Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
Another Oil Train Derails and Catches Fire in Ontario
GOGAMA, Ont.— An oil train derailed and caught fire early this morning in Ontario near the town of Gogama, the second such incident in Ontario in three weeks, and the fourth oil train wreck in North America in the same time period. Since Feb. 14, there have also been fiery oil train derailments in West Virginia and Illinois. The Illinois wreck occurred just two days ago, and the fire from that incident is still burning.
“Before one more derailment, fire, oil spill and one more life lost, we need a moratorium on oil trains and we need it now” said Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The oil and railroad industries are playing Russian roulette with people’s lives and our environment, and the Obama administration needs to put a stop to it.”
In the United States, some 25 million people live within the one-mile “evacuation zone” of tracks carrying oil trains. In July 2013, a fiery oil train derailment in Quebec resulted in the loss of 47 lives and more than a million gallons of oil spilled into a nearby lake. A report recently released by the Center for Biological Diversity also found that oil trains threaten vital wildlife habitat; oil trains pass through 34 wildlife refuges and critical habitat for 57 endangered species.
Today’s Ontario accident joins an ever-growing list of devastating oil train derailments over the past two years. Oil transport has increased from virtually nothing in 2008 to more than 500,000 rail cars. Billions of gallons of oil pass through towns and cities ill-equipped to respond to the kinds of explosions and spills that have been occurring. Millions of gallons of crude oil have been spilled into waterways. In 2014, a record number of spills from oil trains occurred.
There has been a more than 40-fold increase in crude oil transport by rail since 2008, but no significant upgrade in federal safety requirements. The oil and rail industries have lobbied strongly against new safety regulations that would help lessen the danger of mile-long trains carrying highly flammable crude oils to refineries and ports around the continent. The Obama administration recently delayed for several months the approval of proposed safety rules for oil trains. The proposed rules fall short because they fail to require appropriate speed limitations, and it will be at least another two and a half years before the most dangerous tank cars are phased out of use for the most hazardous cargos. The oil and railroad industries have lobbied for weaker rules on tank car safety and brake requirements.
The administration also declined to set national regulations on the level of volatile gases in crude oil transported by rail, instead deciding to leave that regulation to the state of North Dakota, where most of the so-called “Bakken” crude originates. Bakken crude oil has been shown to have extremely high levels of volatile components such as propane and butane but the oil industry has balked at stripping out these components because the process is expensive and these “light ends” in the oil bring a greater profit. The North Dakota rules, which go into effect next month, set the level of volatile gases allowed in Bakken crude at a higher level than was found in the crude that set the town of Lac Mégantic, Quebec on fire in 2013, or that blew up in the derailment that occurred last month in West Virginia.
The crude involved in today’s accident may be another form of flammable crude, called diluted bitumen, originating in Alberta’s tar sands region. The Feb. 14 derailment and fire in Ontario on the same rail line involved an oil train hauling bitumen, otherwise known as tar sands.
“Today we have another oil train wreck in Canada, while the derailed oil train in Illinois is still smoldering. Where’s it going to happen next? Chicago? Seattle?” said Matteson. “The Obama administration has the power to put an end to this madness and it needs to act now because quite literally, people’s lives are on the line.”
In addition to its report on oil trains, the Center has sued for updated oil spill response plans, petitioned for oil trains that include far fewer tank cars and for comprehensive oil spill response plans for railroads as well as other important federal reforms, and is also pushing to stop the expansion of projects that will facilitate further increases in crude by rail.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 825,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Press Release: March 7, 2015
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/crude-oil-transport-03-07-2015.html
Center for Biological Diversity
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/
In the United States, some 25 million people live within the one-mile “evacuation zone” of tracks carrying oil trains. In July 2013, a fiery oil train derailment in Quebec resulted in the loss of 47 lives and more than a million gallons of oil spilled into a nearby lake. A report recently released by the Center for Biological Diversity also found that oil trains threaten vital wildlife habitat; oil trains pass through 34 wildlife refuges and critical habitat for 57 endangered species.
