A year and a half after an oil train inferno ended 47 lives in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, the crude-by-rail industry rolls on, virtually unimpeded. It’s hard not to feel horrified when, one after another, we register the place names of oil train explosions—Aliceville, Alabama; Casselton, North Dakota; Lynchburg, Virginia—as grim warnings of what could happen in so many other North American communities.
Government regulators have been slow to act, their responses painfully milquetoast. As a result, much of what I do involves research into the often-complex details of federal rulemaking procedures, rail car design standards, insurance policies, and the like—all the issues that Sightline is shining a light on.
Yet on some level it’s not about any of that. It’s about a reckless and unaccountable oil industry that—in the most literal and obvious way—profits by putting our lives at risk. Every time I hear one of their accountability-shirking lines, I can’t help recalling images from those tragedies and near-tragedies. The juxtaposition is so startling that we decided to undertake a small photo project to capture it. We hope that you’ll find the following useful in your own work, and if so, that you’ll share the images with your own networks.
It’s practically a given that we’ll hear more empty reassurances and lies from oil and rail executives in the new year, and as growing numbers of oil trains crisscross the continent, there’s every likelihood we’ll have another catastrophe to catalog. To grasp the magnitude of the oil industry’s cynicism, it’s best to hear them in their own words.
Lynchburg, VA, Derailment by LuAnn Hunt (All rights reserved, used with permission.)
Aliceville, AL, Derailment by John Wathen (All rights reserved, used with permission.)
Lac-Mégantic Derailment by TSB Canada (All rights reserved, used with permission.)
Lac-Mégantic Derailment by TSB Canada (All rights reserved, used with permission.)
Lac-Mégantic Derailment by David Charron (All rights reserved, used with permission.)
Lynchburg, VA, Derailment by Michael Cover (All rights reserved, used with permission.)
William
KIRO did a news story on the train tunnel under Seattle and oil trains going through it. …the fire department was quoted as telling the Seattle City Council that an only train fire in the tunnel would result in an evacuation of downtown Seattle for an unknown amount of time. They also said they don’t have a credible way to fight such a fire in the tunnel.
It’s amazing these fire department facts haven’t gotten more attention. What would this cost impact of this be? Who would pay this bill?
Eva
William:
Examples abound of train tunnel fires and closures.
Many people who know this well, rely on paychecks and/or pensions and fear they would be suspended if they objectively shared the disasters they have been called to help and clean up.
The train tunnel that runs through the east coast hub, through Baltimore MD, north of DC and south of NYC was closed for an extended period of time, a few years back. These tracks move a lot of people and freight alng the eastern seaboard of the USA. The Baltimore Sun reported on it.
In 2014 another train tunnel in central city Baltimore experienced a mudslide and was closed when a street with vehicles parked on each side (26th st.)near Johns Hopkins U, completely collapsed and the street and cars went down th train tunnel. Mudslides are very very rare in this area, historically, the land and geology there is very different from CA. or Oso, WA.
My point is that we can improve our eco-nomics by investing in our infrastructure and putting people back to work for living wages. This will improve public health.
Trains are running on tracks that are in poor condition, RR are owned by individuals who are held up as Heroes (very Rovian*). We need to look behind the curtain ( the corporate veil) and expose these “Heroes” publicly and objectively for the robber barons that they are. People will see it for what it is!
(e.g.) Warren Buffet bought a rail line a few years back that heads to the ports along the pacific coast of WA and BC, with dirty crude and coal fom the Bakken and Tar Sands of CA— now I see why.
*Rovian doublespeak–Say the opposite of what is actually the truth– it’s so outrageous that people will believe its the truth, especially people with skin in their game.
Eva
J. Mills
“Bakken crude oil is properly transported in accordance with the DOT Hazardous Materials Regulations.”
Almost certainly, shipping crude in accordance with DOT regulations gives an exemption from any legal tort liability, or at least that’s deemed “not negligent” by the courts. All of this is an example of how, once the politicians have power to regulate transportation of hazardous waste, big corporate shippers will go commandeer the regulators for the benefit of the big corporations.
It used to be that oil producers could ship their stuff unregulated by anything other than the risk of having to pay all damages caused by negligence in transporting product, and any damages would be assessed by a local jury. Under that system, big corporations at least had to buy 1) a trial judge and 10 jurors, 2) an appellate judge panel, and 3) a panel of the Supreme Court.
Now, it’s all done much more simply and cheaply by buying up the regulators.
One rarely sees these kinds of problems in unregulated industries like, say, the business of buying and shipping computer monitors or Christmas trees.
John Reagan
U.S. DOT Announces Comprehensive Proposed Rulemaking for the Safe Transportation of Crude Oil, Flammable Materials | Department of Transportation http://www.dot.gov/briefing-room/us-dot-announces-comprehensive-proposed-rulemaking-safe-transportation-crude-oil
These proposals would improve the safety of rail oil. However, not only are they 2 years away if approved, but the rail industry is already lining up to fight them….and with the GOP in control of our Congress, the chances of the rules being in effect aren’t likely, as they will be considered “government overstepping” (as we’ve seen with coal regulation), “job killing” and a burden on the industry. Oh well!
John Bremer
Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. is the largest US corporation that refuses to disclose its carbon bootprint. The Berkshire Hathaway top management is composed of bankers, stock pickers, and tax lawyers. As Sightline has pointed out, based on records from 2012, it owns about 100,000 rail cars that it leases to railroads, including the BNSF, its wholly owned subsidiary. In the case of coal, the railroad receives most of the revenue from coal delivered to power plants. Seems likely that also applies to the bomb trains.
M Metz
The solution to oil trains and oil tankers is the more extensive use of existing pipelines and building more as needed.