Oil Spills in Practice Drills and in Ocean Shores

The following article contains a timeline of the hypothetical response to a oil tanker spill. While this spill was make-believe, they could have easily come out to Ocean Shores and worked on an actual oil spill. Read on for what is happening on our shoreline this month.

Is Washington ready for the next big oil spill?

Samantha Larson April 25, 2016 via Crosscut

The drill scenario: It’s 5:45 a.m., and a boat has just left anchor off the coast of Vendovi Island, located between Lummi Island and Anacortes. But someone’s not paying attention, and so it crashes into another nearby ship. Both vessels are damaged; thick, heavy fuel oil begins to ooze into the water. By the time the crews have secured the leaks, about 2,100 gallons have leaked out of each boat. Now 6:30am, it’s time to launch the response plan 

“They’re well-equipped to handle a 4,000-gallon spill,” Eric Nalder, an investigative journalist who won two Pulitzer Prizes for his reporting on oil transportation, told Crosscut. But while the spill scenario practiced in the drill is certainly far bigger than most of the more than 4,000 oil spills reported to the Department of Ecology every year, it pales in comparison the Arco Anchorage’s 239,000 gallons, which itself is a fraction of the 11 million gallons spilled in the pristine Prince William Sound from the Exxon Valdez in 1989, or the 130 million gallons spilled into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Sure, things have changed since then, but we’re not seeing less oil move through our waters – in fact, a report that came out last year predicts we’ll see 2,000 new oil tankers and barges in the Pacific Northwest, thanks to the expansion of rail-terminals and pipelines. Oil tankers carry as much as 55 million gallons of crude. While barges carry less — at most 14 million gallons — they still carry a lot, and they are far less regulated. A report released this month by Friends of the Earth, written by environmental consultant and recently elected Port of Seattle Commissioner Fred Fellman, highlights the risks associated with the transport of Canadian tar sands oil across the Salish Sea.

photo via Dept of Ecology flickr page

On April 15th, Fishing Vessel  Privateer ran aground and sank, just off the breakers at Ocean Shores. After calling in a 8 to 12 inch gash to the boat, 3 crew members were rescued by the Coast Guard. 

The 75 foot fishing boat had a capacity for 5,500 gallons of deisel fuel.

 

April 16, 2016 12:30 p.m.Today the F/V Privateer remains aground, still intact although the hull is damaged and breached. It is estimated that 2,500 gallons of diesel, 500 gallons of lube/motor oil and 6 55-gallon drums (including waste oil) were on board. One drum has been recovered so far.

By Saturday, local residents were reporting a diesel smell, but no sheening or oil was seen on the beach. Choppy seas and a strong surf have prevented the salvage company from defueling and securing the boat.

April 20, 2016 9 a.m.
The U.S. Coast Guard and Ecology are continuing to respond to the F/V Privateer, which is aground on the outer beach at Ocean Shores, just north of the north jetty. The vessel owner's spill response contractor/salvage company, Global Diving and Salvage, is still on scene picking up debris when it comes ashore. Periodic reports of diesel odors in the area north and east of the vessels location persist, but the odor is considered a nuisance only.

Estimates for the potential to be released remain the same -- 2,500 gallons of diesel, 500 gallons of lube oil and six drums (including waste oil). One drum has been recovered so far. No estimate is available for the volume of oil that may have been spilled because of the inability to safely access the vessel.

A local commercial fisherman tells us that the barrels of used oils were on board the boat because The Port of Grays Harbor recently stopped accepting the used oil from out-going boats for secure disposal on land. This cost cutting move forces boats to store these barrels on board until a friendlier Port gives them a disposal option.

April 25, 2016 11:30 a.m.
Ecology and the U.S. Coast Guard continue to monitor the situation in Ocean Shores where the F/V Privateer remains grounded.
Due to safety concerns, gaining access to, defueling, and/or salvaging the vessel may is delayed until early May (6, 7, or 8) when tidal conditions are more favorable.
Since last week the diesel odor has lessened, along with the amount of boat debris being washed ashore.

According to the Department of Ecology, approximately  3,000 gallons of oil are lost, 
But Hey! The smell is gone, so the oils must be gone too!
At least one weekend Razor Clam dig has been cancelled, presumably the beaches won't re-open until the ship is removed.

We are currently in a 30 day comment period, for the renewal of REG's 5 year permit. We are asked to comment on the current permit, while REG continues to ask for a massive expansion to its operations, without adequite Environmental Impact Studies examinations. 
You might want to point out the ongoing sinking and oil spill that can't be addressed until the first week of May in your comment. 
Ask them why if The Port of Grays Harbor doesn't want to handle this small ammount of used waste fuel from ships, they are eager to sign off on permits allowing 2.7 billion gallons of Crude Oil storage here.