Today’s Ontario accident joins an ever-growing list of devastating oil train derailments over the past two years. Oil transport has increased from virtually nothing in 2008 to more than 500,000 rail cars. Billions of gallons of oil pass through towns and cities ill-equipped to respond to the kinds of explosions and spills that have been occurring. Millions of gallons of crude oil have been spilled into waterways. In 2014, a record number of spills from oil trains occurred.
There has been a more than 40-fold increase in crude oil transport by rail since 2008, but no significant upgrade in federal safety requirements. The oil and rail industries have lobbied strongly against new safety regulations that would help lessen the danger of mile-long trains carrying highly flammable crude oils to refineries and ports around the continent. The Obama administration recently delayed for several months the approval of proposed safety rules for oil trains. The proposed rules fall short because they fail to require appropriate speed limitations, and it will be at least another two and a half years before the most dangerous tank cars are phased out of use for the most hazardous cargos. The oil and railroad industries have lobbied for weaker rules on tank car safety and brake requirements.
The administration also declined to set national regulations on the level of volatile gases in crude oil transported by rail, instead deciding to leave that regulation to the state of North Dakota, where most of the so-called “Bakken” crude originates. Bakken crude oil has been shown to have extremely high levels of volatile components such as propane and butane but the oil industry has balked at stripping out these components because the process is expensive and these “light ends” in the oil bring a greater profit. The North Dakota rules, which go into effect next month, set the level of volatile gases allowed in Bakken crude at a higher level than was found in the crude that set the town of Lac Mégantic, Quebec on fire in 2013, or that blew up in the derailment that occurred last month in West Virginia.
The crude involved in today’s accident may be another form of flammable crude, called diluted bitumen, originating in Alberta’s tar sands region. The Feb. 14 derailment and fire in Ontario on the same rail line involved an oil train hauling bitumen, otherwise known as tar sands.
“Today we have another oil train wreck in Canada, while the derailed oil train in Illinois is still smoldering. Where’s it going to happen next? Chicago? Seattle?” said Matteson. “The Obama administration has the power to put an end to this madness and it needs to act now because quite literally, people’s lives are on the line.”
In addition to its report on oil trains, the Center has sued for updated oil spill response plans, petitioned for oil trains that include far fewer tank cars and for comprehensive oil spill response plans for railroads as well as other important federal reforms, and is also pushing to stop the expansion of projects that will facilitate further increases in crude by rail.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 825,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Press Release: March 7, 2015
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/crude-oil-transport-03-07-2015.html
Center for Biological Diversity
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
Truth be known since the sixties Railways have been hit by a wrongheaded policy of slashing crew sizes beyond the safety code limits, which is five people per freight crew.
That is because of the trains architechure of having a front and a back that must be protected on both sides two in the head end, an engineer and a second engineer to cover the movement on both sides of the train, and a further crew member to cover the CTC--central traffic control should that fail and the fifth crew member can then manually move the switches by hand. Also in a caboose in the rear there must be two crew members to cover the motion of the train from the rear. That crew of five covers the safety and motion of the train at all times on the main line.
During the sixties there was another safety factor in that a group of workers called "Car Knockers" were at work in each railyard where each train intitiates. These men (women were not allowed to work in the running trades during the sixties) had steel hammers and they knocked on the brakes and wheels in a freight yard to test the strenght of the moving parts and brakes.
These car knockers had the ability to spot good from bad on all wagons or cars in the consist of the train. If they found bad order cars they had the power to remove the B/O and replace it with one that worked fully-safety wise. These union men have been dissmissed and today on the railways there is literally no one fully checking each and ever constituent of the entire lenght of the train--as the car knockers did before each train was given the green lite to move on to the Main Line on scheduled time, etc.
Loss of Car Knockers is not progress but unsafe deregulation of the workings of railways throughout Canada, United States and Mexico, and around the world.
