Broken rails, hidden data- and other links

 After the '64 quake in Alaska.   Cascadia's will be when?     

Broken rails: Track defects behind lethal blasts

BY LAURA ARENSCHIELD AND RICK ROUAN
COLUMBUS DISPATCH      12/20/15    

MOUNT CARBON, W.Va. — Track defects caused fiery crude-oil derailments that forced 1,100 people from their homes in this Appalachian village this year and killed 47 people in a Canadian town in 2013.

In fact, a Dispatch analysis of federal records shows that track defects and human error are to blame for most railway incidents.

Yet U.S. regulators focus on tanker cars instead of the rails that support the cars and millions of gallons of Bakken crude, a highly volatile oil from North Dakota and Montana that crisscrosses the country on the way to refineries each week.....    more here

States, feds keep train-derailment reports from public

By Laura Arenschield & Rick Rouan The Columbus Dispatch • Sunday December 20, 2015

Information that state and federal government agencies collect about train derailments, particularly those that cause crude-oil spills, is hard to find.

Huge amounts of data about collisions, derailments and other accidents that happen along railroads in the United States are collected every year.

Some of it is compiled by the industry and distributed directly to the public upon request. But some is buried in databases that government officials are slow to release, if at all.

For example, the U.S. Department of Transportation requires railroads to submit annual reports to state emergency-response officials estimating how many trains carrying crude oil from the Bakken shale region pass through each county.

Yet in many states, the public is not allowed to see those reports.

A request by The Dispatch to see reports for Ohio went unanswered for months.....

.... Final reports reveal that what railroads initially tell the Federal Railroad Administration doesn’t always hold up in an investigation. Many underestimate damages and list causes that are later changed. more here

Lifting oil-export ban unlikely to affect WA state right away

By Hal Bernton Seattle Times Dec. 19, 2015

The lifting of the national ban on crude-oil exports is unlikely to trigger a rush to send oil to Asia from Washington state terminals, but that could change over the longer term.

With a 40-year oil-export ban lifted Friday by Congress, Washington terminals that receive Bakken shale crude by rail will be able to send unrefined product to Asia.


In the years ahead, that might be an attractive option. But current market conditions make the West Coast terminals an unlikely launching point for major overseas shipments, according to industry analysts..... more here

Obama vetoes GOP push to kill climate rules 

-Benicia Independent   12/19/15

2nd train derails in Wisconsin in 2 days, spills crude oil

2nd train derails in Wisconsin in 2 days, spills crude oil

 November 08, 2015 Associated Press

WATERTOWN, Wis. –  A Canadian Pacific Railway train carrying crude oil derailed Sunday and prompted some evacuations in Wisconsin, the second day in a row a freight train derailed in the state.
The eastbound CP train derailed about 2 p.m. in Watertown, in the southeastern part of the state. The railroad said at least 10 cars derailed, and some were leaking.....

.... "CP takes this incident extremely seriously," the railroad said in a news release. The company did not say how much oil spilled.

Federal investigators and hazardous material specialists are on their way to the scene, the Federal Railroad Administration said in a tweet.

Residents of about 35 homes were asked to evacuate around 4 p.m., said Donna Haugom, director of the Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management.....  more here

Kalamazoo oil spill clean-up

Risky Shale Oil-by-Rail Expands Despite Lack of Spill Response Preparedness

By Justin Mikulka • Sunday, November 1, 2015    DeSmogBlog

The worst onshore oil spill in United States history was the Kalamazoo River tar sands pipeline spill in 2010 with estimates of one million gallons of oil spilled. In comparison, the oil-by-rail accident in Lac-Megantic, Quebec was 50% bigger.

With the oil-by-rail industry proposing large expansions to West Coast destinations, it is understandable that some local communities are worried about the risks of a spill causing major environmental damage and threatening human health.

While the fiery explosions get the most attention when it comes to oil train accidents, the trains also have resulted in some of the largest oil spills in North America. And that oil is usually ending up in waterways.

