OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The state Senate passed a measure Monday night
to improve the safety of oil transportation, one of two competing bills
that deal with the increasing shipments of crude oil through the state.
Senate Bill 5057, sponsored by Republican Sen. Doug Ericksen of Ferndale, passed 26-23 after extended debate. The House passed a competing bill last week....
...It differs from House Bill 1449, which passed last week, because it doesn't cover oil shipped by pipeline and lacks requirements that railroads and others show they can pay to clean up a spill...
...Votes on the Senate bill fell largely along party caucus lines after Senate Democrats, who are in the minority in the chamber, attempted a series of amendments to expand the bill's safety protocols to pipelines and oil moved by water. Ericksen opposed each, saying the bill should focus on oil trains.
Only one passed: a proposal by Sen. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, to set minimum staffing requirements aboard oil trains.
"First responder personnel are not qualified to uncouple rail cars," Conway said.
Ericksen and Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island, argued during and after the debate over whether the bill ensured the public would not bear the brunt of paying to clean up oil spills. Ericksen said oil-transporting companies have to bear the liability. Ranker, whose amendment to raise the cleanup fund's 4 cents per barrel tax on shipments to 6.5 cents failed, said oil companies will escape much of the culpability.
"If there's a spill, who's going to pay for it?" Ranker asked. "The taxpayers."
read entire article here
DeSmogBlog Justin Mikulka 03/09/15
With the first crash and explosion of a unit train of tar sands oil in Canada in February, we learned that the conventional wisdom among people covering the oil-by-rail industry regarding the flammability of tar sands oil has been dead wrong. A second derailment and explosion on March 7th involved synbit, which is a form of bitumen diluted with synthetic crude oil.
While there are many examples of this mischaracterization of the dangers of moving tar sands by rail that can be found in the press, here at DeSmogBlog we didn’t have to look far. In an article last year about how to make Bakken crude less dangerous we wrote that the government had plans to allow tar sands oil to be transported in the unsafe DOT-111 rail tank cars “because it is not explosive.”
While raw bitumen from the Alberta tar sands is not volatile or highly flammable, when it is diluted with natural gas condensate to form a mixture known as dilbit, which is typically done to make it easier to transport, it appears that it can be as dangerous as the Bakken crude that has now been proven to be highly flammable and explosive in multiple train derailments.
An article in Railway Age pointing out the implications of the tar-sands-by-rail accident had the ominous title “Why bitumen isn’t necessarily safer than Bakken” and concluded with the statement that “Should TSB [Transportation Safety Board] conclude that dilbit has a volatility similar to Bakken crude, as the Alberta research suggests, the hazmat classification of crude oil could be in question.”.... more here
Links:
Senate Bill 5057, sponsored by Republican Sen. Doug Ericksen of Ferndale, passed 26-23 after extended debate. The House passed a competing bill last week....
...It differs from House Bill 1449, which passed last week, because it doesn't cover oil shipped by pipeline and lacks requirements that railroads and others show they can pay to clean up a spill...
...Votes on the Senate bill fell largely along party caucus lines after Senate Democrats, who are in the minority in the chamber, attempted a series of amendments to expand the bill's safety protocols to pipelines and oil moved by water. Ericksen opposed each, saying the bill should focus on oil trains.
Only one passed: a proposal by Sen. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, to set minimum staffing requirements aboard oil trains.
"First responder personnel are not qualified to uncouple rail cars," Conway said.
Ericksen and Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas Island, argued during and after the debate over whether the bill ensured the public would not bear the brunt of paying to clean up oil spills. Ericksen said oil-transporting companies have to bear the liability. Ranker, whose amendment to raise the cleanup fund's 4 cents per barrel tax on shipments to 6.5 cents failed, said oil companies will escape much of the culpability.
"If there's a spill, who's going to pay for it?" Ranker asked. "The taxpayers."
read entire article here
DeSmogBlog Justin Mikulka 03/09/15
With the first crash and explosion of a unit train of tar sands oil in Canada in February, we learned that the conventional wisdom among people covering the oil-by-rail industry regarding the flammability of tar sands oil has been dead wrong. A second derailment and explosion on March 7th involved synbit, which is a form of bitumen diluted with synthetic crude oil.
While there are many examples of this mischaracterization of the dangers of moving tar sands by rail that can be found in the press, here at DeSmogBlog we didn’t have to look far. In an article last year about how to make Bakken crude less dangerous we wrote that the government had plans to allow tar sands oil to be transported in the unsafe DOT-111 rail tank cars “because it is not explosive.”
While raw bitumen from the Alberta tar sands is not volatile or highly flammable, when it is diluted with natural gas condensate to form a mixture known as dilbit, which is typically done to make it easier to transport, it appears that it can be as dangerous as the Bakken crude that has now been proven to be highly flammable and explosive in multiple train derailments.
An article in Railway Age pointing out the implications of the tar-sands-by-rail accident had the ominous title “Why bitumen isn’t necessarily safer than Bakken” and concluded with the statement that “Should TSB [Transportation Safety Board] conclude that dilbit has a volatility similar to Bakken crude, as the Alberta research suggests, the hazmat classification of crude oil could be in question.”.... more here
Links:
Fiery Rail Spills Puts Safety Focus on Cutting Oil’s Volatility -Bloomberg
Crude oil spilled in CN derailment will impact ecosystems for long time, activists say - As fires are extinguished at site of Gogama, Ont., accident, environmentalists worry that toxins will linger.
EPA works to prevent contamination of oil from train derailment into Mississippi River
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