Martinez Environmental Group

[A most excellent piece of reporting! – Editor]

By Curtis Tate   The News Tribune   Tuscaloosa, AL

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/static/features/Trains+Oil/Trouble-down-the-track.html?brand=tnt

CURTIS TATE / MCCLATCHY Decaying track and bridge conditions
on the Alabama southern railroad could pose a risk to Tuscaloosa,
Ala., population 95,000. Above, video of trains crossing the bridge.

The 116-year-old span is a landmark in this city of 95,000 people, home to the University of Alabama. Residents have proposed and gotten married next to the bridge. Children play under it. During Alabama football season, die-hard Crimson Tide fans set up camp in its shadow.And it shows why communities nationwide are in danger.

But with some timber pilings so badly rotted that you can stick your hand right through them, and a “MacGyver”-esque combination of plywood, concrete and plastic pipe employed to patch up others, the bridge demonstrates the limited ability of government and industry to manage the hidden risks of a sudden shift in energy production.

“It may not happen today or tomorrow, but one day a town or a city is going to get wiped out,” said Larry Mann, one of the foremost authorities on rail safety, who as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill in 1970 was the principal author of the Federal Railroad Safety Act, which authorized the government to regulate the safety of railroads.

Almost overnight in 2010, trains began crisscrossing the country carrying an energy bounty that included millions of gallons of crude oil and ethanol. The nation’s fleet of tens of thousands of tank cars, coupled with a 140,000-mile network of rail lines, had emerged as a viable way to move these economically essential commodities. But few thought to step back and take a hard look at the industry’s readiness for the job.

In a series of stories, McClatchy has detailed how government and industry are playing catch-up to long-overdue safety improvements, from redesigning the tank cars that carry the oil to rebuilding the track and bridges over which the trains run.

Those efforts in the past year and a half may have spared life and property in many communities. But they came too late for Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, a Canadian lakeside resort town just across the border from Maine. A train derailment there on July 6, 2013, unleashed a torrent of burning crude oil into the town’s center. Forty-seven people were killed.

“Sometimes it takes a disaster to get elected officials and agencies to address problems that were out there,” said Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, a member of the House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees railroads, pipelines and hazardous materials, who’s leaving Congress after six terms.

Other subsequent but nonfatal derailments in Aliceville, Ala., Casselton, N.D., and Lynchburg, Va., followed a familiar pattern: massive fires and spills, large-scale evacuations and local officials furious that they hadn’t been informed beforehand of such shipments.

The U.S. Department of Transportation will issue a set of new rules in January regarding the transportation of flammable liquids by rail.

“Safety is our top priority,” said Kevin Thompson, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration,“both in the rule-making and through other immediate actions we have taken over the last year and a half.”

Nevertheless, McClatchy has identified other gaps in the oversight of crude by rail:

• The Federal Railroad Administration entrusts bridge inspections to the railroads and doesn’t keep data on their condition, unlike its sister agency, the Federal Highway Administration, which does so for road bridges.
• Most states don’t employ dedicated railroad bridge inspectors. Only California has begun developing a bridge inspection program.
• The U.S. Department of Transportation concluded that crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken shale region posed an elevated risk in rail transport, so regulators required railroads to notify state officials of large shipments of Bakken crude. However, the requirement excluded other kinds of oil increasingly transported by rail, including those from Canada, Texas, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.
• While railroads and refiners have taken steps to reserve the newest, sturdiest tank cars available for Bakken trains, they, too, have ruptured in derailments, and Bakken and other kinds of oil are likely to be moving around the country in a mix of older and newer cars for several more years.

Staying power

American railroads moved only 9,500 cars of crude oil in 2008 but more than 400,000 in 2013, according to industry figures. In the first seven months of 2014, trains carried 759,000 barrels a day – that’s more than 200,000 cars altogether – or 8 percent of the country’s oil production, according to the federalEnergy Information Administration.

The energy boom, centered on North Dakota’s Bakken region, was made possible by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a horizontal drilling method that unlocks oil and gas trapped in rock formations. It was also made possible by the nation’s expansive rail system.

Crude by rail has become a profitable business for some of the world’s richest men. Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor, bought BNSF Railway in 2009. It’s since become the nation’s leading hauler of crude oil in trains. Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and philanthropist, is the largest shareholder in Canadian National, the only rail company that has a direct route from oil-rich western Canada to the refinery-rich Gulf Coast.

Amid a worldwide slide in oil prices in recent weeks, crude by rail shows few signs of slowing down. The price per barrel of oil has dropped nearly 50 percent since last January. Still, the six largest North American railroads reported hauling a record 38,775 carloads of petroleum the second week of December.

