On 6 March, a locomotive pulling 21 tanks of shale oil from the Bakken fields of North Dakota derailed three miles south of Galena, Illinois. Five tanks were punctured in the ensuing impact. Their contents subsequently spilled across the surrounding area and ignited, threatening to contaminate the nearby Mississippi and dominating national news headlines for the next day or so.
Shortly after the accident, it emerged that the wagons carrying the crude oil were not, as many had initially suspected, older models more prone to puncture; rather, they were ‘1232’ tanks retrofitted according to supposedly stringent federal safety standards.
That this happened was especially shocking to an industry that had already worked hard to improve safety standards after a spate of similar accidents across North America. In February, a derailment outside Mount Carbon in West Virginia saw 70,000 barrels of crude oil go up in flames; 2014 saw two wagons derail on a bridge in Philadelphia and teeter dangerously over the Schuylkill River, as well as nearly 150 minor incidents that year that caused around $7 million of damage. In July 2013, a 74-car freight train carrying an identical load was left unattended, subsequently derailed and killed 47 people in the Québécoise town of Lac-Mégantic when its cargo exploded.
Despite their scale, these accidents are – at least statistically speaking – entirely anomalous. Since 2004, the failure rate of railways cars carrying crude oil has been 0.001%. However, for the most part, they use the same lines that cater for passenger trains, meaning they often pass through urban areas.
In recent years, the amount of trains doing this has shot up, with the overall number of oil carloads rising from just over 9,500 in 2008 to 500,000 in 2014, according to the Association of American Railroads. This has not been matched by an expansion in infrastructure: pipeline construction has lagged, forcing oil companies to rely on the sureties of rail and, less commonly, road haulage to ship their product to refineries.
Unsurprisingly, observers of the freight industry increasingly fear a tragedy on the scale of Lac-Mégantic occurring in a major US city, or at least an environmental catastrophe, as so nearly happened with the Schuylkill River. In response, the US Department of Transportation has published a new set of rules for oil transportation, including more stringent requirements for braking systems and retrofitting the vast majority of tankers to improved safety standards by 2018.
Measured response
In the meantime, however, it’s becoming increasingly clear that it remains up to states and municipalities to devise their own appropriate emergency response plans.
According to Suzanne Lemieux, a policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute (API), that process can only succeed if all sides are sufficiently briefed.
"What helps is building awareness and understanding around what sort of freight is being moved through their communities," she says. "In turn, that helps them understand the rights and responsibilities of the carriers and emergency services."
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and Lemieux’s career could be said to have been an exercise in finding out just how much force it takes for that first link to snap. Initially at the Department of Energy and thereafter at API, she has examined, in minute detail, the potentially ruinous effect external shocks can have on the oil supply chain.
"That focus really began with looking at how the energy infrastructure could be restored after big climactic events, like hurricanes, and then gradually how that sort of disaster could affect the sector as a whole," she explains.
In the past year, Lemieux has been working along the same lines in promoting the Transportation Community Awareness and Emergency Response, or TRANSCAER, initiative throughout the US. An outreach group comprising volunteers from the rail, chemical and oil industries, as well as representatives of the Federal Government and first responders, TRANSCAER was founded in 1986 to encourage best practice in oil freight safety. Lemieux is herself a member of the organisation’s governing board.
"We’ve been working with the railroads and with carriers to ensure they are doing the right thing to enhance the safety of their operations, whether that’s in prevention or simply awareness of the diverse set of rules they face in different states across the country," she explains.
With the rise in the volume of oil transported by rail, state authorities are especially receptive to the message TRANSCAER is delivering. "We’re reaching out to the states and relevant companies on a continual basis," Lemieux adds. This is of special significance given the rapid changes taking place in the regulatory environment in the transportation of oil.
"Both just want to understand the practical implications of the new rules being put in place by the Federal Government, and what they can do to enforce them," says Lemieux. "We’re working with the Department of Transportation and our railroad partners to make absolutely sure this happens."
Get the message
This message is conveyed in a variety of ways – via training courses, educational materials and the organisation of national conferences on best practice in the industries. The latest effort is a comprehensive free presentation for first responders on the dangers to avoid when tackling oil fires.
"We’re really trying to make sure that the communities these trains pass through feel comfortable with our industry," says Lemieux. "There is a great deal of activity on the part of the states to try to educate first responders on what needs to be done to tackle such incidents; however, it’s a work in progress, and what we’re doing is using our insight as members of the oil industry to bridge that gap faster."
The 90-minute-long presentation has already inspired the Federal Government to develop a training course based on much of what is conveyed by TRANSCAER.
"We are partnering right now with the Pipeline Hazards Material Safety Administration to refine its outreach to first responders, with the aim of creating an eight-hour training course. That’s important because, in the end, that’s the arm of government assigned the task of coming up with new regulations. We’re also liaising closely with the Department of Transportation on a raft of new regulations set to arrive towards the end of this year."
Lemieux is not sympathetic with those who consider the oil industry’s continued partnership with rail operators as inimical to a safe and efficient supply chain.
"With any hazardous flammable liquid, there are always inherent risks in transporting it from the extraction point to the refinery or port," she says. "It’s important to bear in mind, though, that there are also inherent benefits: rail provides a level of accessibility that just isn’t possible with other methods like roads, shipping or pipelines. In the short to medium term, it’s unlikely you’ll see a pipeline built to the remote areas in North Dakota, Iowa or the Rockies."
Ultimately, she says, while all stakeholders in the shale boom need to prize safety above all else, part of that involves accepting and adapting to the dangers, however slight, that have acommpany it – and in working with the rail industry, there are more advantages than one might think.
"Essentially, we’re working with an industry that’s 100 years old," says Lemieux. "Crude oil comprises roughly 3% of the total freight they carry every year, and their safety record is extremely good. Obviously, as an industry, we’re working from a standpoint where we want to see zero accidents, but as we’re working towards that goal, we’re building from a strong base."
