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.

BNSF Train Derails in Alma, WI, Voluntary Evacuation Lifted, Ethanol Spills in River

UPDATE: Train Derails in Alma, WI, Voluntary Evacuation Lifted, BNSF Working to Clean Up Leaks 

Updated: 11/07/2015 11:22 PM    KAALtv.com     video at site

(KSTP) -- UPDATE: Emergency crews were on the scene of a train derailment in western Wisconsin that closed highways and prompted a voluntary evacuation of nearby residents.

"Truthfully, I've always been concerned something like this might happen," said Patti Stinson of Buffalo City who was taking pictures of the train on Saturday.

A statement from BNSF Railway said 25 cars derailed roughly two miles north of Alma, Wisconsin, at approximately 8:45 a.m. Saturday.

"You assume the worst. You never know when it involves the water either," said Chief Deputy Colin Severson from the Buffalo County Sheriff's Office.

The cars included empty auto racks and tanker cars of denatured alcohol, more commonly known as ethanol, according to the statement.

"They're working on stabilizing the cars and cleaning them up," Severson said.

BNSF said there are no reports of fire, smoke or injuries. Parts of two state highways were closed due to the incident, but were then re-opened in the afternoon.

"In this case everybody responded very quickly," Severson said.

The Buffalo County Sheriff's office said the Alma American Legion was set up for those who left their homes.

Many locals say they had no idea there was potential for a serious threat, therefore staying put, disregarding the voluntary evacuation......   more here

 

Witness describes Alma train derailment

Five tankers leaked unknown amount of ethanol into Mississippi River

Updated On: Nov 08 2015   News8000.com      video at site

ALMA, Wis. (WKBT) -  No one is injured after a train derailed in Buffalo County Saturday morning.

Just before 9 a.m, the Buffalo County Sheriff's Department said 32 cars fell off the tracks near Highway 35 and County Road I, about 2 miles north of Alma.

The Sheriff's Department said five of the cars were carrying ethanol that leaked into the Mississippi River. The leaks have been contained, but officials are not sure how much ethanol entered the water........   more here

  

 

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.

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Grays Harbor Climate March- Nov 29th !

 

Welcome to the largest climate mobilisation in history

When:  11/29/2015 1:00 pm

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Where:  Aberdeen, WA, USA  

               Zelasko Park

Show Map

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‹‹ The countries of the world are meeting to decide what to do about climate change. We are running out of time to avoid catastrophic global warming. People all over the world are marching on this day to ask their governments to take action. ››

Event Hosted By Donna Albert      

    Contact host 

 

Sign up here 

What will happen at the event?

Join the Global Climate March to protect our children's future, our community, the salmon, the ocean, the forests and more.  Let's talk about how we want to participate in this global event, here in Grays Harbor.  Tentative time and location 1:00 pm at Zelasko Park in Aberdeen.  We can keep it simple, walking with signs in the vicinity of the park, and posting pictures on Facebook, or we may want to do more.  Let me know if you have suggestions.  -- Donna

 

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This event is part of the Global Climate March. On November 30th, world leaders meet in Paris to start negotiating the next global climate deal. That’s why, the day before, people around the world will take to the streets and push leaders at every level of government to commit to 100% clean energy. Together, we can push the world towards a climate deal that gets us off dirty energy and unleashes clean energy for all. Let's make history -- RSVP below for this Global Climate March event!

 Sign up here  

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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

For Big Railroads, a Carload of Whistleblower Complaints

For Big Railroads, a Carload of Whistleblower Complaints

By Stuart Silverstein and Brian Joseph     October 21, 2015   FairWarning

As both a veteran railroad worker and union official responsible for safety, Mike Elliott became alarmed when he learned of trouble-plagued train signals in his home state of Washington.

Signals, he said, at times would inexplicably switch from red to yellow to green – potentially creating confusion that could lead to a crash. Elliott raised that and other signal issues repeatedly with his managers at BNSF Railway Co. But eventually, Elliott concluded that “these guys are running me around in circles.”

So Elliott, 57, of Tacoma, Wash., pressed his concerns with the Federal Railroad Administration, summarizing the matter in a January 2011 letter. The FRA investigated, and discovered 357 safety violations, including 112 signal system defects.

