{"id":14085,"date":"2015-11-02T20:38:29","date_gmt":"2015-11-03T01:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14085"},"modified":"2015-11-02T20:39:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T01:39:34","slug":"risky-shale-oil-by-rail-expands-despite-lack-of-spill-response-preparedness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=14085","title":{"rendered":"Risky Shale Oil-by-Rail Expands Despite Lack of Spill Response Preparedness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Risky Shale Oil-by-Rail Expands Despite Lack of Spill Response Preparedness<\/a><\/h3>\n
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The worst onshore oil spill in United States history was the Kalamazoo River tar sands pipeline spill in 2010 with estimates of one million gallons of oil spilled. In comparison, the oil-by-rail accident in Lac-Megantic, Quebec was 50%\u00a0bigger.<\/p>\n

With the oil-by-rail industry\u00a0proposing large expansions<\/a>\u00a0to West Coast destinations, it is understandable that\u00a0some local communities<\/a>\u00a0are worried about the risks of a spill causing major environmental damage and threatening human\u00a0health.<\/p>\n

While the fiery explosions get the most attention when it comes to oil train accidents, the trains also have resulted in some of the largest oil spills in North America. And that oil is usually ending up in\u00a0waterways.<\/p>\n

In Lac-Megantic,\u00a01.5 million gallons of oil spilled<\/a>\u00a0with some of it ending up in the\u00a0nearby lake and river<\/a>. In Aliceville, Alabama it was\u00a0750,000 gallons<\/a>\u00a0that ended up in wetlands. In Mount Carbon, W.Va. it was approximately\u00a0400,000 gallons<\/a>\u00a0on the banks of the Kanawha River. In Gogama, Ontario ruptured rail tank cars\u00a0ended up in the water<\/a>. Just like in\u00a0Lynchburg, Virginia.<\/a>\u00a0And the spill in Galenas, Illinois was noted to pose\u00a0\u201cimminent and substantial danger\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to the Mississippi\u00a0River.<\/p>\n

People trained as first responders to marine oil spills are very clear that the speed of the response is critical for minimizing damage. On the website for the\u00a0Marine Spill Response Corporation<\/a>\u00a0it clearly states, \u201cDuring an oil spill, time is of the\u00a0essence!\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, the volatile nature of the Bakken crude oil means that the current recommended approach to dealing with a Bakken oil train that has derailed and is leaking and on fire is to evacuate everyone within a half-mile radius and then let the train burn \u2014 sometimes\u00a0for days<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in January of 2014 the National Transportation Safety Board put out\u00a0a safety recommendation<\/a>\u00a0about the current state of oil response planning for the rail industry that\u00a0stated:<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/span>oil spill response planning requirements for rail transportation of oil\/petroleum products are practically nonexistent compared with other modes of\u00a0transportation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Risky Shale Oil-by-Rail Expands Despite Lack of Spill Response Preparedness The worst onshore oil spill in United States history was the Kalamazoo River tar sands pipeline spill in 2010 with estimates of one million gallons of oil spilled. In comparison, the oil-by-rail accident in Lac-Megantic, Quebec was 50%\u00a0bigger. With the oil-by-rail industry\u00a0proposing large expansions\u00a0to West […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[5317,10435,2466,1278,2519,9552],"class_list":["post-14085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-desmog-blog","tag-national-transportation-board","tag-oil-by-rail","tag-oil-industry","tag-oil-spills","tag-rail-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14085"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14087,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14085\/revisions\/14087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}