HazmatSurge in shipment of oil by rail comes at a high cost: deadly accidents, derailments, and oil-spills

In 2008 American railroads carried 9,500 cars of crude oil. By year end 2013, that number reached 415,000 cars loads.

America’s energy boom, made possible by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and the surge in oil output in North Dakota’s Bakken region, have made crude by rail tremendously profitable for the nation’s top railroad companies. Even as the price per barrel of oil drops, the six largest North American railroad companies reported a record 38,775 carloads of petroleum the second week of December 2014, according to McClatchy DC. “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.

McClatchy DC, through a series of investigations of railroad accidents and safety violations by the industry, concludes, however, that the surge in crude by rail has come at a high cost. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, tank cars filled with crude oil roll across a 116-year-old wooden railroad bridge over the Black Warrior River. Larry Mann, one of the foremost authorities on rail safety, and who, as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill in 1970, helped write the Federal Railroad Safety Act which authorized the federal government to regulate the safety of railroads, said the deterioration of the bridge demonstrates the limited ability of government and railroads 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 Mann.

In recent months railroads have taken steps to rebuild poor tracks and bridges and some are redesigning the tank cars that carry crude oil. In July 2014, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) proposed a 2017 deadline for railroads to phase out or retrofit the DOT-111 tank car. The car has received multiple warnings for decades due to its involvement in multiple tank car spills and explosions.

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) also issued a safety advisory requesting companies to take all possible steps to avoid using DOT-111 tank cars when transporting Bakken crude, said Kevin Thompson, a spokesman for the agency. Later this month, DOT is expected to issue a set of new rules regarding transportation of flammable liquids by rail. “Safety is our top priority,” said Thompson, “both in the rule-making and through other immediate actions we have taken over the last year and a half.” Those plans for improvements, however, came too late for many communities.

In July 2013 a crude oil train derailed in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. The explosion that followed destroyed fifty buildings, led to the death of forty-seven people, and destroyed much of the town’s business district. On 30 April 2014, a CSX crude oil train derailed in downtown Lynchburg, Virginia, spilling 30,000 gallons of Bakken crude into the James River. Shortly after these incidents, states and DOT sought improvements in the way railroads operated. DOT issued an emergency order requiring railroads carrying more than one million gallons of Bakken crude oil or about thirty-five tank cars to notify state emergency-response teams of the location and frequency of such shipments so that they could be better prepared to deal with future accidents. States also began to make available to the public, through open records requests, shipment information.

“Sometimes it takes a disaster to get elected officials and agencies to address problems that were out there,” said Representative Michael Michaud (D-Maine), a former member of the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials, who recently left Congress after six terms.

Some railroads seeking to ban the public disclosure of shipment information have sued states. Ed Greenberg, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads, said the industry is 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.

In October 2014 the FRA announced that no federal law protected Bakken oil train shipment information from public disclosure laws. Nevertheless, some states including Texas, Idaho, and Delaware still refuse to make Bakken shipment schedules open to the public. Railroad safety advocates are hoping DOT announcements expected later this month and the recent appointment of former DOT chief of staff, Sarah Feinberg, as the acting head of the FRA will address their concerns. Feinberg joined DOT weeks after the Lac-Mégantic rail accident, and has since served as a liaison between industry and regulators on railroad safety issues.