In Lac-Megantic, 1.5 million gallons of oil spilled with some of it ending up in the nearby lake and river. In Aliceville, Alabama it was 750,000 gallons that ended up in wetlands. In Mount Carbon, W.Va. it was approximately 400,000 gallons on the banks of the Kanawha River. In Gogama, Ontario ruptured rail tank cars ended up in the water. Just like in Lynchburg, Virginia. And the spill in Galenas, Illinois was noted to pose “imminent and substantial danger” to the Mississippi River.

People trained as first responders to marine oil spills are very clear that the speed of the response is critical for minimizing damage. On the website for the Marine Spill Response Corporation it clearly states, “During an oil spill, time is of the essence!”

Of course, the volatile nature of the Bakken crude oil means that the current recommended approach to dealing with a Bakken oil train that has derailed and is leaking and on fire is to evacuate everyone within a half-mile radius and then let the train burn — sometimes for days.

Meanwhile in January of 2014 the National Transportation Safety Board put out a safety recommendation about the current state of oil response planning for the rail industry that stated:

“oil spill response planning requirements for rail transportation of oil/petroleum products are practically nonexistent compared with other modes of transportation.”

Large oil spills resulting in dangerous fires and explosions that make quick response impossible — and yet response plans are still practically non-existent. It would seem like a recipe for disaster.

But there is a bit of hope on the horizon. The current Transportation bill approved by the House of Representatives includes requirements for actual spill response planning for oil-by-rail transportation.

Of course, since this involves the rail industry, the bill will allow the rail companies to keep the plans secret, so really there isn’t much hope at all.

This secrecy might not be as much of an issue if recent industry oil spill response plans hadn’t proven such a joke.

BP’s response plan for the Gulf of Mexico prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster included advice on how to deal with walruses. And a link the company provided for “primary equipment providers for BP in the Gulf of Mexico Region [for] rapid deployment of spill response resources on a 24 hour, 7 days a week basis” was actually a link to a Japanese home shopping website.

It is no wonder the oil industry wants to keep its spill response plans secret, as they don’t hold up well to scrutiny. And apparently the government agencies responsible for reviewing them aren’t spending much time on the details.

 

Who Would Pay For a Worst-Case Oil-by-Rail Disaster? Not the Rail Industry

In another recent win for the rail companies, a court in Washington ruled that companies planning to build and expand oil-by-rail facilities “do not need to prove they have the financial resources to cover a worst-case scenario accident before receiving state permits.”

With this industry-friendly regulatory environment, it isn’t surprising that there is strong opposition to several new oil-by-rail facilities planned for the West Coast.

The Port of Grays Harbor in Washington is one planned location for facilities that could bring in up to fourteen unit trains of crude oil a week. The public comment period for that project is currently open and many community members are calling for a full environmental impact assessment for the projects. That’s something that wasn’t required for many existing oil-by-rail facilities on both the East and West coasts as they were approved without the public’s knowledge and regulators approved the projects without thoroughly reviewing potential environmental impacts.

The potential environmental damage of a catastrophic oil train accident exceeds the worst pipeline spill ever, and yet the oil-by-rail industry continues to expand without any response plans in place. In other words, business as usual.

In April, DeSmog reported on the testimony of Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) during a hearing on regulation of the pipeline and rail industries. She has fought for improved pipeline safety since 2010 when a pipeline explosion in her district killed eight people and burned down a neighborhood. In her testimony, she stated that “the system is fundamentally broken.”

And so the oil-by-rail industry will continue to expand with a broken regulatory system and non-existent spill response preparation. And the regulators have predicted that they expect an average of ten derailments per year for the next twenty years.

Odds are the Kalamazoo River oil spill won’t hold the record for largest spill for much longer.

