When a CN train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire last weekend near Gogama, Ontario, it became the fifth loaded oil train to leave the tracks in North America in the past two months — and it's raising new questions about the volatility of diluted bitumen from Alberta's oilsands.

In the March 7th accident, several cars slid into the Mattagami River and ignited, leading local officials to issue a drinking water warning for the Mattagami First Nation.

The accident comes less than a month after another CN tanker train carrying crude derailed in the same region, about 200 kilometres north of Sudbury, spilling an estimated more than one million litres of diluted bitumen into local waterways. Twenty-nine cars left the tracks, causing an explosion that left fires burning for six days.

Officials are still scrambling to clean up the oil, which has spilled into a nearby creek, pond and section of Kasasway Lake, before spring thaw.

Gogama Village Inn owner Roxanne Veronneau told the Toronto Star, “People here are on pins and needles. The tracks run right through town … I’m sure that there’s going to be a lot of talk afterward that this shouldn’t be in the middle of our town.”

“It’s frightening and nerve-wracking, especially after what happened in Quebec.” 

The recent accident near Gogama is the third CN Rail derailment in Ontario in the last month and the fifth tanker train derailment continent-wide.

CN Rail experienced another tanker train derailment on March 5 near Horneypayne, Ontario. No oil spilled as a result of the derailment.

On February 16, a tanker train carrying fracked shale oil from North Dakota derailed in West Virginia, causing a spectacular explosion and forcing the evacuation of two towns. At least one of the derailed cars fell into the Kanawha River, a source of drinking water for two counties.

On March 6 a BNSF train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed south of Galena, Illinois. Twenty-one cars left the tracks and five cars ignited causing a large fireball and plumes of black smoke. Emergency responders spent three days working to bring that fire under control.

Growing Concern Over Volatility of Diluted Bitumen

The spate of recent tanker train explosions in Canada has raised concerns about the volatility of diluted bitumen, which contains highly flammable light hydrocarbons. Although the explosive qualities of Bakken oil — which was central to the tanker train disaster in Lac-Mégantic that left 47 dead — is well-documented, similar attention has not been paid to diluted bitumen, as DeSmogBlog recently reported.

As Railway Age reports, “before CN’s first Gogama wreck Feb. 14, there was a widespread and comforting belief among railroaders, regulators and, yes, even railroad reporters, that tar sands bitumen was much safer for transport by rail than light or conventional crude oils.”

“We now know, thanks to Gogama 1 and Gogama 2, that neither dilbit nor synbit, the synthetically diluted variant of tar sands oil, are safer than untreated Bakken crude.”

The hazardousness of crude oil blends is determined by its ignitability, which is determined by the blend’s most volatile component, Railway Age reports. Thus for diluted bitumen, the volatility of light hydrocarbons used as diluents is a critical factor in determining how fuel will respond in a tanker car accident.

Oil Change International recently calculated an average of 100,000 to 150,000 barrels of dilbit is loaded onto tanker trains at Alberta terminals each day.

“As it takes on average around nine days for a train to reach its destination, this means that at any given time there are between 18 and 27 trains carrying dilbit through the continent loaded with some 900,000 to 1.4 million barrels of dilbit,” Oil Change International’s Andy Rowell reports.

“Together with the roughly one million barrels per day of light, tight crude oil loaded in the Bakken and elsewhere around the continent the threat is enormous.”

Lessons Learned in Lac-Mégantic Not Enough

After the disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Transport Canada ordered all Class 111 tanker cars be upgraded to new standards. The new CPC-1232 standards required cars to be enhanced with half-head shields, fitting protections and normalized steel.

The enhanced cars were meant to prevent another accident like Lac-Mégantic from occurring.

However, as the Toronto Star reported, the Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the first derailment near Gogama showed the new CPC-1232 cars “performed similarly to those involved in the Lac-Mégantic accident.”

The cars exploded upon impact even though they were travelling at nearly half the speed of the cars involved in the Lac-Mégantic incident.

“The TSB has warned (Transport Canada) that this standard was not sufficient and that more needed to be done to provide an adequate level of protection,” the board’s investigation update states.

