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Collection: The Northwest's Pipeline on Rails

1 Million Barrels a Day, 100 Trains a Week

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Sightline is re-releasing a popular report: The Northwest’s Pipeline on Rails. It’s the most comprehensive regional analysis of plans to ship crude oil by train. This update includes important new information showing far greater increases in oil train transport than previously thought. All told, the Northwest could soon be seeing more than one million barrels of crude oil by rail per day—far more than the Keystone XL Pipeline would move.

Moving large quantities of oil by rail would represent a major change for the Northwest’s energy economy, and the plans now in development put the region’s communities at risk.

Why does it matter?

  • In British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington, 15 refineries and port terminals are planning, building, or already operating oil-by-rail shipments.
  • If all of the projects were built and operated at full capacity, they would require more than 100 loaded mile-long trains per week

Event: Oil Trains in Spokane, WA, and Sandpoint, ID

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Editor’s Note 8/5/2015: Want to watch Eric de Place keynote the Spokane coal export and oil train event listed below? Watch the entirety of the forum here! Enjoy the video, and share it with a friend unfamiliar with the topic.

Next week, I’ll be keynoting a pair community events in the Inland Northwest on oil trains and coal exports—a region facing an especially severe onslaught of rail traffic. Tuesday evening, I’ll join The Lands Council and other partners at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Wednesday night, I’ll be with the Idaho Conservation League and Lake Pend Oreille Waterkeeper at the Heartwood Center in Sandpoint, Idaho. Both events are free and open to the public, so if you live in the area, I hope you’ll join us and even bring along friends or family unfamiliar with the topic.

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Event: Coastal Washington, the Oil Industry’s Sacrifice Zone

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Washington State is on the front lines of oil transport by rail. The ten oil train explosions in the last two years and the numerous oil spills on Washington’s coast are reminders that there are devastating consequences when it comes to transporting oil. Ten new proposals have emerged in just the last year to ship crude oil by train to Northwest refineries and port terminals.

On June 10th, I’ll be in Hoquiam with several area leaders for a free, public forum on the alarming growth in oil train traffic through Grays Harbor County and the costs and consequences of the oil-by-rail industry for local residents. I’ll introduce the topic and moderate a panel of local leaders including Larry Thevik, Vice President of the Washington Dungeness Crab Fishermen’s Association; David Batker, of Earth Economics; Tammy Domike, of Citizens for a Clean Harbor; Crystal Dingler, Mayor of Ocean Shores; and Fawn Sharp, President of the Quinault Indian Nation.

  • What: Discussion on the risks of oil transportation in Coastal Washington
  • When: Wednesday, June 10, 6:30-8:00 PM
  • Where: Hoquiam High School Theater, 501 W Emerson Ave (map)
  • Tickets: The event is free and open to the public, but space is limited. Please RSVP.

Questions? Contact Tammy Domike (email) of Citizens for a Clean Harbor.

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Event: Oil Trains in Anacortes

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Lynchburg, VA, Derailment by Michael Cover
Lynchburg, VA, Derailment by Michael Cover (All rights reserved, used with permission.)

In the past several months alone, North America has seen five major oil train derailments and explosions. Communities across the country, including along the West Coast, are scrambling to cope with the threats these “bomb trains” pose—from their radically under-insured collision and damage risks to the delays they cause for local traffic to, of course, their potential to violently explode along tracks running past schools, downtowns, homes, and local businesses.

Early next month, I’ll be speaking on the costs and consequences of increased oil train traffic for the city of Anacortes, Washington, home to the Tesoro and Shell refineries, where millions of gallons of volatile crude oil arrive daily by train. I’ll also be exploring the larger regional picture of the Northwest grappling with an unprecedented influx of coal, oil, and gas export schemes. As  community and local leaders contemplate the possibility of a massively larger fossil fuel sector, they deserve the facts on what this industry means.

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Oil Train Explosions: A Timeline in Pictures

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At 7:15 this morning, yet another crude oil train erupted into an inferno, this time near a small town in central North Dakota. As these wildly dangerous trains continue to explode—at least 10 in the last two years—it’s become challenging to keep track of them all. So, for the record, we’ve assembled here a pictorial timeline of North America’s bomb trains.