“We anticipate that crude by rail is going to stay over the long term,” said Kevin Birn, director at IHS Energy, an energy information and analysis firm, and a co-author of a recent analysis of the trend.

Regulatory agencies and the rail industry may not have anticipated the sudden increase in crude oil moving by rail. However, government and industry had long known that most of the tank cars pressed into crude oil service had poor safety records. And after 180 years in business, U.S. railroads knew that track defects were a leading cause of derailments.

To be sure, railroads are taking corrective steps, including increased track inspections and reduced train speeds. They’ve endorsed stronger tank cars and funded beefed-up training for first responders.

Ed Greenberg, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, the industry’s principal trade group, said railroads began a “top-to-bottom review” of their operations after the Quebec accident.

“Every time there is an incident, the industry learns from what occurred and takes steps to address it through ongoing investments into rail infrastructure, as well as cutting-edge research and development,” he said. “The industry is committed to continuous improvement in actively moving forward at making rail transportation even safer.”

But the industry continues to resist other changes, including calls for more transparency. The dominant Eastern railroads, Norfolk Southern and CSX, sued Maryland to stop the state from releasing information to McClatchy about crude oil trains.

The industry also seeks affirmation from the courts that only the federal government has the power to regulate railroads. The dominant Western carriers, BNSF and Union Pacific, joined by the Association of American Railroads, sued California over a state law that requires them to develop comprehensive oil spill-response plans.

The railroads, used to keeping such information close to the vest, asked state officials to sign nondisclosure agreements treating the reports as confidential and limiting their release to those with “a need to know.”

Some states initially agreed, and the Transportation Department voiced no objections. Others, however, declined to sign the agreements, finding no reason to exempt the oil train reports from their open-records laws.

Since June, McClatchy has obtained full or partial Bakken train reports from 22 states. The reports show an estimated range of how many Bakken trains pass through each county each week, and the routes they use. Some states, such as Virginia and New York, released all the details. Illinois, however, didn’t reveal the routes. Alabama and New Jersey disclosed only the counties, not the routes or frequency.

Having lost the fight in California, Washington state and elsewhere, some railroads continued to press their case in other states that the reports were security and commercially sensitive. After the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency denied McClatchy’s request in July, McClatchy appealed the decision to the state’s Office of Open Records.

In October, the open records office ordered the emergency management agency to release the records. Days later, the agency posted them, in full, on its website.

In July, the Maryland Department of the Environment was about to release the Bakken reports to McClatchy when two railroads, Norfolk Southern and CSX, sued the state to block the release.

The Federal Railroad Administration all but put the issue to rest in October. In guidance published in the Federal Register, the agency said no federal law protected the Bakken train reports from public disclosure and that the information they contained was neither security nor commercially sensitive.

Delaware, West Virginia, Idaho and Tennessee, which denied McClatchy’s requests outright, haven’t reconsidered since the federal guidance. Texas has made no decision on how much information, if any, to release.

Greenberg, of the Association of American Railroads, said the industry remained concerned that publicly releasing the information “elevates security risks by making it easier for someone intent on causing harm.” The reports “should remain with local, state and federal emergency responders,” he added.

Mapped out, the reports show concentrated streams of Bakken traffic radiating from North Dakota to the Mid-Atlantic, Gulf Coast and Pacific Northwest. The reports do not, however, show smaller quantities of Bakken or any quantity of other kinds of crude oil shipped by rail. Individual railroads may be notifying emergency responders of such cargoes, but at least for now, they aren’t required to do so.

The Federal Railroad Administration has sought comment on whether the reporting threshold should be lower and include other types of crude oil.

Thompson, the railroad administration spokesman, said the May emergency order was meant to be “a powerful but narrowly constructed tool to address an imminent hazard,” the one presented by Bakken crude.

“It was and remains an interim step in our ongoing effort to ensure the safe transport of crude by rail,” he said.

In the dark

In March, emergency response officials in Sacramento, Calif., were stunned to learn that the decommissioned McClellan Air Force Base on the city’s northwest side had become a transfer point for crude oil.

After a McClatchy reporter told him about the facility, the city’s interim fire chief sent his battalion chief and a hazardous materials inspector to the site, where they found 22 tank cars loaded with crude oil. The facility had been operating for several months, without the knowledge of local fire chiefs or the county emergency manager. It had also been operating without a permit from theSacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, apparently in violation of California’s strict environmental laws.