“Preliminary assessment of the CPC-1232-compliant tank cars involved in (the first Gogama derailment) demonstrates the inadequacy of this standard given the tank cars' similar performance to the legacy Class 111 tanks cars involved in the Lac-Mégantic accident.”

Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Keith Stewart told the Toronto Star he’s worried more deaths will occur before the federal government revisits the tanker standards.

“The safety authorities have been warning that even the newer cars are not safe, and we have to wonder where the federal government is in this,” he said.

Image Credit: Transportation Safety Board of Canada

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A fiery CN train derailment in rural Saskatchewan has many people asking what could have happened if the accident occurred in a more populated area.

The 100-car freight train derailed Tuesday about 190 kilometres east of Saskatoon. Twenty-six cars left the track, including six carrying dangerous goods. Two cars containing petroleum distillate caught fire, sending 30-metre flames into the air. Several explosions were also confirmed.

The area around Clair, Sask., was evacuated overnight. Families were allowed to return to their homes Wednesday morning according to Harold Narfason, chief of the Wadena & District Fire Department.

The volunteer fire department was the first on the scene.

Narfason told DeSmog Canada his department has long been aware that dangerous commodities are being shipped by rail through the area.

“I’ve attended numerous meetings with CN to get informed and there are more cars moving through,” Narfason said.

On the scene of the derailment, his team quickly accessed the hazmat sheets, which indicated they were dealing with the explosive petroleum distillate.

“Everything is going as good as it can under the circumstances,” Narfason said.  

The railway industry has been in the spotlight since July 2013 when 47 people died after an oil train derailed and exploded in downtown Lac-Megantic, Que.

In August, the Transportation Safety Board issued a report into the Lac-Megantic tragedy that called for improved safety measures and cited inadequate oversight by Transport Canada.

Overall shipments of oil by rail in Canada have increased by 28,000 per cent since 2009.

The surge in rail transport of petroleum products has outpaced regulatory oversight, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In an October 2013 report, CCPA executive director Bruce Campbell, wrote, “In my view, the evidence points to a fundamentally flawed regulatory system, cost-cutting corporate behaviour that jeopardized public safety and the environment, and responsibility extending to the highest levels of corporate management and government policy making.”

Adam Scott, a spokesman for the advocacy group Environmental Defence, told the Canadian Press that an accident like the one in Saskatchewan could have happened anywhere in Canada.

“The freight rail lines actually go right through the centre of almost every major urban centre in the entire country … so the risk of accidents is significant,” Scott said.

Scott said rail companies in Canada are not required to publicly disclose the types of hazardous materials being transported on trains.

ForestEthics has set up a ‘blast zone’ website, which allows users to search by address for oil train routes in Canada and the U.S.

A quick look at the blast zone map indicates CN ought to be counting its lucky stars this latest derailment happened in a town of 50 people instead of a city of 500,000.

Photo: Wadena News

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

On July 6th, 2013, one year ago today, a train carrying oil derailed in the sleepy Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic, resulting in an explosion so wild and so hot it leveled several city blocks and incinerated the bodies of many of its 47 victims. The accident put the tiny town on the international media circuit and dragged a new social concern with it: oil trains.

Whether you call them oil trains, tanker trains or bomb trains, chances are you didn’t call them anything at all before this day last year.

Before the tragedy of Lac-Mégantic, several smaller tanker train accidents across North America had already raised alarm over the danger of transporting oil and other fuels by rail in small communities with tracks often running through city centres and residential areas.

In the wake of Lac-Mégantic, however, critics, environmental organizations, journalists and concerned communities began tracking the growing movement of volatile oil shipments across the continent.

Keeping pace with oil transport

Overall shipments of oil by rail have increased by 28,000 per cent since 2009.

In 2012 nearly 40,000 barrels of oil were shipped to the U.S. each day, although surging oil production in the Bakken Shale has simultaneously led to an increase of oil by rail shipments of crude north of the border.

In 2013 oil train accidents resulted in more than 1.15 million gallons of spilled oil. This represents a 50-fold increase over the yearly average between 1975 and 2012.

According to some, the surge in rail transport of petroleum products has outpaced regulatory oversight. Lax oversight may have contributed to the devastation at Lac-Mégantic, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

In an October 2013 report, author Bruce Campbell, the CCPA’s executive director, wrote, “In my view, the evidence points to a fundamentally flawed regulatory system, cost-cutting corporate behaviour that jeopardized public safety and the environment, and responsibility extending to the highest levels of corporate management and government policy making.”

