August 29, 2018
by Charley Bowman
Sierra Niagara Group
North Dakota is bursting at the geologic seams with hydrofracked, explosive Bakken crude oil. The oil companies are stuffing pipelines to carry that crude to refineries on both coasts and the Gulf of Mexico. But pipeline infrastructure to the east and west coasts is minimal, so oil companies need rail to transport their dirty frack oil. Pipelines carry about 50% of North Dakota’s 2.9 million barrels a day. The other half is transported by rail to coastal refineries.
Bakken crude oil is dirty for many reasons. Its extraction requires hydrofracking, and its combustion generates lots of carbon dioxide, which will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, fostering global climate change. The fresh water used for hydrofracking becomes permanently polluted. Liquid frack waste, which contains toxic toxic chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive substances, is also a threat to the environment. The waste water is ultimately disposed of in “someone else’s backyard”, legally or not. A recent Duke University study shows more and more water is being used to frack each well in North Dakota. The volume of water used now vastly exceeds the volume of oil recovered.
Worse, Bakken crude contains volatile chemicals, such as toluene and cancer-causing benzene. It's explosive because it contains propane and butane. When Bakken crude oil tankers derail, the tank cars often rupture and leak their contents into the environment. After the toxic volatile chemicals evaporate into the atmosphere, the oil sinks to the bottom of water bodies. The oil-coated river bottom causes tumors in the fish population.
This oil penetrates the soil if leaked onto the ground. “Clean-up” is a misnomer. Studies have shown that it’s impossible to remove all the oil once it binds to soil particles. We pollute both the air and ground —
essentially irreversibly — by extracting and burning Bakken crude oil. Bakken crude oil is the very nadir of our extractive economy.
essentially irreversibly — by extracting and burning Bakken crude oil. Bakken crude oil is the very nadir of our extractive economy.
After a lull following June 2017, Bakken crude is again coming through upstate NY. Why? World oil prices are now high, which favors Bakken crude oil shipments through NY State. Predictions are these trains will become increasingly frequent in NY State by 2019.
What could go wrong?
For a start, consider the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster. Five years ago, 47 town residents lost their lives when an unattended bomb train derailed in downtown Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Dozens of tankers leaked their contents, which exploded into an inferno. Numerous rivers of fire traveled toward the nearby lake, as firefighters dug trenches to divert the flames to minimize impact.
Multiple BLEVEs (boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions) prohibited first responders from approaching the conflagration for 12 hours. The fires burned for over 30 hours, one thousand residents were evacuated and 30 buildings destroyed. Envision a rail tanker car containing 25,000 gallons of Bakken crude oil simultaneously rupturing and exploding. The Wall Street Journal showed that a BLEVE in a Bakken crude tanker will result in 50% fatalities in a radius of one-third of a mile.
There have been more Bakken crude oil train derailments, fortunately without loss of life. If we include both tar-sands oil and ethanol train derailments, there were 38 accidents over a period of 47 months. Six accidents resulted in BLEVEs and 10 leaked oil into the environment.
As bomb-train derailments mounted in the fall of 2013, Governor Cuomo finally ordered the Department of Transportation (DOT) to inspect NY State’s rail and tanker car infrastructure. The Federal Railroad Agency (FRA) helped in each unannounced inspection. Between 2014 and 2017, the DOT and FRA performed 21 surprise inspections of tankers hauling Bakken crude or tar-sands oil, and 21 track inspections in NY State. DOT/FRA found hundreds of defects in both tracks and tankers.
The governor’s office and the DOT issued very detailed press releases for 13 of these inspections. For reasons unknown, the press releases ceased after February 2017. We thought this meant the rail and track inspections also stopped — along with the Bakken crude oil rail shipments — but Acting DOT Commissioner Paul Karas wrote in a recent Buffalo News op-ed that rail and tanker inspections continue to this day. The governor’s office and DOT should once again issue detailed press releases regarding the ongoing rail and tanker inspections.
Some of these bomb train accidents resulted in oil seeping into the environment. Oil can pollute aquifers — permanently. NY State has many productive aquifers, such as the Great Flats Aquifer that serves 150,000 people in Schenectady and Saratoga counties. In 1985, the EPA designated the Great Flats Aquifer as a “sole source aquifer." In the same year, the NYS Department of Conservation designated the aquifer as a “critical environmental area." These designations by state and federal agencies underscore the importance of this unique aquifer. Yet “pipelines on rails” are allowed to travel for eight miles over the recharge area of the Great Flats Aquifer — in the absence of an environmental review. If an underground pipeline were proposed along the same route, the project would undergo extensive FERC and NYS DEC environmental assessment.
“Pipelines on rails” are exempt from environmental review.
Meanwhile, bomb train derailments continue and the increasing intensity of rainstorms is causing havoc on the tracks. On June 22, a bomb train derailed near Doon, Iowa, spilling 160,000 gallons of tar-sands oil into flooded farm fields. On August 9, a mixed freight train derailed near Deposit, NY, spilling 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the west branch of the Delaware River. Initial accident assessments indicate both derailments were caused by heavy rains weakening track foundations.
During July 22–23, fifteen volunteers from the Sierra-Niagara Group, Western NY Drilling Defense and the Environmental Justice Task Force of the WNY Peace Center staged a 24-hour bomb train watch at the Amtrak station in Depew, NY. Apart from dozens of other hazardous substances, such as butane, toluene, chlorine gas, and dozens of others with longer chemical names (a full list can be found on the Environmental Justice Task Force’s website), we observed two westbound bomb trains. These two trains were likely “empty” tankers returning to North Dakota. Long-time rail experts believe that “empty” tankers still contain hundreds of gallons of Bakken crude oil if the tanker cars still display the “1267” hazmat tag — as these westbound tankers did.
The regulatory environments surrounding below-ground and “above-ground pipelines” are worlds apart, but the risks to people and the environment are identical. At minimum, the transport of hazardous substances by rail should require environmental risk assessments at the state and federal levels. Considering recent history, the likelihood is that bomb trains would have a very difficult time passing muster.
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