The same week McClatchy’s Sacramento Bee published a story in late March revealing its existence, the facility received a permit to transfer 11 million gallons of crude oil a month from trains to trucks.

In September, EarthJustice, a San Francisco-based environmental group, sued the air quality management district, challenging its decision to issue the permit without public comment or an environmental impact review.

In October, Sacramento County’s top air-quality official rescinded the permit, acknowledging that its approval was a mistake. The McClellan transfer operation shut down in mid-November.

Two or three Bakken trains a month are moving through California’s capital to other destinations, and area officials are bracing for a big increase: TheCalifornia Energy Commission projects that rail could deliver 22 percent of the state’s petroleum needs in a few years.

In response to growing concern about emergency preparedness amid the rise in crude by rail, the industry established a special training program at its research and testing facility in Pueblo, Colo.

Since classes began in July, the nation’s largest railroads have spent $5 million to train 1,500 emergency response personnel at the school. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., persuaded the Federal Emergency Management Agency to contribute another $5 million to continue the program.

“Our emergency responders are often our first line of defense – and they usually do it without pay,” Heitkamp said Monday in a statement. “It’s on all of us to make sure they have the training and resources they need to protect our families and communities.”

Individual railroads also bring training to many communities along their routes. CSX, for example, just concluded an 18-city tour with its Safety Train, a mobile classroom that educates first responders on the basics of responding to rail accidents. The railroad said 2,200 personnel from 350 departments had participated.

But the training may have its limits.

The National Fire Protection Association estimated that in 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available, there were about 1.1 million firefighters spread across 30,000 departments. More than 800,000 of them were volunteers. Nationwide, volunteer departments have turnover rates of 20 percent to 50 percent.

Steve LoPresti, the hazmat chief for Montgomery County EMS in suburban Philadelphia, said his department was all-volunteer. The department has a “robust” training schedule, he said, and has worked with other agencies as well as railroads hauling crude oil through the county.

But it can be tough for volunteers to take the time off for training, even if someone else pays for it.

“They have full-time jobs, maybe part-time jobs,” LoPresti said. “They’re family men. They have other responsibilities.”

Lac-Mégantic showed the enormous risk that even the best-trained firefighters might face. In Senate testimony last April, Tim Pellerin, a Maine fire chief whose department assisted its Quebec neighbor, said it had taken 1,000 firefighters from 80 departments on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border 30 hours, a million gallons of water and 8,000 gallons of firefighting foam to bring the massive blaze under control.

Rick Edinger, assistant chief of the Chesterfield County, Va., Fire and EMS department and a hazardous materials expert who testified on oil train fires at the National Transportation Safety Board in April, said in an interview that most departments were capable of responding to an incident involving a 9,000-gallon gasoline tanker truck. But one rail car can hold as much as 30,000 gallons. A 100-car oil train could contain 3 million

“Once you reach that point of no return,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what the volume is.”

Unheeded warnings

A common thread runs through the Lac-Mégantic, Aliceville and Casselton derailments: the workhorse DOT-111 tank car. The NTSB has been warning about it for decades.

The car is minimally reinforced and has a well-documented tendency to puncture or rupture in derailments.

A series of explosions from the late 1960s to the late 1970s killed dozens of people, including railroad workers and first responders, prompting an overhaul of the pressurized tank cars then used to haul flammable and toxic gases with many of the same features under discussion now.

The problems subsided by the early 1980s. But unlike those cars, the DOT-111 wasn’t similarly retrofitted. And it continued to fail catastrophically in derailments that involved flammable or poisonous liquids, as three decades of NTSB accident reports reviewed by McClatchy demonstrate.

Many of those accidents – from Newark, N.J., in 1981 to Dunsmuir, Calif., in 1991 to Baltimore in 2001– were caused by track defects or human error. But in report after report, the NTSB warned that the design of the DOT-111 tank car increased the severity of these accidents.

About a decade ago, railroads began transporting large volumes of ethanol, a renewable, highly flammable alternative fuel. Rail transportation of ethanol grew over several years, peaking at 360,000 carloads in 2011. At least seven fiery derailments from 2006 to 2012 involving ethanol transported in DOT-111 cars sent another warning.

In June 2009, a Canadian National train derailed on washed-out track at a road crossing at Cherry Valley, Ill. Multiple DOT-111 tank cars punctured, spilling more than 300,000 gallons of ethanol. A woman was killed when the massive blaze engulfed her vehicle at the crossing.

