either wood or fossil fuels. These chemicals have been used to prevent rot in outdoor wood structures such as ships and bridges for centuries. However, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), exposure to large amounts of creosotes can cause a myriad of health-related issues, from stomach aches, to chemical burns, liver problems, and in rare cases, death.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has also determined that creosotes are most likely carcinogenic.....   more here

Rail spur impacts outweigh any benefits

August 11, 2015  CalCoastNews.com

OPINION By LAURANCE SHINDERMAN and TOM RYAN

.... When the scope of the Phillips 66 Rail Terminal Project was presented in the RDEIR (Re-circulated Draft Environment Report); it was apparent that the project would impact not only the local refinery operations with the construction of an intrusive crude oil rail transfer facility, but every municipality and school district along the UPRR main line that the crude oil trains would pass.

What was called a benign rail spur; was in fact a huge rail yard containing five long railroad tracks fanning out to accommodate and off load 80 tanker/ mile long crude oil trains that would be coming into the refinery five days a week.

Class one impacts that impact your health

The project creates 11 class one impacts that could not be mitigated, including five directly related to air pollution:   ....    more here

 

 

CCST Report: Fracking pollution poses major risks

CCST Report: Fracking pollution poses major risks

July 15, 2015       Roger Straw   Benicia Independent

[Editor:  Two contrasting reports on a recent California Council on Science and Technology report.  – RS]   
 

Repost from The Center for Biological Diversity

New Study: Fracking Pollution Poses Major Threat to California’s Air, Water

Scientists’ Warnings Come Too Late to Shape State’s Weak Fracking Regulations

 

July 15, 2015     SACRAMENTO, Calif.— A study released today by the California Council on Science and Technology warns that fracking and other oil extraction techniques emit dangerous air pollution and threaten to contaminate California’s drinking water supplies. Millions of Californians live near active oil and gas wells, which exposes them to the air pollutants indentified in the report.

The troubling findings come a week after Gov. Jerry Brown’s oil officials finalized new fracking regulations that do little to address such public health and water pollution risks.

“This disturbing study exposes fatal flaws in Gov. Brown’s weak fracking rules,” said Hollin Kretzmann of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Oil companies are fouling the air we breathe and using toxic chemicals that endanger our dwindling drinking water. The millions of people near these polluting wells need an immediate halt to fracking and other dangerous oil company practices.”

Last week the state’s Department of Conservation began implementing new fracking regulations and finalized an assessment of fracking’s health and environmental risks, even though the science council had not finished evaluating fracking’s dangers. The science council is an independent, nonprofit organization that advises California officials on policy issues.

Today’s report concludes that fracking in California happens at unusually shallow depths, dangerously close to underground drinking water supplies, with unusually high chemical concentrations. That poses a serious threat to aquifers during the worst drought in California history.

Air pollution is also a major concern. In the Los Angeles area, the report identifies 1.7 million people — and hundreds of daycare facilities, schools and retirement homes — within one mile of an active oil or gas well. Atmospheric concentrations of pollutants near these oil production sites “can present risks to human health,” the study says.

But Gov. Brown’s new fracking regulations do not address deadly air pollutants like particulate matter and air toxic chemicals. A recent Center analysis found that oil companies engaged in extreme oil production methods have used millions of pounds of air toxics in the Los Angeles Basin.
Among the science council’s other disturbing findings:

• California places no limits on how close oil and gas wells can be to homes, schools or daycare facilities, which can expose people to dangerous air pollution from fracking and other oil extraction procedures.
• Serious concerns are raised over the oil industry’s disposal of fracking waste fluid and produced water into open pits and the use of oil waste fluid to irrigate crops.
• The health and water pollution impacts of fracking chemicals that could be present in oil waste that’s dumped into open pits “would be extremely difficult to predict, because there are so many possible chemicals, and the environmental profiles of many of them are unmeasured.”
• Wildlife habitat can be fragmented or lost because of fracking and other oil development – and fracking-related oil development in California “coincides with ecologically sensitive areas” in Kern and Ventura Counties.
• Confirmation that many oil industry wastewater injection wells are close to active faults — a practice has triggered earthquakes in other states. The science council identified more than 1,000 active injection wells within 1.5 miles of a mapped active fault — and more than 150 are within 656 feet.

“These troubling findings send a clear message to Gov. Brown that it’s time to ban fracking and rein in our state’s out-of-control oil industry,” Kretzmann said. “California should follow the example set by New York, which wisely banned fracking after health experts there concluded this toxic technique was just too dangerous.”

Contact: Clare Lakewood, (510) 844-7121, clakewood@biologicaldiversity.org
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 900,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Repost from Public News Service

Report: Fracking Risk to CA is Aquifer Contamination, Not Quakes

By Suzanne Potter, July 10, 2015

PHOTO: A hydraulic fracturing well in Kern County. The safety of fracking is the subject of a new report. Photo credit: California Council on Science and Technology.

SACRAMENTO, Calif – A new report says hydraulic fracturing can contaminate groundwater when the excess water is not properly disposed of, but is not linked to earthquakes in California.

In January, a study by the Seismological Society of America linked a series of earthquakes in Ohio to fracking, and there have been similar claims in other states as well.

The new study released Thursday comes from the California Council on Science and Technology and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Jane Long, the lead scientific researcher, says hydraulic fracturing poses some safety concerns but they’re manageable.

“A lot of things people were concerned about are things that are not as big a problem as they think they are,” says Long. “And some of the practices are things that need to change and need more attention.”

