LNG by Rail Comments – 1-18-20

Comments continue to be submitted on the PHMSA liquified natural gas by rail NPRM. This week (see note in comments section below) there were a total of 233 comments submitted. I have discussed previous submissions:

12-14-19

12-22-19

12-28-19

1-11-20

As with earlier comments, most submissions were from private citizens with concerns about the safe transportation of LNG gas. Unfortunately, no new information there. The following submissions were more involved and will require PHMSA to address at least some of their comments. NOTE: All links are .PDF download links.

5 New Jersey Legislators (NJL);

Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO (TTD);

Transportation Division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers (SMART)

Suwannee Riverkeeper (SRK);

New York State DOT/DEC/CHSES (NYS);

Center for Biological Diversity (CBD);

Pegasus Foundation (PF);

Washington Governor Jay Inslee (WGJI);

Damascus Citizens for Sustainability (DCS);

Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, et al (WPSR);

Attorneys General of Maryland, et al (AGM)

Fred Millar (FM) [.DOC download link]

Letter Writing Campaigns

We saw three different approaches to letter writing campaigns this week by environmental/safety advocacy groups. The  Clean Air Council submitted 1127 comments under a single docket submission. PennEnvironment apparently (it is no longer on their site) provided a fill in the blank web page to submit separate (and of course) identical comments for a large number of supporters. And then there is some anonymous organization (no organizational name on the comments) that provided a cut-and-paste comment for supporters to submit on their own.

Again, none of the above comments provided new information for the consideration of PHMSA and government organizations do not take into account numbers of comments in their review of comments for moving forward on a rulemaking.

Fire Safety

NJL pointed out the historic 1944 Cleveland gas explosion where an LNG leak entered sewer system and resulted in large area explosion and fire.

NYS points out the need for additional funding for fire fighter and other emergency response personnel training on LNG response requirements.

Other Safety Restrictions

NJL calls for operational limitations similar to that for HHFT along with BLEVE modeling and a requirement for a non-hazardous buffer car to protect train crew.

SMART recommends that trains containing LNG “must be restricted to a length that is no longer than the shortest siding in which it is to traverse” to ensure that trains parked on sidings do not interfere with adjacent active tracks.

Other Safety Concerns

SMART makes the following comment about current railroad safety trends:

“And while we agree the likelihood of a rail mishap is low, it should be noted that rail incidents are trending upward as a result of the advent of Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) and that with each-and-every derailment that occurs the probability increases with it. In other words, now is not the time to add a high-consequence commodity to a railroad industry whose safety and accident ratios are already trending in a dangerous direction without the proper study and testing performed by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and PHMSA.”

FM has a lengthy discussion about the apparent inadequacies in the safety calculations that were used to support the PHMSA rulemaking.

Other Regulatory Concerns

CBD questions whether PHMSA has adequately consulted the US Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure adequate protections under the Endangered Species Act.

PF has a lengthy discussion about their opinion that PHMSA needs to do a complete Environmental Impact Assessment (EIS) before this rulemaking can move forward.

Commentary

NOTE: I said that there were 233 comments submitted this week. That is more than a little misleading. The dates on the documents indicate that they were all submitted on Monday and Tuesday. PHMSA is probably still reviewing comments before referring them back to the Regulations.gov site for posting. The comment period ends today, but I expect that there will be another large number of comments for me to report on next weekend.

Many of the commenters have expressed concerns about ‘unit trains’ of LNG impacting their communities. While the history of crude oil unit trains certainly suggests that the number and severity of derailments associated with unit trains is much higher than those associated with individual train cars of hazardous materials, it should be remembered that there is only a very small fleet of DOT 113 railcars currently in service, not even enough for a singe 100-car unit train. It will be quite some time before the potentially higher-level threat could emerge. Perhaps it would be appropriate for PHMSA to limit train consists to 20 LNG railcars, until further safety data can be gathered.

Another thing seen in many of the comments is PHMSA’s failure to take into account the potential for a terrorist attack on LNG rail shipments. First off, security of transportation is not a primary responsibility of PHMSA, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has that primary responsibility. We can certainly discuss the inadequacies of the surface transportation security efforts of that agency, but we cannot fairly transfer those responsibilities back to PHMSA in this rulemaking.

Having said that, early readers of this blog will recall that I had significant comments on security of toxic inhalation hazard (TIH) rail shipments from a security perspective, and I have similar concerns with LNG rail transportation. However, there is one thing clear to me, an attack on a single-tank TIH rail car would be easier than an attack on a double-hull cryogenic car. And a successful attack on any 5/8” heat treated steel tank is going to be difficult at best, especially while it is moving.

Derailing a hazmat train (of any composition) is probably going to be the most effective form of terrorist attack, and it would not require a loss-of-cargo result to achieve a terroristic affect. Having a derailed hazmat car sitting in an urban center is going to cause a large enough amount of panic in any case. Slowing traffic through High Threat Urban Areas (HTUA) will make it harder to achieve a high-profile derailment; low speed derailments are a major bother, but they do not look dangerous and seldom result in loss of hazmat cargo.