The Association of American Railroads petitioned the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration in March 2011 for an improved tank car design. About a year later, then-NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman wrote Cynthia Quarterman, who was then the head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, pleading for improvements to the DOT-111. In her reply, Quarterman concurred with Hersman but expressed concerns about the cost.

Two months after Lac-Mégantic went up in flames in July 2013, Quarterman’s agency released its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the first step in the usually lengthy process.

Last July, the Transportation Department proposed a 2017 deadline to phase out or retrofit the DOT-111 fleet. But for now, the car is ubiquitous in crude oil and ethanol trains nationwide.

Among other steps taken by the department this year, the Federal Railroad Administration’s Thompson noted that it had “issued a safety advisory requesting companies to take all possible steps to avoid using DOT-111 tank cars when transporting Bakken crude.”

That wasn’t enough to satisfy environmental groups, which petitioned the Transportation Department for an immediate ban on DOT-111 cars hauling Bakken crude oil. When the department denied the petition, the groups sued.

Railroads generally don’t own the tank cars used to transport oil by train.

Since the more recent high-profile accidents, many refiners have opted to go with the higher standard the rail industry adopted voluntarily in 2011, with thicker shells and extra shielding on the ends of the cars, as well as features that protect top and bottom valves in case of a derailment.

BNSF and Canadian Pacific, two of the biggest Bakken haulers, have imposed surcharges on crude oil shippers who use pre-2011 tank cars.

However, the oil and rail industry’s principal trade groups have requested that regulators give them more time to phase out the cars. Under both government and industry proposals, the cars with the fewest protections could remain in crude oil service through 2020.

The $1.1 trillion spending bill Congress approved in December contains a requirement that the DOT issue its final rule by Jan. 15.

Even the newer cars have vulnerabilities. Post-2011 cars involved in a derailment last January in New Augusta, Miss., spilled 50,000 gallons of heavy Canadian crude.

So did at least one newer car in Lynchburg, which released its entire contents of Bakken crude into the James River, most of which burned. The city’s downtown was spared.

Some of the most vocal advocates for a more aggressive timeline for retrofitting or retiring the DOT-111 fleet are elected leaders in cities and towns. Karen Darch, the village president of Barrington, Ill., a Chicago suburb, has testified on Capitol Hill and submitted comments to regulators. Two busy rail lines intersect in her community, and trains carrying crude oil and ethanol pass within feet of homes, businesses and schools.

“We have people who are, quite literally, sitting ducks,” she said.

The repairs I see them making right now are more like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound

John Wathen, environmentalist

CURTIS TATE / MCCLATCHY On April 30, 2014, a CSX train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed in downtown Lynchburg, Va. No one was injured or killed but three tank cars went into the James River spilling 30,000 gallons of oil and igniting a fire. Above, video of trains outside Lynchburg on a normal day.

CURTIS TATE / MCCLATCHY

Repeated violations

In Tuscaloosa, repairs are underway on the century-old bridge. But its condition had received less attention from local, state and federal authorities, and the railroad that maintains it, before crude oil trains began rolling over its rotting timbers in 2013.

The local industrial development authority gave $785,000 in tax abatements to the Hunt Refining Co. to build a two-track rail terminal capable of unloading 600,000 gallons of crude oil a day at its Tuscaloosa refinery.

Mike Smith, a lawyer for the agency, said its jurisdiction didn’t extend beyond the refinery and that it had no authority to evaluate the condition of, or require repairs to, the rail infrastructure that leads to it. A spokeswoman for Hunt, based in Houston, declined to comment.

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management quickly approved Hunt’s permits to build and operate the terminal, with no public comment or review. A spokesman for the department didn’t return multiple phone calls seeking comment.

The Federal Railroad Administration doesn’t inspect bridges. That responsibility rests with the railroad.

The Alabama Southern Railroad, which is owned by Watco, a company headquartered in Pittsburg, Kan., maintains the Tuscaloosa bridge and the track that runs across it. Regulators have cited the company many times over the years for safety violations. Federal Railroad Administration inspection reports obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that inspectors recommended penalties for Alabama Southern 15 times from January 2006 to September 2013.

In June, an Alabama Southern train carrying crude oil derailed in Buhl, Ala., about 12 miles west of Tuscaloosa. Though nothing spilled, seven battered tank cars remained on the ground for the next two months, a short distance from people’s front porches.

Tracie VanBecelaere, a Watco spokeswoman, said the company would invest as much as $17 million over three years in new rail, ties and ballast on the 62-mile Alabama Southern line between Tuscaloosa and Columbus, Miss.