Ecology invites public review and comment on updated oil spill prevention plans.

Interested public, local and tribal governments are invited to review and comment on required 5 year updates to industry oil spill plans. These updates are required by the state’s oil spill planning regulations.

Washington Administration Code (WAC) 173-180 requires oil handling facilities to have a state-approved plan for prevention of oil spills from the facility into waters of the state, and for the protection of fisheries and wildlife, other natural resources, and public or private property from oil spills.

The following plan is now available for public review:

Name of company: REG Grays Harbor LLC Review starts: April 21, 2016
Review Ends: May 23, 2016 at the close of business (5 p.m.)

Provide comments by email to steven.ogle@ecy.wa.gov, or by regular mail:

Steve Ogle
Spill Prevention, Preparedness, and Response Program
Department of Ecology
PO Box 47600
Olympia, WA 98504-7600

Find more information about oil spill prevention regulations in Washington, visit: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/spills/prevention/prevention_section.htm
For more information on plans open for public comment, visit:
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/spills/about_us/publiccomment.html
To review the plan, visit:
ftp://ecy.wa.gov/spills/PreventionPlans/REGGraysHarbor/REGGraysHarborPreventionPlan.pdf
Thank you for taking the time to provide us with your comments. We will consider all comments and complete the review no later than 30 days after the close of the public review period.

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.

Who's in charge here? BigOil and Rail lobbies skirt regulation

Congress extends deadline for railroads to install anti-derailment technology

The deadline was December 31st, but only 31 percent of locomotives have positive train control

By Andrew J . Hawkins     October 29, 2015  The Verge

Thanks to intense lobbying by the railroad industry, Congress approved a bill that would extend the deadline by at least three years for implementation of Positive Train Control, an automated braking technology that experts believe provides a needed check on human error and prevents deadly derailments.

Seven years ago, after a train collision killed 25 people in Los Angeles, Congress ordered railroads nationwide to install positive train control by the end of 2015. Since then, a number of derailments occurred that could have been avoided if the trains involved had the technology available. Experts estimate that the system could have prevented 145 rail accidents that killed 288 people and injured 6,575 since 1969. "But we can't let this drag on indefinitely."  But the railroad industry has been dragging its feet ever since Congress approved the mandate....   more here

Audit finds railroad safety lacking during high oil traffic

By MATT VOLZ     10/29/15    Fire Engineering

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Montana's oversight of railroad safety falls short at a time when volatile crude oil train traffic from the Bakken region, already high, is only expected to increase, a new audit found.

Montana has no active rail safety plan and employs only two inspectors to cover the vast state, the Montana Legislative Audit Division report released Wednesday said. In addition, there is a lack of statewide emergency planning and hazardous-material response capability should an oil spill occur, the report found.

That's a potentially precarious situation with a new crude oil transfer station in North Dakota coming online that should boost oil traffic crossing Montana from about 10 trains a week to up to 15 cars per week. One out of every five Montanans lives in an evacuation zone for an oil-train derailment, which is within a half-mile of a rail line, the report said.

Trains carrying Bakken crude have been involved in fiery derailments in six states in recent years. In 2013, a runaway train hauling crude from the Bakken derailed and exploded in downtown Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people.....    more here

How's this for a spill response plan??

Come on baby light my fire

Ned Rozell     10/29/15    Anchorage Press

On a clear day last spring, fire sizzled on water at Poker Flat Research Range in the Chatanika River valley.

There, scientists were spilling crude oil in a manmade water basin and torching it from above. A series of similar test burns were part of a team effort between university scientists and researchers with the oil and gas industry.

On that April day, an orange flame hissed on the surface of a body of water 300-feet square and six inches deep. Black smoke rose and drifted with the wind.

After a few minutes, the smoke faded from black to white to invisible. The fire burned itself out. An air horn sounded.....

.... Burning oil at the site of an ocean spill is not a new idea. Officials executed it at the Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010. For varying reasons, that burn removed very little of the spilled oil. And even though the Poker Flat experiment was efficient (one expert on scene estimated that more than 90 percent of the 50 gallons was burned), no one there thought burning was the perfect answer.

Ian Buist of SL Ross Environmental Research of Ottawa, an expert on oil spill behavior and how to deal with it, said at Poker Flat that burning is not often feasible, especially if the response is not quick and oil has spread too far.  ....   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