 Speaking up for safety, though, only made matters worse for Elliott at BNSF, where he already had clashed with managers. Within weeks the company fired Elliott from his job as a locomotive engineer – an act that a federal jury this summer ruled was illegal retaliation by BNSF against a whistleblower.

The June 30 decision by the Tacoma jury, which awarded Elliott $1.25 million but is being appealed, spotlights the unjust punishment that critics say sometimes is meted out to railroad workers who report injuries or safety problems. These critics, including plaintiff lawyers and union officials, along with others who have examined railroad practices, say the harsh treatment reflects old, hard-line management tactics that persist in corners of the industry…..

…. an administrative law judge in 2013 ruled against Union Pacific, declaring: “The actions by Union Pacific have been so egregious in this case, and Union Pacific has been so openly blatant in ignoring the provisions of [federal law], that I find punitive damages are necessary to ensure that this reprehensible conduct is not repeated.” …..

…. Joseph C. Szabo, who headed the FRA from 2009 until this January, said industry supervisors often are under “immense pressure” to curb costs by moving trains quickly out of rail yards. That, in turn, translates into pressure on rank-and-file workers “to ignore safety protocols and to just get the damn train out of town.” That’s why, Szabo said, it’s “critically important” that railroad workers are “very comfortable in doing the right thing without any fear of retribution.” ….   More here

Other News:

WHAT TO LOOK FOR AS CONGRESS SETS A SIX-YEAR AGENDA FOR DANGEROUS GOODS TRANSPORT  - Bloomberg

 

Dayton says oil-by-rail shipments through Twin Cities puts thousands of Minnesotans at risk

Grand Forks Herald

- ‎Oct 21, 2015‎

In the letter to BNSF president and CEO Carl Ice, Dayton says nearly 100,000 more people are within the ½ mile evacuation zone of crude oil rail shipping routes in Minnesota now that BNSF is shipping Bakken crude oil along a rail line through downtown ...

Railroads to miss PTC deadline, threaten shut-down

Dr. John Tunn, FRA

Railroads warn they will miss deadline for safety system, stopping cargo in its tracks

October 19, 2015 | By Jennifer A. Dlouhy    Fuelfix.com

 

 WASHINGTON — Railroads are pushing Congress to extend a deadline for installing safety technology on trains that carry cargo as well as commuters, warning that oil, gasoline and other goods moved by rail could be stopped in their tracks without extra time.

At issue is Positive Train Control, a communications system that is meant to coordinate the movement of trains nationwide, preventing collisions and derailments. Congress mandated railroads use the technology in 2008, after a commuter train’s fatal crash in California killed 25 people.

But most U.S. railroads are on track to miss a Dec. 31 deadline for adopting the complex technology.
Some safety advocates say the industry has moved too slowly to roll out PTC, more than four decades after federal accident investigators first recommended such train control systems.

But installing the vast satellite-based system across multiple railroads — and ensuring the trains, towers and signaling boxes effectively communicate with each other — has proved challenging. Some PTC components had not been developed before Congress mandated the system. And delays were exacerbated by a 13-month federal moratorium on the installation of new communication poles in rights of way to transmit radio signals.

“You cannot purchase PTC systems off the shelf at Best Buy,” said Michael Melaniphy, president of the American Public Transportation Association, which is pushing Congress for more time. Otherwise, Melaniphy warned reporters Monday, “there will be a transportation crisis in this country with severe economic consequences.”...

..... That crude-by-rail traffic and the transportation of other commodities “could grind to a standstill” without at least three more years to install the system — and up to two more years for testing and validating it — said the association’s president, Ed Hamberger.

Major U.S. freight railroads, including BNSF, CSX and Norfolk Southern, have said they will shut down many operations on Dec. 31 to comply with the deadline and avoid hefty fines for flouting it. Because railroads will begin shutting down services weeks earlier, they need a clear signal from Congress before the end of October, Hamberger said.

Norfolk Southern says major coal export terminals, chemical complexes, crude oil receivers and power plants likely would lose service.....  more here