In late October, bundles of new crossties lined the track near a road crossing in Northport, across the river from Tuscaloosa. Tie replacements “will continue for several months,” VanBecelaere said.

She said the track was inspected more than federal law required and was checked ultrasonically for internal defects twice a year.

The old bridge is getting a $2.5 million overhaul as part of the same project, VanBecelaere said. She said it had passed an inspection over the summer.

John Wathen, an environmentalist who’s been monitoring the condition of the rail infrastructure around Tuscaloosa for the past year, wonders whether it’s enough.

“The repairs I see them making right now are more like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound,” he said .

Potential for disaster

October is a busy time in Tuscaloosa, with Alabama football season in full swing. One home-game weekend this year, there were no hotel rooms available within 50 miles of the city. Tuscaloosa’s population expands on home game days. The university’s Bryant-Denny Stadium can hold more than 100,000 fans.

The railroad bridge is perhaps more than a mile from the stadium, as the crow flies. Across the river in Northport, a whole encampment of recreational vehicles owned by football fans sits just 50 feet from the structure. The city council allows the tailgaters to park their campers there for the season’s duration.

The 7,500-seat Tuscaloosa Amphitheater, which recently hosted Mary J. Blige and the Doobie Brothers, sits near the bridge on the opposite bank. The Oliver Lock and Dam, a popular fishing spot, is about half a mile downriver.

Thousands more people descend on Northport in October for the annualKentuck Festival of the Arts.

Most Tuscaloosa residents know about the bridge and some have stories about how it intersects with their lives. But few know about the hazardous cargoes that creep across it in slow-moving trains, and with them the potential for disaster.

And Tuscaloosa knows disaster. On April 27, 2011, a powerful tornado, with winds of 190 mph, ripped through the city, chewing up neighborhoods, schools and shopping centers. Of the 65 Alabamians killed by the tornado that day, 52 were in Tuscaloosa.

For Wathen, a big worry is that if an oil train derailed on or near the bridge, it wouldn’t take long for the spilled cargo to reach the Black Warrior River. Once it reached the dam, Wathen said, it would be virtually impossible to clean up, no matter what kind of oil it was.

“It would be an environmental catastrophe,” he said.

Wathen has other fears, as well. In addition to the 47 fatalities, the derailment and fire in Lac-Mégantic destroyed 50 buildings, consuming the heart of the city’s business district.

“Lay that footprint over Tuscaloosa or Northport,” Wathen said. “Nothing would have survived within the fire footprint. We’ve seen that already.”

Email: ctate@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @tatecurtis

BY RHYS HEYDEN   newtimesslo.com    December 31, 2014

http://www.newtimesslo.com/cover/11850/a-crude-proposal-the-pros-and-cons-of-a-controversial-phillips-66-oilbyrail-project/

When viewed from the proper angle, the central conflict here bears a peculiar type of poetic symmetry: A local refinery would like to transport much of its crude oil into San Luis Obispo County via train, while opponents would prefer such plans to be driven out of the county on a rail.

Many stakeholders adamantly support the project, while many locals virulently oppose the proposed rail spur that would allow this transportation method to materialize. There are plenty of lawyers involved and lots of money tied up in each side of the issue, and the project itself reaches far beyond the borders of SLO County.

Originally proposed in mid-2013, the Phillips 66 rail spur extension project has remained largely unchanged: Succinctly put, the company wants to begin construction of a rail spur at its Santa Maria Refinery in Nipomo, thereby giving the facility the newfound ability to receive oil via rail.

It’s a project that appears simple on the surface, but gains layers of complexity the closer one looks. It also touches on several national issues: railroad safety, energy independence, and regulation vs. free enterprise, to name a few.

Ultimately, SLO County officials will likely be making vital yea or nay decisions about the Phillips 66 rail spur extension project in the next few months.

New Times spoke with many stakeholders and experts; examined documents, reports, and public comments; and traveled to Nipomo, all in the interest of answering the basics: What is this project, and why should SLO County residents support or oppose it?

The project

The primary thrust of the rail spur project is fairly simple: construction of a rail spur facility that would allow the refinery in Nipomo to receive crude oil via rail. Currently, the facility receives oil only by pipeline.

Continue reading →

KCBS Cover Story Special, Part 3 of 3, Produced by Giancarlo Rulli
December 31, 2014 11:16 AM

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/12/31/emergency-plans-stall-out-for-trains-transporting-bakken-crude-oil-in-the-bay-area-part-3-of-3/

The Alhambra Trestle in Martinez. (Jeffrey Schaub/CBS)

KCBS reporter Jeffrey Shaub and producer Giancarlo Rulli investigate the Bay Area’s aging railway bridges that will carry increasing loads of highly volatile Bakken crude oil from North Dakota in this three-part KCBS Cover Story Special.

