An investigative journalist, Marcus Stern won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his investigation of San Diego Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. His reporting on the risks of rail transportation of crude oil was a joint effort of the environmental website InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel.
Marcus Stern has spent the past year investigating the practice of transporting oil on rail tanker cars in the USA and Canada. He was recently interviewed on NPR radio program "Fresh Air." The interview covers all the important topics -- the dangers of the oil, the inadequacy of the rail cars, the dangers of bridges and other old rail infrastructure, train conducting protocols, regulation and the selection of regulators and inspectors, the lack of disclosure of content, and more.
An investigative journalist, Marcus Stern won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his investigation of San Diego Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. His reporting on the risks of rail transportation of crude oil was a joint effort of the environmental website InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel.
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On Sunday, February 22, the San Francisco Chronicle published an editorial titled, "Government, industry need to get rid of exploding oil tank cars." The editorial noted, "When a train carrying crude oil derailed last week in West Virginia, sending up a fireball that burned for five days, communities on rail lines in California noted that the accident involved the newer — and it was hoped safer — CPC-1232 model tank cars."
The editorial concludes, "The government and the oil and rail industries will need to move more quickly to adopt new safety rules before communities along the rail lines can welcome oil trains rolling into town." We say that exploding oil trains with any design of car is still unsafe, especially when they are transporting the extremely volatile Bakkan crude. West Virginia Train Derailment image via coastguardnews/flickr. Creative Commons 2.0. by Justin Mikulka, originally published by DeSmog Blog | Feb 19, 2015
A month ago there was a close call for the oil-by-rail industry. As part of the Cromnibus bill that President Obama signed in December, new oil-by-rail regulations were supposed to be finalized and implemented by regulators by January 15th. Two days before that deadline, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the agency responsible for new regulations, posted new documents on their website related to recent meetings between PHMSA and various oil and rail industry lobbyists. They did not issue a press release about these meetings, unlike the meetings a year ago when the industry volunteered to try improving its safety record and there was plenty of publicity. And then it was announced that new regulations would once again be delayed, this time until May 2015. After Latest US Oil Train Disaster, Expert Says Tens of Millions Living Inside 'Blast Zone'2/18/2015 'We need to be moving away from production, transportation and use of fossil fuels, period—if we want a livable planet, that is.'
Fires continued to smolder Tuesday morning as emergency crews assessed the damage after a train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed and exploded near the Mt. Carbon area of Fayette County, West Virginia. Roughly 2,400 people have been evacuated or displaced by the derailment, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as the fire burned power lines, knocking out power to roughly 900 Appalachian Power customers. According to Kanawha County Manager Jennifer Sayre, the derailed CSX Corp oil train was hauling 109 cars—107 of which were carrying 33,000 gallons each of crude oil from the Bakken fields in North Dakota to a terminal in Yorktown, Virginia. As the second oil train disaster in as many days, environmentalists and safety advocates say that the incident highlights an urgent need for significant safety reforms. Thus far, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has primarily focused on the need to update oil-by-rail car safety, particularly older models of the DOT-111 tank car, the most common type of tank car, which inspectors say lacks adequate protections in derailments involving hazardous materials. However, following Monday's derailment, a CSX spokesperson confirmed that all of the oil tank cars on the derailed train were CPC 1232 models, which Reuters describes as "the newer, supposedly tougher version of the DOT-111 cars." In a statement to Common Dreams, Center for Biological Diversity senior scientist Mollie Matteson explained that the CPC 1232 is "little better" than its predecessor in incidents involving any speed and also "has proven to be highly vulnerable on impact." Further, its the model that ruptured in the derailment on the very same rail line in Lynchburg, Virginia last April. A train derailment earlier this afternoon (Monday, February 16) in West Virginia caused multiple explosions and a massive fire, and the CSX-owned train is leaking crude oil into the Kanawha River, officials said.Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency about 6 p.m. Eastern time. Nearly three hours after that declaration, the fire was still burning, and 1,000 people had been evacuated, according to Lawrence Messina, the state's public safety spokesman.
At least one home near the derailment in Fayette County caught fire and was destroyed, Messina said. Reuters reported on Sunday, February 15, that seven rail cars were on fire in northern Ontario after a train carrying crude oil derailed late on Saturday night. The train, heading from Alberta to eastern Canada, derailed shortly before midnight about 80 km (50 miles) south of Timmins, Ontario, a CN spokesman said. Canada's largest rail operator said 29 of 100 cars were involved and seven were on fire.
New science shows that thanks to methane leaks, gas won't work as a "bridge fuel."
Bill McKibben writes in Mother Jones about the science and politics of fracking and how Obama's "all of the above" approach to fueling the nation won't work without destroying the earth's climate. Brian Lewis talked to In These Times about his job as a Union Pacific Railroad conductor, from which he has just retired, and how much it has changed during his 36 years in the industry. He was long active in the United Transportation Union and also belongs to a cross-union reform group called Railroad Workers United (RWU). RWU has been fighting industry attempts to introduce single-employee train crews, which it believes are unsafe. RWU has also tried to warn regulators and the public about the dangers of longer and heavier trains, particularly those hauling hazardous materials like Bakken crude oil from North Dakota. Lewis talked to In These Times about how rail carriers have changed in the decades since Norworth’s long tour of duty and the challenges facing railroad workers today.
A recent report by David R. Baker in the San Francisco Chronicle and posted on SFGate details how "Oil companies in drought-ravaged California have, for years, pumped wastewater from their operations into aquifers that had been clean enough for people to drink ... with explicit permission from state regulators, who were supposed to protect the increasingly strained groundwater supplies from contamination."
David was on KQED-FM's "Forum" program today discussing the article and the facts. Meanwhile, a "March for Real Climate Leadership" is planned for this Saturday, starting at 11:30 at Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza, 14th and Broadway, in Oakland. |
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