The oil trains that go through Spokane and several other large American cities each day are a real concern to me. Since July 2013, there have been over a dozen major derailments of oil trains in North America resulting in catastrophic explosions and fires, five of those in the past two months. There are 25-30 million Americans that live and work within harm’s way of potential oil train explosions.
I don’t want to overstate my concern, but feel compelled to write about it. In a nutshell, my concerns are safety and the environment.
The worst oil train derailment killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec in July 2013. The derailment resulted in several explosions and fireballs over a hundred feet tall. Many people who tried to outrun the tsunami of fire didn’t make it.
Lac-Megantic is a small town of about 6,000 people, and the derailment took place at 1:15 a.m. early Saturday morning. What if a train derailed and exploded in a high-population area on a work day? The Spokane Fire Department has estimated that up to 20,000 people could be in danger in a downtown derailment.
The heat from the Lac-Megantic fire could be felt over a mile away. The burning oil got in to the storm sewer and blew fire out of manholes and other storm drains. The fire burned for two days and it took over 20 hours before the center of the fire was accessible to firefighters. In the other derailments where there were explosions, the heat has been so intense that firefighters have had to be held back – some for distances of more than a half-mile – and wait for the fires to burn themselves out.
The blast zone in Lac-Megantic was six-tenths of a mile – everything within a radius of that distance was destroyed. In downtown Lac-Megantic 66 of 69 buildings were destroyed, 30 by fire and 36 by oil contamination. If the incident in Lac-Megantic destroyed over 95 percent of the buildings in a small town, how much property damage could it do in a larger city?
Most of the oil on these trains is from the Bakken fields in North Dakota, and is especially volatile. Although rail transport is one of the safest means of shipping products in the U.S., with over 99.9% of all shipments being delivered without problems, the explosiveness of this oil is a game changer. Even one derailment in a populated area with such dangerous cargo is unacceptable.
Train derailments happen more often than most people realize. There have been about a dozen or so minor derailments in Washington and North Idaho the past year. In Spokane on Christmas Eve 1991, three railcars fell off the railroad bridge over I-90 just west of downtown. One of the railcars landed on the freeway 80 feet below, narrowly missing a car, and the other two landed next to the freeway.
There’s more. A July 2014 report from the federal Department of Transportation, reviewed the risks of moving vast quantities of oil and ethanol across the nation and through major cities. The study estimated that trains carrying either fuel will derail an average of ten times annually during the next twenty years, and that just one catastrophic accident in a high-population area could kill more than 200 people and cause up to $6 billion in damage.
Given that the catastrophe in Lac-Megantic killed 47 in the downtown area of a small city at 1:15 a.m., this estimate of 200 deaths seems low, especially in a densely populated area during a work day. If $6 billion in damages sounds high, the damage in tiny Lac-Megantic has been estimated at $1.2 billion or more.
Sarah Feinberg is the Acting Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration. Last month she admitted that, “I have to be honest, I would prefer that none of this stuff be traveling by rail. I worry a lot about not just the folks who are working on the train and the passengers on the Amtrak that the train is going by, but I worry a lot about the people living in the towns and working in the towns that these trains are going through.”
In February, Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart sent a letter to Mayor David Condon after a major derailment and horrific explosion in West Virginia that stated, “A similar incident in Spokane would devastate our downtown commercial core, risk contamination to the Spokane River, and could result in significant death and injury.” He has also called the trains “almost moving bombs.”
It gets worse. We are not prepared to deal with an oil train derailment resulting in an explosion and a fire. As recently as last week, Mayor Condon admitted that the city’s emergency responders were not prepared to react to an oil train crisis.
In Wednesday’s Spokesman-Review, Spokane Fire Department Chief Bobby Williams was quoted expressing concern about the oil trains passing through Spokane and said, “This new threat has added another dimension to our community’s risk.” In the same article, Spokane Valley Deputy Chief of Operations Andy Hail said the oil trains could have “catastrophic consequences.” Hail added, “We have a very significant concern in our level of preparedness and ability to respond.”
A report last October from the State of Washington stated that, “Sixty-two percent of local fire districts along oil train routes say their firefighters don’t have the necessary training or equipment to respond to tank-car derailments.”
Another considerable concern is that both Sacred Heart Medical Center and Deaconess Hospital are about eight-tenths of a mile from the rail viaduct on Washington Street. Studies have estimated that potential blast zones for this type of explosion could be up to a full mile. What might happen if our two largest hospitals were semi-incapacitated in a medical emergency of significant magnitude?
In addition, the number of oil trains going through Spokane is rapidly increasing. In 2011, there were no oil trains here. Last year, that number was up to 19 oil trains a week, each averaging about 100 oil railcars. That number could double by 2020. In just five years that equals 38 oils trains a week, more than five a day. Gulp.
Driving this growth are the oil booms in North Dakota and Canada. Currently, the closest place to ship this oil to is Western Washington ports. There are currently three oil-handling facilities in Western Washington, with eight more sites currently proposed. The current daily capacity of the three existing locations is about 2.5 oil trains a day. If all of the other eight proposed sites are approved and built, the daily capacity will grow to approximately 13-14 trains – going right through the center of downtown Spokane. Double gulp.
To make matters worse, the railroads may not have enough insurance to cover damages. An article last year in the Wall Street Journal stated that the small train operator in the Lac-Mégantic derailment, the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway Ltd., only had $25 million in liability insurance, and has since filed for bankruptcy protection. That left the Canadian and provincial governments to pay the remainder of the $1.2 billion in damages.
According to the article, before the Lac-Mégantic tragedy, it was standard for small railroads like the MM&A to have around $25 million in coverage. It’s now realized that isn’t nearly enough. But what is even more worrisome is the likelihood that most railroads transporting oil can’t get enough insurance. The same article claims that even the big railroads are only able to get coverage up to about $1.5 billion. Who will pick up the difference in the event of a catastrophic derailment costing $4 to $6 billion?
If everything else weren’t bad enough, it’s also difficult to sue railroads for damages. This is because current federal regulations governing railroads are very weak. As long as railroads can prove they complied with the inadequate federal standards, it makes it difficult for plaintiffs to win damages for liability or negligence.
I’ll stop here for now, but I haven’t even touched on the potential environmental damages. What if some of this oil gets into our rivers or lakes?
I know that others share my concern. I went to a hearing in October that drew over 200 people, and many who testified were very passionate about it. The Spokesman-Review newspaper has also written at least ten editorials and another dozen major pieces about it in the past fifteen month. The more I research it, the more uneasy I feel.
In next week’s blog, I’ll address some potential solutions. But if I have raised any concerns with you, I ask that you share this blog with your friends. I am surprised at how many people I talk with about oil trains are unaware or surprised by the details. People here and anywhere the oil trains operate, should be aware of the potential risks regarding these trains.