Todays trains have been reduced from five members per freight crew, to four, then to three, then to two on the head-end, and in the case of Lac-Megantic Quebec in July 2013 only one crew member was allowed by the phoney Canadian Safety Board which is run by the Executives of the Railway Companies rather than the needs for safety with crew sizes that supply the intelligence and safety that only a properly comprised crew brings to fully safe train.
Austerity of the companies on rail does not protect the organized working classes living in communities in the scope of the railways it threatens the ecological organic balances of the web-of-life along the mainlines.
Management is criminally irresponsible for allowing short crew sized that cause these terrible disasters that have been happening for the last fifty years.
Most of these so-called accidents are censored by the rail companies so you the public are not aware that they even take place.
I do hope that IWW- local 520 does take notice that shortage of crew size rests solely with the Bosses at the top, and that the rail unions have been fighting back for the last five decades for safe conditions deliberately denied them by the top managers.
In fact the Canadian Government and the U.S. Government declares the railworkers strkes for safe working conditions to be a threat to the national security of economy and threatens with unjust laws to bring cops, and the Armies in to suppress them.
That is the sad story and the growing numbers of so-called accidents proves the authorities are failing to stand up for the organized working classes, and the safety that a properly comprised crew size brings to the communities where the peoples, plants, and animals live.
You yet have a world to win!! End deregulation of railways by pollution and short crews. Re-tool Canadian and U.S. railways to the renewable energy such as wind, tidal, and solar power than transforms to electricity and is more power than all the fossil fuels combined. Workers of the world Unite!!
That is because of the trains architechure of having a front and a back that must be protected on both sides two in the head end, an engineer and a second engineer to cover the movement on both sides of the train, and a further crew member to cover the CTC--central traffic control should that fail and the fifth crew member can then manually move the switches by hand. Also in a caboose in the rear there must be two crew members to cover the motion of the train from the rear. That crew of five covers the safety and motion of the train at all times on the main line.
During the sixties there was another safety factor in that a group of workers called "Car Knockers" were at work in each railyard where each train intitiates. These men (women were not allowed to work in the running trades during the sixties) had steel hammers and they knocked on the brakes and wheels in a freight yard to test the strenght of the moving parts and brakes.
These car knockers had the ability to spot good from bad on all wagons or cars in the consist of the train. If they found bad order cars they had the power to remove the B/O and replace it with one that worked fully-safety wise. These union men have been dissmissed and today on the railways there is literally no one fully checking each and ever constituent of the entire lenght of the train--as the car knockers did before each train was given the green lite to move on to the Main Line on scheduled time, etc.
Loss of Car Knockers is not progress but unsafe deregulation of the workings of railways throughout Canada, United States and Mexico, and around the world.
Todays trains have been reduced from five members per freight crew, to four, then to three, then to two on the head-end, and in the case of Lac-Megantic Quebec in July 2013 only one crew member was allowed by the phoney Canadian Safety Board which is run by the Executives of the Railway Companies rather than the needs for safety with crew sizes that supply the intelligence and safety that only a properly comprised crew brings to fully safe train.
Austerity of the companies on rail does not protect the organized working classes living in communities in the scope of the railways it threatens the ecological organic balances of the web-of-life along the mainlines.
Management is criminally irresponsible for allowing short crew sized that cause these terrible disasters that have been happening for the last fifty years.
Most of these so-called accidents are censored by the rail companies so you the public are not aware that they even take place.
I do hope that IWW- local 520 does take notice that shortage of crew size rests solely with the Bosses at the top, and that the rail unions have been fighting back for the last five decades for safe conditions deliberately denied them by the top managers.
In fact the Canadian Government and the U.S. Government declares the railworkers strkes for safe working conditions to be a threat to the national security of economy and threatens with unjust laws to bring cops, and the Armies in to suppress them.