Hear the entire three-part cover story series.

MARTINEZ (KCBS) – In May, U.S. transportation officials ordered the nation’s rail companies to disclose information to emergency responders on the routes and number of trains carrying a highly volatile crude oil through the Bay Area and elsewhere.

But some Bay Area and California officials claim the railroads are dragging their feet, stalling efforts to come with an emergency plan in case of a major disaster on the tracks.

According to the BNSF Railway, every 7-10 days, a 100-car long train carrying Bakken crude oil make sits way through Contra Costa County over the Alhambra trestle in Martinez.

Residents Bill Nichols and Jim Neu are among the many who have serious concerns. “The scary thing about the crude, it already has a proven track record of catastrophic accidents,” said Nichols. “These are ticking time bombs waiting to go off. If there was ever a derailment, it would affect the town with major casualties,” Neu said.

Contra Costa County Fire Protection District Marshal Robert Marshall worries about a train derailing from that height. “If you drop something from that height, it’s going to create a lot of damage.”

Marshall said he’s been working to create an emergency response plan, but needs to know how many trains are coming and when. But he said the state Office of Emergency Services can’t tell him. State OES Deputy Director Kelly Huston said that’s because the railroads haven’t provided him with that information.

“We’d love to be able to look it up online like an Amtrak schedule and be able to tell specifically when a terrain is coming through, where it’s going and give that direct access to local first responders,” Huston said.

KCBS has learned that BNSF sent a confidential letter to the Office of Emergency Services in September, informing them that Contra Costa County will see at least a 25 percent increase in Bakken fuel trains. But BNSF refused to say exactly how many and when, citing federal regulations and that they consider the information to be a confidential trade secret.

Bay Area Congressman John Garamendi disagrees. “It must be made available to the local emergency response agencies,” Garamendi said.

BNSF spokesperson Lena Kent said the company’s track record of moving hazardous materials speaks for itself.

“We handle all of our commodities with safety at the forefront. It’s far safer to move hazardous materials over our nation’s railroads then on our nation’s highways,” she said.

But longtime Martinez City Councilman Mark Ross said the railroad needs to be a better partner by being transparent and ensuring public safety. “Why don’t you get ahead of it, let’s work with government, work with the cities and communities that you’re running through, and solve the problem now.”

A KCBS Cover Story Special: Part 1 of 3, Produced by Giancarlo Rulli
December 30, 2014 11:25 AM

Underneath the Alhambra trestle in Martinez (Jeffrey Schaub/CBS)

KCBS reporter Jeffrey Shaub and producer Giancarlo Rulli investigate the Bay Area’s aging railway bridges that will carry increasing loads of highly volatile Bakken crude oil from North Dakota in this three-part KCBS Cover Story Special.

To Listen:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/12/30/safety-information-for-alhambra-trestle-in-martinez-and-other-bridges-kept-by-the-railroads-part-2-of-3/

MARTINEZ (KCBS) — Some local, state and federal officials are concerned that an old railroad bridge in Martinez, used to transport increasing car loads of highly volatile crude oil from North Dakota to East Bay refineries, may be unsafe.

Officials said they can’t obtain safety information about that bridge, and others like it, because the railroad that owns it is allowed to keep that information to themselves.

The Alhambra trestle was originally built in 1899 and later reinforced in 1929. The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway replaced the rail deck in 2003, but the trestle’s support structures are 85 and to 115 years old.

Photo by Jeffrey Shaub

Each week it bears the load of hundreds of rail cars including a growing number that carry Bakken crude oil.

Jim Nue is a member of the Martinez Environmental Group who said he worries about a derailment and how it might affect the several schools and scores of homes nearby.

“We figured the effects within a half-mile blast zone of those tracks affects 12,000 people,” he said.

State and federal authorities are also worried about Alhambra trestle.

“We are concerned about failure,” Paul King, the Deputy Director of Rail Safety for the California Public Utilities Commission, told KCBS.

He’s concerned about shipments of Bakken crude oil over the Alhambra Trestle.

“The consequences of derailment failure are very high,” King said.

But there is no way to know for sure because ever since the Civil War, the railroads have been allowed to keep that information to themselves. While the Federal Railroad Administration does oversee the BNSF, there is only one bridge inspector to cover all eleven Western states.