Last week, the Obama administration adopted new regulations that will phase out many of the most hazardous tank cars over the next five to six years. The regulations also substantially reduce public oversight of train movements and industry behavior.

We will update this post as new explosions occur.

Six Pictures that Illustrate the Staggering Growth in Oil by Rail

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Trains have come to play an increasingly large role in North American oil transport over the last several years. Now, with a recent flurry of online publications from the US Energy Information Administration, we have data that illustrate just how profound the shift has been in the United States.

Crude oil by rail shipments have skyrocketed from just over 20 million barrels in 2010 to more than 373 million barrels transported in 2014.

Total crude by rail (thousands of barrels per month). Source - US EIA.
Total crude by rail (thousands of barrels per month), by US EIA

The growth in crude by rail has been, so far, mostly a US domestic phenomenon. The volume of crude transferred by rail from destinations and to origins within the contiguous United States has been on a steep ascent, while imports from and exports to Canada have grown more modestly.

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Failure to Report

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Editor’s Note 7/24/15: One year ago today, a train carrying crude oil derailed in Seattle. Luckily, no damage occurred, but this close call is a reminder that dangerous oil trains come close to home. An explosion could result in a terrible loss of human life and take millions of dollars to clean up.

The first commuters were just beginning to trickle over the Magnolia Bridge near downtown Seattle as the short summer night was warming to gray. Probably none of them realized just how narrowly they escaped disaster that morning.

Below them, a BNSF locomotive pulling 97 tank cars—each laden with at least 27,000 gallons of crude oil from the Bakken formation of North Dakota—came to a halt under the Magnolia Bridge in Seattle. Three cars had derailed. It was July 24th of 2014.

The time was 1:50 AM.

What happened next—or more precisely, what didn’t happen—has come to define what appears to be a pattern of secrecy and poor communication by BNSF, troubling habits that put lives in the Northwest at risk. For example, three years earlier when a BNSF hazardous substance train derailed on a Puget Sound beach near Tacoma, the railroad was unresponsive to emergency officials for nearly four hours. Even then, communication lines were so poor that the railroad’s subsequent actions put the first responding firefighters directly into harm’s way for no purpose.

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What the Oso Landslide Teaches Us About Oil Trains

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March 22 marked the first anniversary of the landslide in Oso, Washington. A water-logged mountain slope gave way, unleashing staggering volumes of earth and debris that swept across a small community and killed 43 people. Oso was an awful lesson in the destructive power of slides.

It’s a lesson that bears special consideration as the Northwest considers proposals to add dozens of hazardous coal and oil trains to coastal rail lines that are routinely plagued by slides.

We know that when oil trains derail they are prone to spills and catastrophic fires, mishaps that would be very challenging to address in many of the remote locations traversed by the main rail route along the northern shores of Puget Sound. Although the dry winter of 2014-15 maintained mostly stable earth along the rail lines, the region is not always so fortunate. During the wetter winter of 2012-13, for example, hillsides collapsed repeatedly over the tracks, forcing officials to cancel 206 passenger trains over 28 days. Prior winters had also yielded meaningful delays due to landslides.

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Debating Coal and Oil Exports

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If you haven’t yet gotten your fill of Sightline on Northwest coal and oil plans, then I have good news for you: I was featured recently on a UWTV program, Inside Outlook.

Host Gavin P. Sullivan moderated a discussion with me, Ross Macfarlane from Climate Solutions, and Frank Holmes from the Western States Petroleum Association. The program also includes some time with me—standing track-side in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood—providing additional context and explanation.

Event: Southwest Washington—the Oil Industry’s Sacrifice Zone?

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This April 1st, Eric de Place will join Vancouver, Washington leaders for a forum discussion on the threat of oil trains to southwest Washington communities.

After an introduction by Vancouver City Councilor Bart Hansen, Eric will give an overview of the oil industry’s designs on the Vancouver area and then moderate a panel of local leaders, including Lauren Goldberg, attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper; Vancouver City Councilor Anne McEnerny-Ogle; Barry Cain of Gramor Development; Cager Clabaugh of ILWU 4; Eric LaBrant of Fruit Valley Neighborhood Association; and a representative from Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility.

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