The Rising Tide: A Week in Review of Rail

Terry Wechsler, a co-founder of Protect Whatcom, is a local public interest attorney.

Our cover article last month opened with an account of train spotters in Everett sitting by the tracks 24/7 one week in May to count 18 Bakken crude trains traveling to refineries in Skagit and Whatcom Counties. A little over two weeks later, on July 17, KOMO News reported that a train carrying liquid petroleum gas (LPG) derailed the prior evening at a switching yard on West Marine Drive in Everett.

No gas escaped in that incident, but it underscored the probable increased risk of transporting ever more fossil fuels by rail through our state. Consider this: The 1900 block of West Marine Drive, the derailment site, is home to a restaurant and other businesses to the west, and hundreds of homes less than two blocks to the east.

LPG is a by-product of fracking North Dakota Bakken crude. It has found markets in Asia, but it is the Bakken crude oil itself, in spite of its unique volatility, that west coast refiners crave. We reported last month that that crude is now moving in rising amounts to Tesoro Anacortes and BP Cherry Point, as other area refineries complete permitting and infrastructure construction.

Banning “the Bombs” …

On July 15, the environmental law firm, Earth Justice, filed a petition on behalf of the Sierra Club and Forest Ethics with the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). It requested “an emergency order prohibiting the shipment of Bakken crude and other highly flammable crude oil in hazardous [DOT-111] tank cars….”

Earth Justice argued that federal law empowers DOT to issue such an order when “an unsafe condition or practice constitutes an imminent hazard,” citing State Department estimates as of 2012 that crude and petroleum rail shipments would cause 6-28 deaths and 49-189 injuries annually. Since 2012, the petition noted, a surge in production in the Bakken shale play has resulted in a dramatic increase in crude by rail shipments which will only increase risk.

… Versus Phasing Out and Retrofitting

Also on July 15, Bloomberg reported that the American Petroleum Institute (API) and American Association of Railroads (AAR) had recently offered a joint proposal to the federal government. Under the API/AAR plan, the crude industry would voluntarily phase out DOT-111 tanker cars in three years “if manufacturers agree they can replace or retrofit the tank cars in that period.”

Refiners did not concur. Also on July 15, Reuters reported that a spokesman for the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the refining industry’s trade association, made clear it was not a party to the API/AAR proposal, citing the lack of a cost benefit analysis.

Petrochemical industry analyst RBN Energy LLC recently reported that at current manufacturing levels, it will take until the end of 2017 to manufacture newer safer rail cars to fill current back orders. What RBN did not analyze is what percentage of the current U.S. DOT-111 fleet is not represented by backorders for newer cars, and how long it would take to retrofit older cars that will not be replaced.

Earth Justice argued in its petition to DOT that allowing the industry to phase in safer tanker cars as feasible in unacceptable given the known risks. They cite National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) data from two decades ago which documented the fact that 50% of DOT-111 tankers puncture and leak after accidents. The petition notes also that BNSF Railroad – a common carrier required to transport legal substances, including Bakken crude – is lobbying for crude shippers to upgrade to CPC-1232 cars which are 76% more crashworthy.

For its part, the NTSB has called for immediate action since April, when Chairwoman Deborah A.P. Hersman accused the federal government of a “tombstone mentality,” as it waited for body counts to mount to justify ordering action, according to U.S. News & World Report.

“We don’t need a higher body count before they move forward. … We know the steps that will prevent or mitigate these accidents,” Hersman said.

Ultimately, the crude industry won. Rules introduced by the U.S. Department of Transportation Wednesday, July 23, were worse than anticipated. The proposed rules require a phase-out of manufacturing of DOT-111 tankers by 2015, allow the industry up to six years to replace and retrofit the existing fleet, and “lower” the speed limit of unit crude trains to 40 mph in populated areas.