Railroad lobbyists winning again, in FRA rulemaking

Buffett's BNSF helped lead fight to delay train safety technology

Railroad lobbyists winning again, in FRA rulemaking

November 3, 2015    Roger Straw    Benicia Independent

From an email from Dr. Fred Millar
[Editor:  Millar refers here to an excellent series of articles in the Washington Post, “Deadline for train safety technology undercut by industry lobbying“, “Rail-safety deadline extension hitched to must-pass bill on transit funding” and “Senate passes transportation funding stopgap bill and rail-safety extension“.  Dr. Fred Millar is a policy analyst, researcher, educator, and consultant with more than three decades of experience assessing the risks associated with transporting hazardous materials.  – RS]

By Fred Millar, October 28, 2015

 

This week’s excellent Washington Post reports by reporters Halsey and Laris outlined US railroad lobbyists’ ability to secure a three-year delay in implementing the key railroad safety equipment demanded on the original 2015 deadline by Congress in the Rail Safety Act of 2008.  There is a parallel and highly related story, so far unwritten, on how the railroads and allied interests relentlessly gain even more decisive and long-lasting ways to advantage profits over safety.

Even when Congress roused itself to demand more safety as in the 2008 RSIA, the seemingly permanent Reaganite legacy of “starving the beast” of government regulatory agencies grinds on to render the regulations pitifully weak.  Now the timid and under-staffed Federal Railroad Administration is quietly piddling away the once-in-a-generation opportunity from the 2008 law to impose a significant modern safety improvement regime [already seen in many industries] on the mighty railroads.

The public and Congressional alarm at several high-profile fatal rail disasters that led to the 2008 Rail Safety Improvement Act prompted Congress to include a strong mandate on the Federal Railroad Administration to impose a 20^th Century type of Risk Reduction Program regime on the railroads.

This surprising loss by railroad lobbyists in Congress – although they secured some weakening amendments – led to strenuous railroad efforts to prevent the FRA from crafting any strong regulations.  The out-gunned FRA effectively suffered a regulatory failure of nerve, and buried the rulemaking process out of sight for four years, gaining only a weak-tea and partial consensus from railroads and rail labor in FRA’s own ad hoc Working Group of industry insiders.  A couple of ill-attended public hearings drew no public attention.

The resulting proposed rule in 2015 had two major safety-weakening features: first, it gave the railroads a new secrecy pot to hide railroads’ own safety risk information from discovery in court proceedings on railroad negligence.  Trial lawyers, citizens and some officials alarmed about the appalling secrecy already granted to railroads, for example in their decisions to route ultra-hazardous crude oil trains through major cities, filed comments opposing this new secrecy grant.

More importantly, FRA proposed to impose on the railroads only “a streamlined version” of a modern Risk Reduction Program regime.  The comprehensive and robust one mandated by Congress would have required significant new efforts by FRA to approve and oversee railroads’ Risk Reduction Programs, and to ensure compliance.  FRA staffers no doubt felt they were not up to that task, so punted the responsibilities —  to each covered railroad to create its own safety regimes and to decide how to measure their own effectiveness, with no federal guidance.

As FRA then-Administrator Joseph Szabo declared shortly after the Lac-Mḗgantic Quebec crude oil train disaster killed 47 in July 2013,  “The movement of this product is a game changer,” [referring to] the sharp rise in trainloads of volatile crude oil from North Dakota and other places. “We have to rethink everything we’ve done and known in the past about safety.” 

Undermining the most significant Congressional rail safety mandates we may ever see is hardly the new beginning we need.

Please share!

 

 

States Step Up Scrutiny of Oil Train Shipments

In 2014, several CSX tanker cars carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire along the James River near downtown 

Lynchburg, Va. (AP/Steve Helber)

States Step Up Scrutiny of Oil Train Shipments

Some states are looking to prevent more derailments and spills, but the freight industry doesn’t want more regulation.