According to Transport Safety Board of Canada data, accidents involving dangerous goods have increased since last year.

Screen grab of TSB Canada data complied by CTV News. 

Poor tank design, poorer response plan

According to CN Rail chief executive Claude Monegau, poor tank car design was “one of the most important systematic issues” leading to the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic. Earlier this year a Canadian government-commissioned rail safety group said more needed to be done to ensure the safety of oil tanker cars carrying crude through communities.

Since then the government has implemented a plan to upgrade or retire generic oil tanker cars, known as DOT-111s. In February there were roughly 228,000 DOT-111 cars in operation across North American and 92,000 of those were carrying flammable liquids.

Civil engineering expert and professor Roza Galvez-Cloutier, who examined the derailment in Lac-Mégantic, recently said no appropriate plans or equipment are in place to prevent a similar situation from recurring in Canada.

“There was an evident lack of preparation at all levels,” Galvez-Cloutier said recently in a Science Media Centre of Canada webinar reviewing the events at Lac-Mégantic. “Prevention measures, preparedness and emergency plans need to urgently be updated.”

“I think there was a panic and there was a lack of co-ordination,” she said.

At the time of the incident, firefighters were cooling oil tankers without having subdued the fire, Galvez-Cloutier recounted, adding the emergency response personnel did not know what the composition of the burning oil was.

Had they known, it’s likely they would have responded more appropriately to the fire, she said, using foam suppressants, for example.

“I know that Ultramar brought in, as a last resort, some foam to assist, but this was based on their goodwill, not a pre-planned emergency measure,” she said.

Grassroots groups respond

The increase in oil tanker accidents led a coalition of environmental organizations to create an ‘Oil by Rail Week of Action’ between July 6 and 13.

The coalition includes ForestEthics, Oil Change International, 350.org and the Sierra Club.

On Monday the groups plan to launch a ‘blast zone’ website which will make communities along oil tanker routes searchable by address.

Eddie Scher, spokesperson for ForestEthics, said the website brings together rail industry data and Google maps to make evacuations zones visible.

“It allows you to plug in your address and see where you sit in relation to this Google map blast zone,” Scher told DeSmog by phone.

“And what you find, which isn’t that surprising, is that these trains — mile long trains carrying 3 million gallons of oil — go right through the centre of almost very major city in U.S.”

“Our rail system was designed to carry goods, not carry hazardous materials through city centres,” he said.

Major cities including L.A., Oakland and Chicago have oil trains running through them.

The database, which is searchable for both U.S. and Canadian addresses, is designed to bring information about oil train transport to the public, something Scher says should already be available to the communities along rail transport lines.

“It’s pretty outrageous that we’re the ones to have to do this. We’re happy that emergency responders have this information but everyone should know what’s going on.”

“We’re working on the numbers right now, but it’s easy to say with the information we have that 10 of millions of Americans live in that blast zone,” he said.

“The amount of the populations that is threatened is huge. What we’re really trying to do is to let folks see what is going on.“

Image Credit: Transportation Safety Board via flickr.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A Canadian National (CN) Rail freight train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire Tuesday night near the northwest New Brunswick town of Plaster Rock. No injuries have been reported.

The Transportation Safety Board ((TSB) reports that 17 cars are believed to have derailed, eight carrying dangerous goods and one a locomotive.  According to CN Rail President and CEO Claude Monganu five of the derailed cars were carrying crude oil, and the other four propane.

The 122-car train was heading to the Irving Oil Refinery in St. John from central Canada. The derailment occurred just after 7 pm about five km from Plaster Rock, in Wapske.

Dan Holbrook with the TSB told the CBC the incident was cause by a mechanical failure affecting the train's breaking system. A ruptured airline connecting the cars caused an emergency break application, he said. 

"Trains have a continuous pipe running throughout the train that supplies air to the brake system on every car," he said.

"If that brake pipe comes apart, that causes the brakes throughout the train to go into emergency…and that means the train will stop as fast as it can."

