HazmatDebate continues over releasing Pennsylvania crude oil shipment information

Over seventy-five million gallons of crude oil are passing through western Pennsylvania each week on their way to refineries, according to records released by the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA). Norfolk Southern Railway Co.moves between thirty and sixty-five oil trains across four routes each week through Allegheny and Westmoreland counties to refineries in Philadelphia, while CSX Transportation Inc. runs between two and ten trains across two routes. Release of the recently classified rail transport records by PEMA was a result of a federal mandate ordering railway companies to share information on interstate shipments of crude oil with state emergency management officials.

Months after the mandate, the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records faced a dispute with Norfolk Southern and CSX over whether rail shipment information should remain confidential or public knowledge. The two railway companies claim that releasing the information threatens security and is commercially sensitive. “We continue to believe that the information that we provided should be kept confidential both for security reasons and because its commercially sensitive to our customers,” said CSX spokesman Rob Doolittle. “The information is certainly available to the emergency agencies that would need it to respond. We believe that’s really where the information should be available.”

According to the Washington Times, the move by federal regulators to require railway companies to reveal shipment information comes after several accidents involving railcars transporting crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota. On 21 February 2013, Norfolk Southern rail cars transporting propane gas and Canadian crude oil derailed in Vandergrift in Westmoreland County, crashing into a metals factory and spilling thousands of gallons of crude oil. Although no one was injured, the crash highlighted the dangers of transporting crude oil via rail. Later in July, a train carrying crude oil crashed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, burning much of the downtown, and killing forty-seven people.

Since the accidents, railway companies have been subject to more frequent track inspections, required to maintain lower speed limits in urban areas, improve standards for new train cars, and provide shipment information to federal and state authorities. Knowledge of oil shipments that pass through their territories allow emergency management officials better to prepare and respond to potential disasters.

Norfolk Southern and CSX have been helpful in sharing information so state officials can prepare for accidents, and both parties are in talks to allow local emergency responders access to transport information in real-time, said Cory Angell, a PEMA spokesman. “That makes a huge difference in your ability to respond to any kind of situation,” he said. “That’s way more significant than what we have right now with this.”

Shipment of crude oil by rail in the United States has increased from 800,000 barrels a day in 2012 to 1.4 million in 2014, according to the Energy Policy Research Foundation. Sixty-six percent of the crude oil produced in the Bakken region is shipped to other parts of the United States by rail. “As Bakken production keeps rising, until we get some pipeline capacity, it’s got to leave by rail,” said Kevin J. Lindemer, an energy industry analyst with IHS in Boston. “That’s the only way.”