 

By Daniel C. Vock | August 26, 2015  Repost from GOVERNING The States and Localities

                                 h/t Benecia Independent

 

When it comes to regulating railroads, states usually let the federal government determine policy. But mounting concerns about the safety of oil trains are making states bolder. In recent months, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington state have taken steps to strengthen oversight of the freight rail industry.

The three join several other states — mostly led by Democrats — in policing oil shipments through inspection, regulation and even lawsuits. Washington, for example, applied a 4-cent-per-barrel tax on oil moved by trains to help pay for clean-ups of potential spills. The new law also requires freight rail companies to notify local emergency personnel when oil trains would pass through their communities.

“This means that at a time when the number of oil trains running through Washington is skyrocketing, oil companies will be held accountable for playing a part in preventing and responding to spills,” said Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee when signing the measure this spring.

The flurry of state activity comes in response to a huge surge in the amount of oil transported by rail in the last few years. Oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and nearby states must travel by train to refineries and ports because there are few pipelines or refineries on the Great Plains. The type of oil found in North Dakota is more volatile — that is, more likely to catch on fire — than most varieties of crude.

Public concerns about the safety of trains carrying oil have increased with the derailments in places like Galena, Ill.; Mt. Carbon, W. Va.; Aliceville, Ala.; Lynchburg, Va.; Casselton, N.D.; and especially Lac-Megantic, Quebec, where 47 people died in 2013.

Federal regulators responded to these incidents by requiring railroads to upgrade their oil train cars, to double check safety equipment on unattended trains, and to tell states when and where oil trains would be passing through their borders. This last requirement was hard won. This summer, the Federal Railroad Administration tried to encourage states to sign nondisclosure agreements with railroads about the location of oil trains. After several states balked, the agency relented.

California, Louisiana, New Jersey, Ohio and Oklahoma have all signed nondisclosure agreements, while Idaho, Illinois, Montana, North Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin have refused to do so, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

A Maryland judge earlier this month ruled against two rail carriers, Norfolk Southern and CSX, that wanted to block the state’s environmental agency from releasing details of their oil shipments. The railroads have until early next month to decide whether to appeal.

“The ruling isn’t the first time railroads have lost their bid to keep the oil train reports secret,” wrote reporter Curtis Tate of McClatchy, one of the news organizations that requested the records, “but it is the first court decision recognizing the public’s right to see them.”

Many states want this information so that fire departments and other emergency personnel can prepare for a potential derailment. California passed a law last year imposing clean-up fees on oil shipped by rail. The railroad industry challenged the law in court, but a judge ruled this summer that the lawsuit was premature. Minnesota passed a similar law last year, and New York added rail inspectors to cope with the increase in oil train traffic. A 1990 federal law lets states pass their own rules to prepare for oil spills, as long as those rules are at least as rigorous as federal regulations.

In Pennsylvania, which handles 60 to 70 oil trains a week, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf asked a University of Delaware expert to help to improve safety of oil trains traveling through the state. The professor, Allan Zarembski, produced 27 recommendations for the state and the railroads. He called on the state to improve its inspection processes of railroad tracks, particularly for tracks leading into rail yards, side tracks and refineries that often handle oil trains. The professor also encouraged the state to coordinate emergency response work with the railroads and local communities.

Zarembski’s suggestions for the railroads focused on how they should test for faulty tracks, wheel bearings and axles. Most major derailments in recent years were caused by faulty track or broken equipment, not human error, he noted in his report.

Please share!

Secrecy of Crude by Rail Loses in Court- Again

Maryland judge orders release of oil train reports 

By Curtis Tate   McClatchyDC  Aug 17, 2015

A Maryland judge rejected two rail carriers’ arguments that oil train reports should be withheld from the public, ordering them released to McClatchy and other news organizations that sought them.

 

The ruling isn’t the first time railroads have lost their bid to keep the oil train reports secret, but it is the first court decision recognizing the public’s right to see them.