The incident comes just over a week after an accident in North Dakota caused several oil train cars to burst into flames and explode. The North Dakota accident is just one among many high-profile oil train accidents to occur within the last six months, including Lac-Mégantic where 47 people perished as the result of a tanker train derailment.

The TSB has deployed a team of investigators to the scene, where the fires still burn. The site is under the control of authorities with the local fire department.

Premier David Alward attended a news conference this morning to express gratitude there were no injuries and said there appeard to be no serious impact to the environment. 

"Every day we have the movement of goods and services across our country by many different modes of transportation," said Alward. "Every mode of transportation is not without risk.

"What is important to realize is how we are able to respond to situations when they happen really determines how we are able to manage as we go forward."

The TSB will further investigate the site when they determine it is safe to do so.

"The team will evaluate the accident and document the derailment site, inspect the equipment and track infrastructure and identify any items that may require closer inspection. They will examine the maintenance history of the train, operation of the equipment and operation policies, meteorological conditions, and review any human factors," states a TSB press release.

First responders were forced to stay a safe distance from the fire, which was large enough to be seen from a "significant" distance away, reports CBC. A 2km radius including 45 households has been evacuated, said Feeny, director of public and government affairs for CN Rail.

Plaster Rock mayor Alexis Fenner reportedly said all roads were blocked and shut down by the police after the derailment.

"On our balcony, we can just see flames. Every now and then, there's a huge fireball, as if there was an explosion," Plaster Rock resident Carol Jervis told Global News.

Another resident said her husband went to the area and "could see flames shooting in the air from quite far away. He could see it very clearly. It was about 50 to 60 feet he told me he could see."

J.D. Saddler, a resident of Wapske, told CBC that he was driving back there from Plaster Rock when the derailment occurred, and he saw "a great big cloud of orange smoke and the flames were really high in the air, the smoke was really high in the air."

At the time, there was no given time frame for when crews could move in. Feeny said CN Rail senior managers and hazardous materials experts were en route from Moncton, Montreal and Toronto.

An evacuation centre was set up at Plaster Rock, with the Canadian Red Cross dispatching volunteers with supplies to assist local authorities at the centre. Bill Lawlor, Canadian Red Cross director of disaster management for New Brunswick, said that this was a precautionary measure, as the area is sparsely populated and the small numbers impacted by the evacuation would probably stay with friends or family.

Lawlor added that the volunteers were ready with blankets and cots should any residents require shelter, or if circumstances should change.

According to the CBC, another derailment that occurred at Plaster Rock was one of two incidents that led the TSB to issue a summons in 2006, requiring CN Rail to turn in all its records.

The CBC's investigation discovered that CN Rail did not report more than 1,800 derailments and accidents over a six-year period, including 44 derailments and one collision on "key arterial rail tracks."

The derailment comes days after a joint task force announced by BC and Alberta premiers Christy Clark and Alison Redford handed in a report exploring the feasibility of transporting oil by rail as a backup in case pipeline projects fall through.

Image Credit: Andrew Jenkins / Facebook

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

A joint task force announced by B.C. and Alberta premiers Christy Clark and Alison Redford in July has handed in a report examining the feasibility of transporting oil by rail, according to the Canadian Press. The report is not yet available to the public.

The task force, whose mandate includes exploring the possibility of transporting crude oil from the oilsands via rail to the coast if proposed pipelines like Enbridge's Northern Gateway are denied, has been called "underhanded" by environmental group ForestEthics.

Ben West, campaign director for ForestEthics, said that the task force was a "backdoor way for industry to bring tankers to the coast without the same sort of public oversight or public process that we've had around the Enbridge pipeline or would have around the Kinder Morgan pipeline."

"Myself and other people were pretty freaked out about what happened there," West said of the recent explosions.

The joint task force was announced as a way for the two provinces to develop recommendations on opening up new export markets for oil, gas and other resources, including oilsands bitumen. Spills, fiscal and economic benefits and First Nations rights were also to be discussed.

The provincial working group was mandated to submit its report to premiers Clark and Redford by December.

"Rail can be considered a viable alternative to pipeline movement based on costs of transport," the terms of reference for the group states. "If pipelines are not developed, rail will step into the void to deliver bitumen to the West Coast."

Enbridge's Northern Gateway pipeline was recently approved by a federal panel, and Kinder Morgan officially submitted its application for the Trans Mountain Expansion project to the National Energy Board in December. Both projects will bring oil to the BC coast.