Sen. Patty Murray called the rules “a step in the right direction” and Mayor Kelli Linville agreed with both the timing of the phase outs and the speed limit. Linville’s sole objection, reported the Bellingham Herald, was that the 40 mph rule applies only in cities with populations over 100,000, which would not include Bellingham.

As if in response to the rules, a crude train bound for Tesoro Anacortes derailed in Seattle under the Magnolia Bridge on Thursday, July 24th. BNSF reported no leaks or spills occurred.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch …

Crude in the news the week of the July 14 got all the headlines in the lay press. In social media, however, locals were discussing another development in fossil fuel transportation: on July 8, two to three empty unit coal trains began using the farmland route through the South Fork Valley, returning from Westshore coal terminal at Roberts Bank, Delta, British Columbia, through Sumas to the Powder River Basin.

Jeff Margolis, co-founder of Safeguard the South Fork, does not believe the rerouting is necessarily temporary. In a written statement, Margolis said, “This reroute demonstrates in fact that the Farmland Route is an integral part of the transportation system that could serve GPT,” and therefore the route must be studied as a reasonably foreseeable transportation impact in the GPT environmental impact statement (EIS).

Margolis’s neighbors have reported counting as many as six trains per day, most blocking intersections for five to six minutes. On July 15, one train blocked the Potter Road intersection in front of Margolis’ store on Hwy. 9 in Van Zandt for over 14 minutes.

“Folks in Skagit County need to start worrying,” he said, noting that the inland track follows Hwy. 20, a major local transportation corridor with numerous cross streets.

Plus a Revised GPT Site Plan

As issues with crude and coal train safety and routing escalate, the Bellingham Herald reported, also on July 15, that Pacific International Terminals (PIT) had filed a revised site plan for the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT) at Cherry Point. Supporting documents submitted with the site revisions revealed another change, however.

“PI Terminals intends to build the project to full capacity in a single construction sequence once project permitting is completed,” PIT attorney Ari Steinberg told County planning staff in a letter dated April 18.

Minimizing the construction schedule has significant implications for local rail traffic. PIT originally estimated 10 trains per day, loaded and empty, would cross Whatcom County at the end of construction Stage One, as stated in project information documents submitted in February 2011 to the County. In Stage Four, the number would increase to 18 but would not occur for at least another decade.

Heavy Traffic (Still) Ahead

Communitywise Bellingham has been trying for several years to focus Bellingham officials on the implications of increased rail traffic as the coastal route reaches capacity. The Washington Department of Transportation, for example, has long predicted the eventual need for a siding, beginning north of the city and extending south through Boulevard Park, to relieve the bottleneck at the border crossing at White Rock.

That issue and the inevitable need for grade changes at several crossings compelled City Councilman Michael Lilliquist to introduce a letter which the council approved Monday, July 21, urging the County planning department to consider the city’s infrastructure needs when scoping the GPT environmental impact statement (EIS).

County code, he said, requires that major projects cannot “impose uncompensated requirements” for new services or utilities. He told the Herald that local taxpayers could face “insurmountable financial burdens” in funding necessary overpasses. As we previously reported, federal law limits the railroads’ contribution for grade changes to 5%.

Meanwhile, Back in Olympia

In our October issue, we were “Doing the Math: Counting the Drops in a Fossil Fuel Tsunami.” That article included a table of roughly 20 fossil fuel transportation proposals which, combined, resulted in nearly 80 trains per day passing through Spokane, moving east and west between the Bakken shale play and Powder River Basin and area coasts. Total volume proposed exceed all freight on the rails in 2012.

Then, in February of this year, the Western Organization of Resource Councils released a report by rail analysts, “Heavy Traffic Still Ahead,” which concluded all fossil fuel transportation proposals could double rail traffic at key bottlenecks.

Asked to respond to the WORC report, State Rep. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, told KPLU News that just two, three or four grade separations could wipe out every economic benefit and “negate all the taxes generated from every one of these plants, for years and years and years.”

Residents of Everett and Seattle might add, “and expose us to unacceptable risk for years and years and years.”