On February 26th of this year, a much delayed congressional hearing on oil-by-rail safety finally occurred. A mere eight months after the accident at Lac-Megantic. Members of congress had been asking for this hearing since shortly after Lac-Megantic in July of 2013, but Republican Jeff Denham, who was the person who could make the hearing happen, was more interested in fighting to stop high speed rail in California.
After being stalled for eight months, the hearing attendees finally heard some interesting information. Robert Sumwalt of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) testified about the tank cars being used to transport crude oil, the DOT-111's, and said the following:
“multiple recent serious and fatal accidents reflect substantial shortcomings in tank car design that create an unacceptable public risk.”
Of course the NTSB had been saying the DOT-111's were unsafe for decades. But the NTSB has no enforcement power. And so these tank cars are being used to transport materials that they were never designed to transport safely.
Imagine you had a gallon of corn oil in front of you in an open container. And you threw a match in it. It wouldn't be that exciting. Then imagine you had a gallon of gasoline. And you threw a match in it (just imagine this, don't try it at home). Things would get pretty dangerous and pretty exciting before the match even hit the surface of the gasoline.
Traditional crude oil is like corn oil. Which is what the DOT-111's were designed to carry. Bakken crude oil can be more explosive than gasoline. Which is one of the reasons 47 people died in Lac Megantic when those rail tank cars ruptured and exploded.
Today the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Administration(PHMSA) finally released their report on the properties of Bakken crude oil. And this was their conclusion:
Based upon the results obtained from sampling and testing of the 135 samples from August 2013 to May 2014, the majority of crude oil analyzed from the Bakken region displayed characteristics consistent with those of a Class 3 flammable liquid, PG I or II, with a predominance to PG I, the most dangerous class of Class 3 flammable liquids
Remember that example of a bucket of gasoline and a match? Well, it wasn't exactly accurate. Gasoline is Packing Group II. Which based on the report released by PHMSA today means it is less explosive than much of the Bakken crude oil. Additionally, the oil that was tested from the tank cars in Lac-Megantic was packing group II. The same as gasoline. But less explosive than much of the Bakken crude. Keep that in mind when you read the press coverage from the main stream media that is touting the great new safety regulations.
Here is Russell Gold at the Wall Street Journal.
The U.S. government wants to phase out thousands of railroad tank cars that carry crude oil and ethanol within two years, as part of proposed rules to upgrade safety for trains carrying flammable fuels.
Tens of thousands of these older DOT-111 tank cars will have to be replaced or retrofitted under the proposed rules, announced Wednesday. That is a faster deadline than Canada’s three-year timeline to upgrade or phase out the railcars used to carry oil, ethanol and other hazardous liquids
.
You might recognize Russell from his appearance on the Rachel Maddow show talking about oil trains. Unfortunately his article is very misleading.
Today's release from the Department of Transportation about the proposed regulations reads as follows:
"Specifically, within two years, it proposes the phase out of the use of older DOT 111 tank cars for the shipment of packing group I flammable liquids"
See what they did there? They are phasing out the use of the cars for packing group I materials. So the stuff in the rail cars at Lac Megantic, which is classified the same as gasoline, would
be unaffected by the proposed new regulations for the next 2-3 years. And in all likelihood, it will be transported in those cars for another 5 years or more. What was described by the NTSB as an "unacceptable public risk" won't be addressed for years. Of course the public didn't have
lobbyists working hard to influence these regulations in private White House meetings these last few months.
And despite what the WSJ says, it is not faster than Canada's proposed phaseout of DOT-111's for any flammable liquids (not just packing group I) which has a target date of May 2017.
More troubling is the fact that the oil companies are the ones who test the oil and determine what packing group it belongs in. Earlier this year PHMSA tested 18 samples of Bakken crude and found that the oil companies had misclassified 11 of them. And yet when the DOT announced new oil testing requirements for the industry earlier this year, they quietly relaxed them after pressure from the industry.
So, the new regulations will require the phase out of the most dangerous cars from carrying the most dangerous oil within two years from the point that these proposed regulations are finally implemented, which is at the very least several months from now, but this will require the oil industry to accurately test and classify the oil. Something they have failed to do in the past.
And as troubling as these regulations are, they are just proposed regulations. If you read them you will see that their are several options given as to possible actual regulations. Like for the tank cars the follow three options are included.
Tank car option 1 would have 9/16 inch steel, would be outfitted with electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes and would be equipped with rollover protection.
Tank car option 2 would also have 9/16 inch steel but would not require ECP brakes or rollover protection.
Tank car option 3 is based on a 2011 industry standard and has 7/16 inch steel, and does not require ECP brakes or rollover protection
So it ranges from Option 1 which according to a massive rail industry database on rail car crashes, is predicted to be 85% less likely to rupture in a crash than the existing DOT-111 cars. And that 85% doesn't even account for the fact that ECP brakes are much safer than the brakes on the majority of trains. Like the ones on the train in Lac Megantic that failed when the locomotive was turned off that were air brakes that have been described as "
19th century technology."
However, option 3 is essentially the cars that they are currently building. Known as CPC-1232s. One of the cars in the Lynchburg, VA train crash that ruptured and exploded was that type of car. And that train crashed going only 24 miles per hour. So, one of the proposed options for the new rule is essentially the "do nothing safer" option. A nice starting point for the industry to begin to negotiate. I guess the "how about we make the cars less safe" option seemed a bit too much for them to propose.
And now the public comment period begins. Feel free to comment on the regulations. Although, if you wanted to have some influence, you really should have gotten one of those private meetings at the White House. They seem to have been very effective. You will notice that both the American Petroleum Institute and the American Association of Railroads had only good things to say today about the new regulations. But, then again, they had time to craft their statements, as it was reported they cut a deal with regulators on all of this earlier this month.