10:06am: Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval

W.Va. not first place Bakken crude rail cars have exploded

According to the Association of American Railroads, “99.997 percent of the approximately 1.7 million carloads of hazmat successfully (reach) their final destination without a release caused by an accident.”

So, what happens the other .003 percent of the time?

We’re still in the very early stages of understanding what exactly happened yesterday when a number of CSX tanker cars derailed, destroyed a house and tumbled into the Kanawha River. CSX says at least one tank exploded and burned.

It was like a scene from a movie, as oil-fueled flames shot several hundred feet into the air and thick, black smoke billowed.   No one was killed and communities downstream were able to cut off their water intakes in time, but this was a terrifying accident.

While the overall rail safety record is notable, there has been increased concern over the last several years about rail shipments of Bakken crude out of North Dakota. The train that derailed and exploded yesterday along the Fayette-Kanawha County line was carrying Bakken crude from North Dakota to Yorktown, Virginia where, presumably, it would have been offloaded onto barges and shipped to a refinery.

ProPublica reported last November that since 2012, “when petroleum crude oil first began moving by rail in large quantities, there have been eight major accidents involving trains carrying crude in North America.” The worst was in July 2013 in Lac-Megantic, Quebec when a train carrying oil derailed and exploded, killing 47 people.

ProPublica said a technical expert testified at a National Transportation Safety Board panel last year that when an oil tank car ruptures it can cause a fireball release … the entire content of the tank car, up to 30,000 gallons is instantly released.” We’ll leave it up to the experts, but that’s certainly what it looked like yesterday at Mount Carbon.

A Wall Street Journal analysis last year concluded that “Bakken Shale formation contains several times more combustible gasses as oil from elsewhere … raising new questions about the safety of shipping such crude by rail across the U.S.”

A federal study concurs. A report by the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Authority last year concluded that Bakken petroleum “may be more flammable than traditional heavy crude.”

Meanwhile, the Journal went on to report that “Neither regulators nor the industry fully has come to terms with what needs to be done to improve safety. There have been some steps, for example, slowing trains and promising to redirect around high risk areas.”

The Bakken discovery has been a boon for North Dakota’s economy and a significant new source of energy for this country, lessening our dependence on foreign oil and holding down prices. However, the oil must still be shipped to refineries in other parts of the country and there aren’t enough pipelines to handle the capacity.  Railroads are the next best option.

The rail safety record for hazardous materials is impressive, but the failures are spectacular and dangerous.  The most frightening part about yesterday’s accident, as we know from recent history, is that it could have been worse.





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