The report says the oil companies should phase out percolation ponds used to dispose of excess water because toxic fracking chemicals can get into the aquifer. And it recommends companies put aside about a third of the chemicals currently in use because there’s not enough data about them.

The Center for Biological Diversity points to the finding that oil operations can pollute the air in their immediate vicinity. Long is optimistic that the report will spur further reforms.

“Some of them are going to be recommendations that will be very easy to act on right away and I think they will be acted on and some of them are going to require some process,” she says.

The report was required by the 2013 passage of State Senate Bill 4, which established new safety measures for fracking, rules that went into effect on July 1.

Please share!

Diverse voices ask WA legislature to stand up against oil industry pressure

Diverse voices ask WA legislature to stand up against oil industry pressure; protect health, safety, communities

Health, labor, environment, and social justice groups call for end to oil’s roadblock on key issues

Olympia, WA – A diverse coalition is calling on the State Legislature to stand up to the undue influence of the oil industry that is putting Washington’s health, climate, safety, and communities at risk.

“When progress on our health and environment is blocked, time and time again, you find the fingerprints of the oil industry,” said Becky Kelley, president, Washington Environmental Council. “The cynical maneuvering of Big Oil is holding up a needed transportation revenue package, where they have convinced the Senate to go along with a last ditch effort to block a Clean Fuel Standard. They gutted the oil transportation safety bill. They’re fighting the commonsense closure of the Big Oil Tax Loophole. And they killed any hope of climate action this year. At what point will our leaders say, enough is enough?”

This legislative session, in addition blocking the transportation revenue package with a “poison pill”, the oil industry lobbying has resulted in the Big Oil Tax Loophole remaining open in the latest budget draft, no progress on climate policy, and an oil transportation bill which failed to provide needed protection for Puget Sound and delivered unreliable funding for protecting communities. 

“When you look at the Senate’s proposal on transportation revenue, it’s pretty clear who is being prioritized: the oil industry,” said Rich Stolz, Executive Director, OneAmerica. “Communities of color and low income communities are disproportionally impacted by climate disruption and air pollution; they’re also disproportionally impacted by inadequate access to transit. Pitting clean air and transit against each other is a social and environmental injustice.”

 “Pollution from transportation is the largest source of climate emissions and a significant factor in lung disease, like asthma,” said Carrie Nyssen, Vice President of Advocacy and Air Quality, American Lung Association of the Mountain Pacific. “Legislators should put the health of their constituents ahead of the oil industry and move forward on needed policy solutions.”

“This is a chance for our legislators to put partisan ideology aside and stand up for clean air and transit,” said Shannon Murphy, president of Washington Conversation Voters. “Just this week, Oregon stood strong in the face of this pressure – we hope their example serves as a call to action to the Washington legislature.”

American Lung Association of the Mountain Pacific, Climate Solutions, OneAmerica, Puget Sound Sage, Union of Concerned Scientists, Washington Conservation Voters, and Washington Environmental Council all joined the call for the legislature to stand up for the interests of Washingtonians, not the oil industry. 

Contacts:
Kimberly Larson, kimberly@climatesolutions.org, 206.388.8674
Pavan Vangipuram, pavan@weareoneamerica.org, 206.452.8403
Carrie Nyssen, cnyssen@lungmtpacific.org, 360.921.1484
Kerry McHugh, kerry@wecprotects.org, 206.902.7555

Senators call for permanent PHMSA director; NY blocks tar sands expansion without EIS

Senators call for permanent director to oversee pipeline and crude-by-rail safety

Central Kitsap Reporter   May 21, 2015

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators concerned about the potential dangers of oil being transported via rail sent a letter calling on President Obama to nominate a permanent administrator to head the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the agency responsible for overseeing pipeline and crude-by-rail safety.

"It is important to states like ours that PHMSA have a permanent administrator to ensure accountability, to develop long-term plans for pipeline transport and crude-by-rail safety, and to respond quickly when things unfortunately go wrong," the Senators wrote.

Washington senators Maria Cantwell, D-WA, and Patty Murray, D-WA, joined by Senators Jon Tester, D-Mont., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., all signed the letter.

"We rely on this Agency to protect our citizens and our environment from damaging spills and accidents, while also ensuring the flow of energy products to those who need them."....    more here

The Port of Albany.  Photo courtesy of Andy Arthur

Cuomo Administration Blocks Massive Tar Sands Oil Facility Expansion in Albany 

Department of Environmental Conservation to require full environmental review of Global Companies’ proposal

 

eNews Park Forest  May 22, 2015

Albany, NY — In the face of a court challenge from a broad coalition of environmental and community groups and massive community opposition, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) yesterday halted Global Companies’ proposed expansion of its massive Albany oil train facility to handle tar sands oil. Citing project changes, new information, questions about the project’s ability to meet air quality, and impacts to the neighboring residential community, the DEC issued a letter today notifying Global it would rescind its prior finding that the project would have no significant environmental impacts and that a full environmental review will be required.

The expansion would have allowed Global to pump tar sands oil out of railcars, store and heat it in storage tanks on-site at the Port of Albany, and transfer the oil onto barges for transport down to the Hudson River to East Coast refineries.

Earthjustice, on behalf of the Ezra Prentice Tenants Homes Association, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter and Center for Biological Diversity, filed a lawsuit last year demanding the DEC rescind its prior finding that the project would have no environmental impact and require a full environmental review. The lawsuit is still pending in state court......     more here