The provincial task force was led by Steve Carr, deputy minister of natural gas development in B.C. and Grant Sprague, deputy minister of energy in Alberta.

Neither ministry could be reached for comment. CN Rail declined to comment.

Image Credit: BC Gov Photos / Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

CN Rail is considering shipping crude oil by rail from Alberta to Prince Rupert, BC, for export to Asian markets in capacities matching Enbridge's proposed Northern Gateway pipeline.

According to the Canadian Press, "internal memos obtained by Greenpeace under the Access to Information Act show the rail carrier raised the proposal last March with Natural Resources Canada."

A briefing note for the March 1 meeting reportedly states that China-based Nexen Inc. is "working with CN Rail to examine the transportation of crude oil on CN's railway to Prince Rupert, B.C., to be loaded onto tankers for export to Asia."

A CN presentation paper attached to the briefing note assures that "CN has ample capacity to run seven trains per day to match Gateway's proposed capacity."

According to a 2013 report by Malcolm Cairns, an ex-CP Rail employee, a single tanker train can carry 63,000-78,000 barrels of crude. Going by that number, seven trains per day would bring CN's proposed capacity to 441,000-546,000 bpd, matching or exceeding Northern Gateway's starting capacity.

The market for shipping crude oil by rail has been steadily growing since 2009, during which CP Rail moved 500 carloads and CN moved none. Cairns' report states that in 2013, CN anticipates moving approximately 60,000 carloads of crude oil.

If undertaken, CN's proposal to ship bitumen crude from Alberta to Prince Rupert would significantly raise the volume of crude oil shipped by rail in Canada per year.

Map of CN Rail Routes in North America. Credit: CN Rail.

Greenpeace researcher Keith Stewart reportedly said that the CN proposal seemed to be a possible "Plan B" in the case that Northern Gateway is blocked, but raises "the same or greater risks."

The risks of transporting crude by rail were put into sharp relief by the derailment and explosion of a train carrying crude in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, this July. The incident took a tragic toll, resulting in 47 deaths and about 5.5 million litres of oil burned or contaminating the environment of Lac-Megantic, with the fire burning for four days.

Spokesman Mark Hallman denied CN made any project proposal, telling the Canadian Press that "no specific crude-by-rail project to Prince Rupert (was) discussed" at the March meeting with Natural Resources Canada.

Hallman did say that "the company will consider concrete crude-by-rail proposals, including any specific project to move crude to Prince Rupert," though there is currently "no infrastructure in place at Prince Rupert to transfer crude oil from train tank cars to vessels."

Hallman added that Natural Resources Canada asked for the March meeting, not CN.  

The documents obtained by Greenpeace confirm the federal government's strong interest in shipping oil by rail, at least before the Lac-Megantic derailment.

Cheadle reports that an undated memo for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver says "NRCan is currently meeting with Transport Canada to mutually understand how rail could be part of a solution to current market access challenges," and calls rail an "increasingly viable option." The memo also notes that CP and CN Rail "have indicated that the potential to increase rail movements of crude oil is theoretically unlimited."

Another memo for International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Dennis Lebel, then transport minister, claims that Transport Canada "has identified no major safety concerns with the increased oil on rail capacity in Canada, nor with the safety of tank cars."

The memo observes that "transportation of oil by rail does not trigger the need for a federal environmental assessment," though "proposals to construct new infrastructure to support the activity" might, under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

The "Departmental Position" on shipping oil by rail was redacted from the memo.

"If the government or industry imagines they can use these regulatory loopholes to do an end-run around opposition to tar sands moving through those lands or waters, they will be in for a rude awakening," said Greenpeace's Stewart.

There has been strong opposition to the Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines in Canada and the US. But the memo to Joe Oliver suggests that the federal government doesn't see this as too much of a threat to the industry's expansion, with "Canadian crude producers…unlikely to slow down production and [turning] to rail to ensure their product reaches market," should the pipelines meet with "difficulties."

The memo says that "there hasn't been a project to bring crude by rail to port for tanker export, however rail officials indicate that such a project is likely in future."

Top Image Credit: Rocco Rossi / Wikimedia Commons

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.