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

Oil by Rail: expediting another way for firefighters to die

A fireball at the site of an oil train derailment near Casselton, N.D., on Dec. 30, 2013. The derailment forced 1,400 residents to evacuate for several days.   AP photo

Our petrochemical obsession: Rueing all that burns

A modest mitigation proposal for what is essentially human sacrifice for those who put out our fires. 

 

By Peter M. Leschak    June 6, 2015       Star Tribune    

In our volunteer fire hall just after Christmas, we listened to a Minnesota state college instructor discuss why the death rate from cancer and heart disease is significantly higher among firefighters than in the general population. The short answer: hydrogen cyanide. It’s the same substance formerly employed to execute criminals in gas chambers. Source? Burning petrochemicals.

It’s no surprise — at least not to firefighters — that building construction and furnishings have markedly changed in the past four decades. The average home now incorporates 3,000 pounds of petroleum per floor, in the form of everything from insulation to sofa cushions. As President George W. Bush once said, “we are addicted to oil.”

The message to firefighters: “This stuff is killing you.” ......

....One of the latest challenges for fire departments in Minnesota and other parts of the nation and world are oil trains coming from the shale fields. In July 2013, at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, tank cars hauling Bakken crude exploded, killing 47 people and destroying half the town. Several months later, another tank car blew up near Casselton, N.D., and the state’s former Gov. (and Casselton native) George Sinner said the oil trains represented a “ridiculous threat.” 

True, but don’t sweat it. There is a plan afoot to help prepare fire departments for the ridiculous — details pending. It shouts volumes that the knee-jerk reaction is to expedite another means for firefighters to die.

Commerce trumps all, even common sense. But who says we must haul oil by train? For that matter, who says we have to frack volatile shale oil out of the ground in the first place? Around the globe there are locales so degraded and contaminated by oil extraction and other mining that they are christened “sacrifice zones.”......   more here

 

 

New York state investment chief wants oil train answers

By Brian Nearing     TimesUnion.com      June 7, 2015 

Albany -With the state pension fund holding about $1.8 billion in stocks from energy companies involved in crude oil trains, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli wants answers from them about steps being taken to reduce the risk of derailments, explosions and fires.

In letters written to 14 publicly traded companies, DiNapoli also asked how much insurance coverage they would have to pay for cleanups and damage if disasters struck. Last month, the Times Union reported that Canadian lawmakers are looking at imposing insurance requirements of up to $1 billion on rail companies that operate oil trains and that there are currently no such minimum insurance requirements in the U.S.

Letters from DiNapoli went out to oil giant Exxon Mobil, as well as a Miami-based energy financing company that owned oil carried on the train that blew up in Lac Megantic, Quebec, in July 2013. The explosion killed 47 people and incinerated much of the downtown.

That tragedy sparked a growing national debate over the safety of massive oil trains, which can include more than 100 tankers each carrying 50,000 gallons of highly flammable oil from the Bakken fields of North Dakota. There have been derailments and fires in North Dakota, Virginia and Alabama.

"We need to know what companies are doing to safeguard against future mishaps which can lead to serious legal liabilities for the companies. As trustee of the state pension fund, I am concerned that future liability claims may harm the interests of the retirement system's members, retirees and beneficiaries," said DiNapoli on Friday.

His letters also asked the companies to provide information on any efforts to reduce the flammability of oil before it is shipped, as well as to explain who owns the rail cars used to ship oil. Bakken crude is much more flammable than regular crude oil and federal officials recently adopted new rules to phase out the older, less-sturdy tanker cars......    more here

Lawsuit: Gov't Must End Offshore Fracking Secrecy

  Louisiana blow out after a Fracking attempt went wrong

Lawsuit Forces Government To Disclose Extent Of Offshore Fracking In Gulf of Mexico

By Farron Cousins • Sunday, June 7, 2015 -   DeSmogBlog

In August of last year, 21.6 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico were auctioned off to the dirty energy industry so that they could expand their offshore fracking activities in an area that was still reeling from the effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

As DeSmog’s Steve Horn reported at that time, many of the leases sold by the government in August were located in the Lower Tertiary Basin, an area defined by hard-to-penetrate rock where the crude is located in deep water, making the practice of hydraulic fracturing exceptionally risky and prone to environmental disaster.

It wasn’t until the lease sale that the media — and the American public — became painfully aware of the fact that we know so little about what the industry is actually doing in the Gulf of Mexico. It was this lack of knowledge that led the Center for Biological Diversity to file a lawsuit against the government to compel them to release that info.