In the Fall of 2014, The CPUC authorized the hiring of two bridge inspectors to evaluate the more than 5,000 railroad bridges in the state, including the Alhambra trestle. It’s a job that could take 50 years to complete.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) told KCBS that it’s a statewide problem.

“The main bridge across the Sacramento is more than 100 years old. It was built shortly after the Gold Rush,” he said.

BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent said the trestle is safe.

“Our bridges are inspected three times a year and, in fact, if they did detect—in any way—that that structure needed to be replaced, they would immediately put plans in place to replace the structure,” she said.

The state says they want the final say on what is safe and what isn’t—and not just leave it up to the railroads.

Back in Martinez, Nue, remains worried about the geography of the Alhambra trestle and his town.

“So if something happens on either end, you’re stuck,” he said.

In Part III, we will reveal how state and emergency response coordinators are concerned about their ability to battle a major railway explosion and fire.

KCBS reporter Jeffrey Shaub and producer Giancarlo Rulli investigate the Bay Area’s aging railway bridges that will carry increasing loads of highly volatile Bakken crude oil from North Dakota in this three-part KCBS Cover Story Special.

To Listen :
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/12/29/aging-railway-infrastructure-raises-safety-concerns-as-bay-area-readies-to-receive-dramatic-increase-of-bakken-crude-oil-part-1-of-3/#

MARTINEZ (KCBS) — Questions are being raised about the safety of the century-old Alhambra railroad trestle in Martinez. Some local residents and officials are concerned because the bridge is carrying an increasing number of loads of a highly volatile cargo.

As the train rumbles its way across the 115-year-old Alhambra trestle in Martinez, loud creaks and rattles can be heard. And unlike more modern bridges, dozens of its bolts and bridge supports are rusted.

“The railroad told us, actually, that the rust strengthens it,” City Councilman Mark Ross told KCBS, but he isn’t buying it.

He said that residents are worried about its safety, especially because it carries up to mile-long tanker trains loaded with highly volatile—and controversial—Bakken crude oil from shale fields in North Dakota.

“It really begs for inspection and a full report to the community as to its status,” Ross said.

Paul King, the Deputy Director of Rail Safety for the California Public Utilities Commission, agrees.

King said the Bay Area will soon see a dramatic increase in Bakken crude shipments over the Alhambra trestle.

“Somebody needs to be looking, overseeing it, and somebody needs to be doing it for the state of California.

A CPUC report identified railroad bridges as a significant rail safety risk, including many that are over 100 years old—structures like the one in Martinez.

That report and concerns about the Alhambra have the federal government also worried.

“We can’t wait because they will eventually collapse, fall apart—damage will be done,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) said.

He cites the derailment of a Bakken crude oil train in Quebec, Canada, which wiped out half the town of Lac-Mégantic, killing 47 people in July 2013.

That blaze burned for 36 hours.

“It’s a ticking time bomb—it’s just a matter of time,” Martinez resident (and member of the Martinez Environmental Group) Bill Nichols, who lives near the trestle, said.

But Lena Kent, a spokeswoman from the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway said that concerns about the Alhambra are perceptions and not reality.

“At BNSF, safety is our first priority in everything that we do,” she said.

In Part II, we’ll look at how the state, federal cannot even obtain safety data about the Alhambra and other bridges carry Bakken fuel because—in part because there are so few inspectors.

And what does it mean for the Bay Area Tesoro refinery where they are “considering” restarting their “reformer”? Funny how they have been doing heavy maintenance for the last two months. Are they using the naphtha from highly volatile Bakken crude oil to make reformate to send to Anacortes?
And if the west coast is using less oil, should we continue to pollute west coast refinery communities at the same rates – merely for oil company profit?
-Editor’s Note

http://daily.sightline.org/2014/12/15/what-is-xylene-and-what-does-it-mean-for-puget-sound/

By Eric de Place (@Eric_deP) and Ahren Stroming   December 15, 2014    Sightline Daily

It’s a safe bet that most people have no idea what C₆H₄(CH₃)₂ refers to. It’s a chemical compound that is better known—when it is known at all—as xylene, a niche product of oil refining soon to go into development on the shores of Puget Sound. It’s a change that has potential implications for the health of the Salish Sea, for oil trains, and perhaps even for gasoline prices.

Because most people know so little about the product, we thought it would be useful to share a short course on it. So with that, welcome to “Xylene 101.”

What is xylene, exactly?