The U.S. Department of Transportation began requiring in May 2014 that railroads inform states of large shipments of crude oil after a series of derailments with spills, fires, explosions and evacuations. Since February, six more major oil train derailments have occurred in North America.
Nonetheless, some railroads have continued to press their case that the reports should be exempt from disclosure under state open records laws. Most states shared the documents anyway, and Pennsylvania and Texas did so after McClatchy appealed. Maryland is the only state the railroads took to court to block the release of the reports.

Norfolk Southern and CSX sued the Maryland Department of the Environment in July 2014 to stop the state agency from releasing the records to McClatchy and the Associated Press. They have until Sept. 4 to appeal the decision, issued Friday by Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City.

Both companies, which transport crude oil to East Coast refineries concentrated in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, said they would review the decision.....

.... In his 20-page opinion, Fletcher-Hill was not persuaded by arguments that releasing the oil train reports would harm the railroads’ security and business interests. He also dismissed the relevance of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s May final rule addressing the safety of oil trains. The companies had argued that the final rule supported their claims.

He also ordered the companies to pay any open court costs.

In a statement, Maryland Secretary of the Environment Ben Grumbles said the agency was pleased with the ruling and that it is “committed to transparency in government.” ....  more here

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article31310891.html#storylink=cpy

Distortion and Secrecy: Oil and Rail Industries Fight Disclosure

 Methane data collected from Florida to California in 2010. http://bit.ly/1TqwNZP

Oil & Gas Industry Mangles More Facts, Turns EDF Study Results Upside Down

Mark Brownstein, Vice President in the Climate and Energy Program at Environmental Defense Fund

HuffPost Green  7/10/15

Here we go again.

A new set of peer-reviewed scientific papers pointing to 50 percent higher than estimated regional methane emissions from oil and gas operations in Texas were published this week. And like clockwork, the oil and gas industry's public relations machine, Energy In Depth, proclaimed that rising emissions are actually falling, and that the industry's meager voluntary efforts are responsible.

This is, of course, wrong on both counts. In fact, it's a willful misrepresentation of the findings.

First, the assertion that emissions are going down is flat wrong. EPA's latest inventory released in April reports that in 2013 the oil and gas industry released more than 7.3 million metric tons of methane into the atmosphere from their operations--a three percent increase over 2012--making it the largest industrial source of methane pollution. So much for those voluntary efforts.....  more here

Bakken oil trains rumble through downtown Milwaukee

Michael Murphy hits railroad for refusal to share bridge safety data

By Crocker Stephenson      Journal Sentinel   July 9, 2015    

A frustrated Milwaukee [ Wisconsin ] Common Council President Michael Murphy called for a change in federal law Thursday after Canadian Pacific railroad refused to share the results of its inspection of a rusty-looking downtown bridge.

The bridge crossing W. Oregon St. at S. 1st St. is used by rail cars carrying potentially explosive crude oil through the heart of the city. City engineer Jeffrey Polenske told members of the council's Public Safety Committee that Canadian Pacific not only refused to share the results of its inspection of the bridge, conducted in May, but also refused to send a representative to the committee to brief aldermen on the bridge's condition.

Polenske said the email he received from Canadian Pacific "went on to reassure us that they were following all federal regulations and standards and that the bridge was in compliance."

"There wasn't a whole lot of detail or specifics," he said.

Murphy appeared incredulous.

"The current structure is, Canadian Pacific evaluates these bridges and then tells the U.S. government or our state and local government, 'Don't worry about it. It's fine.'

"Why are we allowing a private company to determine our safety?"

Murphy said he wanted the federal law changed so that an independent agency — not the rail companies — would be responsible for safety inspections.

He also called on Wisconsin's congressional delegation to send a letter to the Federal Railroad Commission, signed by all, demanding release of the inspection's report.....    more here

 

Former Dept. of Justice Official Says Exxon News Worsens Liability Picture

 July 8, 2015  by Dan Zegart, Senior Fellow at the Climate Investigations Center

The former Department of Justice lawyer who led the watershed lawsuit against tobacco companies, says that the news out today about oil giant ExxonMobil knowing as early as 1981 about the threat posed by climate change could worsen the fossil fuel industry's liability picture. 