That is the sad story and the growing numbers of so-called accidents proves the authorities are failing to stand up for the organized working classes, and the safety that a properly comprised crew size brings to the communities where the peoples, plants, and animals live.
You yet have a world to win!! End deregulation of railways by pollution and short crews. Re-tool Canadian and U.S. railways to the renewable energy such as wind, tidal, and solar power than transforms to electricity and is more power than all the fossil fuels combined. Workers of the world Unite!!
The previous comment addressed why so many accidents but I want to talk about why the fires and even explosions.
They call it oil, and you wonder, "but oil is hard to light and doesn't explode". Well the oil you burn in your home furnace or or use in your diesel is after having been refined. The light molecular weight components have been removed to be sold separately. Those lighter weight components are volatile, in fact, some could be considered as gasses dissolved in the liquid (methane, ethane, propane, and above 32F, butane). Gasoline will burn explosively, but 100 octane gasoline is a mix equivalent to octane.
For safe(r) shipping the more volatile components need to be removed and shipped separately (and in different cars, not all together). But there are no refining facilities near where this stuff is being pumped out of the ground.
Like I said, the previous person is right about what is causing the frequency of accidents, the train crews stripped down to the point that only maybe OK if EVERYTHING is going right. But some accidents would still happen even if we went back to requiring full train crews.
They call it oil, and you wonder, "but oil is hard to light and doesn't explode". Well the oil you burn in your home furnace or or use in your diesel is after having been refined. The light molecular weight components have been removed to be sold separately. Those lighter weight components are volatile, in fact, some could be considered as gasses dissolved in the liquid (methane, ethane, propane, and above 32F, butane). Gasoline will burn explosively, but 100 octane gasoline is a mix equivalent to octane.
For safe(r) shipping the more volatile components need to be removed and shipped separately (and in different cars, not all together). But there are no refining facilities near where this stuff is being pumped out of the ground.
Like I said, the previous person is right about what is causing the frequency of accidents, the train crews stripped down to the point that only maybe OK if EVERYTHING is going right. But some accidents would still happen even if we went back to requiring full train crews.
As a blacklisted CNR- Canadian National Railway Yardforman-Conductor I've said this conception of liberation to the entire industrial revolution must occur-- re-tool to the renewables such as wind, tidal and solar power that transforms to electricity.
To show I truly believe in never but ending the fossil fuels of pollution, such as coal, gas, oil and nuclear fission atomic power plants which poison pollute the atmosphere globally, I express my blacklisting this way----coal, gas, oil and atomic energy is destroying the planet's organic web-of-life, and therefore the last fifty years has brought into being the hi and low tech tools to put in place wind, tidal, and solar power that transforms to electricity and is more power than can be used by all societies. No more blackouts. This non-pollution solution allows for solar panels to be put on both sides of the railway tracks, and with battery storage stations placed appropriately along the tracks to motivate the movement of trains with electricity.
Such a new way of motivation of the industrial revolution allows mother nature to restore the oxygen to a positive valance again and thusly to a livability of the planet instead of a fossil fuel burn-out of oxygen (already 40% gone to cabon-dioxide by the first industrial revolution) and further that the pipelines motivated by solar power can the be used to take water from the Oceans, and drop the salt out and move the fresh water to where needed so the concept of drought will be ended for ever. Planned society.
The sun shines on each and every roof globally. Installed with solar panels by building codes would allow life, cold refrigeration, heat, transportation, communication etc. No more pollution by fossil fuels.
You yet have a world to win!! End pollution wars, not endless wars for more and more pollution. Workers of the world Unite!!
To show I truly believe in never but ending the fossil fuels of pollution, such as coal, gas, oil and nuclear fission atomic power plants which poison pollute the atmosphere globally, I express my blacklisting this way----coal, gas, oil and atomic energy is destroying the planet's organic web-of-life, and therefore the last fifty years has brought into being the hi and low tech tools to put in place wind, tidal, and solar power that transforms to electricity and is more power than can be used by all societies. No more blackouts. This non-pollution solution allows for solar panels to be put on both sides of the railway tracks, and with battery storage stations placed appropriately along the tracks to motivate the movement of trains with electricity.