Let’s get some quick and dirty chemistry out of the way. (It won’t hurt.) Xylene refers to a group of three different isomers (molecules with the same chemical formula but different chemical structures): orthoxylene, metaxylene, and paraxylene, all of which are petrochemicals. In a process known as catalytic reforming, refiners distill petroleum naphtha(chemicals found in partly-refined crude oil) and then convert them into a high octane liquid hydrocarbon called reformate. Traditionally, oil refiners blend reformate with gasoline and jet fuel to increase octane levels, but it can also serve as the feedstock for chemicals like xylene. (Xylenes can also be produced by coal carbonization in the manufacture of petcoke.)

Still with us? Good.

So, what do xylenes mean for Washington?

At its Anacortes Refinery, oil company Tesoro is now investing $400 million on facility upgradesthat will allow it to produce mixed xylene for export to Asia at a rate of 15,000 barrels per day. That represents about 12.5 percent of the refinery’s total crude capacity and about 9 percent of total US xylene production capacity, most of which is currently in Gulf Coast states. In order to produce xylene for export at Anacortes, Tesoro will have to build a new xylene extraction unit capable of recovering xylene from petrochemical feedstock produced by refineries in Washington and California. In anticipation of what may be a large construction project, Tesoro is looking to expand its onsite infrastructure. In fact, Skagit County recently approved Tesoro’s plan to more than double the size of its existing parking lot (from 500 spaces to 1,350 spaces), expanding it 135 feet into a shoreline buffer zone.

According to Tesoro, the global xylene market is growing about 5 percent to 7 percent annually, primarily driven by demand in Asia. In addition, one industry journal notes that “because [xylene] production uses refinery-produced reformate, which is otherwise used for gasoline production, the shift could also ease what refiners consider an oversupplied US west coast gasoline market.”

In other words, Tesoro aims to produce less gasoline on the West Coast in order to free up reformate for xylene production.

Tesoro already produces 32,000 barrels of reformate per day on site at the Anacortes refinery. About half of that supply, along with additional reformate shipped by vessel from its Golden Eagle Refinery near Martinez, California, would be directed towards the production of xylene. Nowadays, both refineries are processing more light Bakken Shale crude oil than they have in the past—delivered principally by trains that have lately exhibited a nasty tendency for exploding—which yields particularly high levels of petroleum naphtha. More naphtha means more reformate, which in turn means more xylene.

The company expects to have the new xylene facility up and running by 2017, but first must seek construction permits from the State. A slow permitting process has discouraged other West Coast oil companies from pursuing similar petrochemical projects; Valero’s vice president of refining operations admitted that “It would be tough to get permits, at the end of the day.”

But what is xylene used for? And should we worry about it?

Xylenes have several primary applications. Paraxylene, often abbreviated to p- xylene, is generally considered the most valuable isomer thanks to its role as the principal precursor chemical in the production of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). PET is a plastic found in most water bottles and food containers, as well as polyester clothing. Researchers are alsoexamining its potential to leach endocrine disrupters—chemicals that interfere with human hormones. Xylenes can also be used as a solvent in the printing, rubber, paint, and leather industries. In histology, xylenes are used in the dehydration of biological tissue to make it suitable for microscope slides.

Colorless and sweet-smelling liquids, xylenes are flammable and moderately toxic by inhalation or ingestion. They do not dissolve in—and are less dense than—water. The main effect of inhaling xylene vapor is depression of the central nervous system, resulting in symptoms such as headache, dizziness, nausea and vomiting. Long-term exposure may lead to more headaches plus irritability, depression, insomnia, agitation, extreme tiredness, tremors, impaired concentration and short-term memory.

It poses at least some pollution risks. A xylene spill or leak into the soil or ground water could remain for months or more before it breaks down into other chemicals, while a surface water spill would difficult to contain because it is colorless. In fact, the only method for tracking the chemical is via air tests near the spill. That said, a surface spill could potentially be less persistent because xylenes evaporate easily and are broken down by sunlight into other, less-harmful chemicals. That was the case in 2007 when a tanker carrying xylene spilled about 42,000 gallons into the Mississippi River after a collision with a grain barge; within two days, most of the chemicals either evaporated or were flushed downriver.

There is some reason to worry about Tesoro’s ability to handle xylene production appropriately. Sightline’s review of the company finds a checkered history, including persistent problems at the Golden Eagle Refinery in California (which would supply some of the reformate for xylene production), a deadly and much-criticized fire at the Anacortes Refinery, and atroubling pattern of withholding information from the public and regulators.

http://www.facesoffracking.org/

By Marcus Stern and Sebastian Jones, Reporting for InsideClimate News – Dec 8, 2014

http://stories.weather.com/boom?cm_ven=FB_WX_RD_120814_1_pd