Read more

Port of Longview: Do Diligence (Please!)

DO DILIGENCE (PLEASE)

by Dan Leahy

“We've been trying to figure out what they have in mind” - Governor Inslee

Associated Press, June 10, 2015, The Olympian

In April, 2015, thanks to a public records request by the Columbia River Keeper, Washingtonians learned of crude oil refinery proposed on the Columbia River at the Port of Longview.

The documents made available by the Columbia River Keeper include 1) an overview of the refinery project (headed “Riverside Refining LLC”) presented to the Port of Longview, and 2) a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). The MOU was dated July 2014 and signed by Lou Soumas. He was identified as the CEO of Riverside Energy, Inc.

According to the documents, Riverside Energy would own and develop a refinery to be supplied from the Bakken Shale oil fields. Crude oil would arrive in 100 to120 car unit trains at the rate one train every three days. The refinery would produce low-sulfur diesel oil, gasoline and jet fuel. The overview named three individuals as the Riverside “Project Team”: Lou Soumas as CEO, Damon Pistulka as Senior Vice President (SVP) and Chris Efird as Chairman.

Under the MOU, Riverside would have the exclusive right for 180 days to negotiate with the Port of Longview for the use of certain premises, with the intent to enter into a definitive agreement including a 50-year lease by Dec. 31, 2014. The MOU was apparently never signed by the Port of Longview and its current status is unknown. Port of Longview Commissioners haven’t commented directly on the proposal since it was brought to light this past April.

Riverside Energy, Inc or Riverside Energy LLC or ??

Riverside Refining LLC and/or Riverside Energy Inc proposed a partnership with the Port of Longview to site a new crude oil refinery on the banks of the Columbia River. Should the Port agree to this proposal? The answer to that question would require an evaluation of the material facts – something a reasonable person does before entering into a financial transaction.

Is Riverside Energy -- or Riverside Refining -- known in the energy field? Do the company’s CEO and principals have a track record of success in the refinery sector? Do they have the ability to raise financing for the project? To answer these questions, we need to know something about Riverside Energy, Inc. (Or is it Riverside Refining, LLC?) And what does the Project Team of Soumas, Pistulka and Efird bring to the table that would justify taking their refinery proposal seriously?

Since there was nothing in the published documents nor any of the news articles that gave information about these individuals or about the corporation they headed, I undertook to find out myself. Corporations must register in the state of their incorporation, so I went to the website of the Washington Secretary of State (SOS), which lists registered corporations in Washington.

Nothing called Riverside Energy, Inc. -- or Riverside Refining, LLC -- is registered in Washington State. News coverage of the refinery proposal said that Riverside Energy, Inc hailed from Texas. I looked at filings with the Texas Secretary of State: Riverside Energy Inc. was there – listed as “inactive” with a status of “forfeited existence.” None of the other names showed up.

Since nearly half of all public corporations in the United States are incorporated in Delaware, I looked there and found them. Riverside Refining, LLC, incorporated in 2014, was listed. A “Riverside Energy, Inc.” was incorporated in Delaware in 1992, but is shown as “Closed Corp.”

Since Corporations are Persons . . .

How did Soumas, Pistulka and Efrid relate to these corporate entities – open or closed? Our Washington State SOS shows the “governing persons” for businesses incorporated here. The Delaware Secretary of State doesn’t offer access to such information. According to a corporate registration agent quoted in a Business Day article, Delaware is the state that requires the least amount of information. David Finzer, Chief Executive of Capital Conservator said “Basically, it requires none. Delaware has the most secret companies in the world and the easiest to form.”

Since I was unable to look into the Riverside listings registered in Delaware for the names of the individuals governing them, I started looking up the team members listed on the 2014 refinery project overview: Soumas, Pistulka and Efird.       (continued below)