Such a new way of motivation of the industrial revolution allows mother nature to restore the oxygen to a positive valance again and thusly to a livability of the planet instead of a fossil fuel burn-out of oxygen (already 40% gone to cabon-dioxide by the first industrial revolution) and further that the pipelines motivated by solar power can the be used to take water from the Oceans, and drop the salt out and move the fresh water to where needed so the concept of drought will be ended for ever. Planned society.
The sun shines on each and every roof globally. Installed with solar panels by building codes would allow life, cold refrigeration, heat, transportation, communication etc. No more pollution by fossil fuels.
You yet have a world to win!! End pollution wars, not endless wars for more and more pollution. Workers of the world Unite!!
Current lack of enforcement ignores growing threats of Bakken oil
explosions so extensive and toxic, fire chiefs have testified that
“even if we had an infinite amount of foam,” the fires and toxic
emissions would continue until all fuel had been exhausted, killing
people and destroying wide swaths of land and riverbanks as they
burned. Railroads are making secret decisions and hiding documents to
such an extent, the federal Department of Transportation says it’s
“impossible to know” to what extent railroads have prioritized or
ignored safety in choosing routes. Railroads have also lobbied against
federal regulatory efforts aimed at retrofitting tank cars for greater
safety. Congress and the White House, Homeland Security and the FRA
need to address the danger of Bakken oil explosions before disaster strikes.
That's why I signed a petition to Joseph C. Szabo, Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration, which says:
"It’s time the Federal Railroad Administration enforces existing law
requiring regulation to preserve health and safety in communities
adjacent to railroad traffic, particularly in metropolitan areas.
"
Will you sign the petition too? Click here to add your name:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/enforce-railroad-health?source=s.fwd&r_by=1718159
Thanks!
Listen we,ve signed petitions forever and the simple fact is the executives or CEO,s have simply refused to intitiate safety.
The working classes need safety as one false move can kill the livability around the tracks, and that includes the organic plants, animals, people and the inorganic environment air, land, and water.
It is here that we say the workers themselves must unite for their own good and well-beingness. Governments and safety authorities have long ago abandoned and collaborated with the suppression of the working classes demanding clean non-polluted work areas.
You can sign petitions till the cows come home, its good practice to improve the Engllish Language with some meaning that can save our mother earth, but it is still the unity of the workers together that will finally save this planets inorganic and organic ecolgical web-of-life on planet earth. You yet have a world to win!! Workers of the world unite!!
The working classes need safety as one false move can kill the livability around the tracks, and that includes the organic plants, animals, people and the inorganic environment air, land, and water.
It is here that we say the workers themselves must unite for their own good and well-beingness. Governments and safety authorities have long ago abandoned and collaborated with the suppression of the working classes demanding clean non-polluted work areas.
You can sign petitions till the cows come home, its good practice to improve the Engllish Language with some meaning that can save our mother earth, but it is still the unity of the workers together that will finally save this planets inorganic and organic ecolgical web-of-life on planet earth. You yet have a world to win!! Workers of the world unite!!
Oil companies like to use the minimal amount of safety because of cost. There may be hitec options available but they won't be used. In the gulf, BP used a cheap blow out preventor which failed and thus became North Americas largest polluter. WalMart stores dumped millions of pounds of toxic chemicals down storm drains or in public land fills and was subjected to the second largest fine in the U.S. for pollution.
Corporations figure it is cheaper to pay the fine rather than do the work with proper safe guards. There are dozens of examples.
Either we figure a way to bring corporate power under control or we pay the cost (socially, politically and economically).
Corporations figure it is cheaper to pay the fine rather than do the work with proper safe guards. There are dozens of examples.
Either we figure a way to bring corporate power under control or we pay the cost (socially, politically and economically).
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$140.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network