This past week, that lawsuit was settled in Washington, and now the government will have to reveal the extent of fracking activities in the Gulf of Mexico.

From a CBD press release announcing the settlement:

“Offshore fracking has been shrouded in secrecy, but this settlement will finally force the government to tell us where oil companies are using this toxic technique,” said Kristen Monsell, a Center attorney. “Fracking pollution is a huge threat to marine animals, and the high pressures used to frack offshore wells increase the risk of another devastating oil spill. This inherently dangerous activity just doesn’t belong in the Gulf of Mexico.”

So far, we know that at least 115 offshore fracking wells are currently in operation in the Gulf, but the settlement will force the government to disclose the number of operations, the companies that have obtained leases, and the extent of chemical dumping from fracking activities.

The industry is currently allowed to dump fracking wastewater that is laced with fracking chemicals directly into the fragile Gulf ecosystem, and the lawsuit will unfortunately not be changing that practice. But what will change is that the public will learn who is dumping and where they are dumping, which could easily open companies up to liability lawsuits if they cause harm to the environment or to Gulf Coast residents. In short, the lawsuit brings us some much-needed liability and accountability.

Again, the Gulf of Mexico’s ecosystem is still a shambles as a result of BP’s 2010 oil spill, and the increase in fracking operations in the Gulf, and the subsequent dumping of chemicals into the waters, is only going to make things worse. And fracking operations are only expected to increase, as Mike Ludwig from Truthout points out:

Industry officials have also said they plan to increase the use of fracking techniques to exploit wells in deep Gulf waters, and with more than 4,000 platforms in the region, the Center claims that the scope offshore fracking could be “staggering.”

Map showing density of off shore oil platforms in Gulf Coast region. Image here:

Without meaningful change, the Gulf of Mexico is set to become a wasteland due to the actions of the dirty energy industry. Policy changes from the highest level are the only way to help restore the Gulf, but as long as campaign money continues to flow, it is becoming increasingly unlikely that we’ll see a ban on offshore fracking in the near future.

Another explosive Oil train derailment in Ontario

(Another derailment in Ontario)

CN Oil Train Catches Fire, Snarls Traffic in Derailment

by Doug Alexander    March 7, 2015    Bloomberg Business

A Canadian National Railway Co. train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire in a remote area of northern Ontario, blocking rail traffic between Toronto and Winnipeg, Manitoba. 

 

Canadian National said on its website that the train derailed around 2:46 a.m. Saturday near Gogama, about 600 kilometers (373 miles) north of Toronto. The train’s crew reported a fire though no injuries, spokeswoman Emily Hamer said in an e-mail.
 

“CN crews are responding to the site in order to undertake the necessary repairs,” the Montreal-based company said on its website. “Both westbound and eastbound traffic scheduled to cross the affected area is currently obstructed, and may be delayed by 24 hours or more.”

The accident marks the second derailment of a Canadian National oil train in three weeks in the area. A train with 100 cars, all carrying crude from the oil-producing region of Alberta to eastern Canada, derailed on Feb. 14 about 30 miles north of Gogama. A total of 29 cars were involved in that incident and seven caught fire, a spokesman said at the time.

About 18 freight trains a day use the line, which links western and eastern Canada....   more here

 

Derailed train catches fire in Northern Ontario

Emily Chan, CTVNews.ca   March 7, 2015

......Ten cars went off the tracks when a freight train carrying crude oil derailed at about 2:45 a.m. Saturday morning, an Ontario Provincial Police spokesperson said.

The train was travelling eastbound, in an area about 100 kilometres north of Sudbury, at the time of the accident.

Multiple cars caught fire and others fell into the Mattagami River, police said. Exact numbers are still unclear.

Residents in nearby Gogoma, Ont., have been told to stay indoors, and people at the Mattagami First Nation have been told to avoid drinking water from the "community source," the OPP said.

The Gogoma Fire Department released a statement saying the smoke itself is not toxic, but particles in the smoke may be dangerous. The department recommended anybody with breathing disorders stay inside until further notice..... 

     more here

Galena derailment update

KWWL News  03/07/15

....Kevin Turner, Jo Daviess County Sheriff, said one of the burning rail cars was being kept cool with a constant stream of water onto the car. However, a containment pond that was keeping that water/crude oil mixture is nearing capacity.

Thus, officials will stop the flow of water, "retreat to a safe distance" and allow a "heat-induced tear" in the burning car, according to Turner.

This will likely lead to an explosion of that car and possibly others in the area, according to a source with the Federal Railroad Administration who did not want to be named because the information was preliminary.

Turner said it was the safest option both from a public safety standpoint and an environmental one......   more here