PHMSA Publishes HHFT Oil Spill Response ANPRM

Friday, in addition to the HHFT NPRM described earlier, DOT’s Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) in the Federal Register (79 FR 45079-45083) concerning oil spill response plans (OSRP) for railroads.

Background Information

The ANPRM discusses the history of the requirement for OSRP’s for installations and shippers based upon the requirements of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. Those requirements are outlined in 33 USC 1321(j). The transportation related requirements are implemented by 49 CFR 130.31. Crude oil unit trains of High-Hazardous Flammable Trains (HHFT) carrying crude oil, are currently required to have basic OSRP’s in place based upon the presence of oil in a single container with a capacity of 3,500 gallons. The requirements for a comprehensive OSRP do not apply since railcars do not generally have a capacity of the 42,000 gallons that trigger that requirement {§130.31(b)}. The ANPRM provides a table which describes the different requirements of the OSRP and the Comprehensive OSRP.

Information Requested

As is the case with all ANPRM’s, PHMSA is not yet proposing specific changes to the current regulations. What they are doing is laying out a number of potential options and requesting comments from the regulated and affected communities about those options. PHMSA is specifically looking for information in the following areas:

If PHMSA is to require the submission of the more comprehensive OSRP, they will need to change the current threshold from the current 42,000 gallons. Possible options include:

• The 1 million gallons currently used to define a crude oil train;

• The 20 railcars being proposed to define an HHFT;

• Changing the 42,000 gallon limit to a per train instead of a per container limit; or

• Some other alternative.

There are a series of other questions that deal with costs and how a comprehensive OSRP might be applied to rail transportation.

Emergency Response Missing

It must be remembered that the OSRP’s are a requirement of pollution prevention legislation. This ANPRM does not really address emergency response planning, at least as in that typically applies to response to fire and explosions. The two crude oil train accidents that have caught the public attention were the Lac-Megantic, Canada and the Casselton, ND derailments with fires and explosions. The two wrecks where crude was discharged to waterways (Alabama and Virginia) received much less national attention.

It should be argued that the fighting of fires and prevention of explosions subsequent to a derailment spill is a contingency that should also be covered in the OSRP. Since fires from the initial derailment almost certainly contributed to the failure of containment of a number of railcars during both the Canadian and North Dakota accidents fire-fighting should be considered an integral part of spill containment.

ER Equipment and Training

While most local response agencies have ready access to equipment necessary to contain an oil spill (bulldozers to build dikes for instance) the same cannot be said for the specialized fire-fighting equipment necessary to fight crude oil and ethanol fires. A relatively simple and low cost method of making the appropriate equipment available at the site of the rail accident would be to require unit trains and HHFTs to carry at the rear of the train, a car containing the necessary foam and dispensing equipment necessary to fight these specialized flammable liquid fires.

Training to use that equipment will be a bit more problematic, but efforts are being made to develop electronically exportable training programs that may provide the minimum training required. Hands-on-training is a more complicated issue especially where funding is concerned. This ANPRM should also address the development of a training grant program for these types of fires.

Public Response

PHMSA is soliciting input from both the shipping industry, railroads and other affected communities on this ANPRM. Responses may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulations.gov; Docket #PHMSA-2014-0105). Comments should be submitted by September 30^th, 2014.

Rail Emergency Response Equipment

I read some interesting testimony this weekend from Tod Perlin, Fire Chief from the Town of Rangely, ME. He was one of the US first responders that aided the local Canadian fire department during the immediate aftermath of the Lac-Megantic crude-train derailment last year. His description of what happened is very moving and well worth reading.

There is one very important point that he made in his testimony at the THUD Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on rail safety. He mentioned that, in addition to pumping water out of a local lake (the ‘lac’ of Lac-Megantic) because the local fire hydrant system was compromised in the explosions following the derailment, fire fighters used ”8000 gallons of foam [that]was trucked in from the refinery in Toronto to help extinguish the burning rail cars”.

This is one of the major emergency response problems for crude oil and ethanol transportation emergencies; special fire-fighting foam is needed to put out these fires; water just spreads the flames. Fire-fighting agencies that have fuel terminals or refineries in their response areas will typically have access to these specialized foams (and the associated equipment to apply the foam), but most fire-fighters will not have access to this important tool. It is just too expensive and hard to justify on short budgets.

One way to ensure that first responders to rail accidents involving unit trains of crude oil or ethanol have immediate access to the essential (and correct type of) fire-fighting foam would be to require railroads to haul a specialized car at the rear-end of such unit trains that carries the appropriate foam and the necessary application equipment. This way fire departments along rail rights-of-way would not need to stock the required equipment; they would only have to pay for the training in its use.

If the equipment was properly designed and the operation clearly documented, the training costs could probably be almost eliminated. If a crew of fire-fighters had to read a 5 minute tutorial on the use of the equipment, it would still be much more readily available than a foam unit being trucked in from the nearest refinery or fuel depot.

To the best of my knowledge, these cars do not yet exist. But this is clearly a need that calls out for fulfillment. And if the railroads and shippers cannot figure that out, maybe they need some encouragement from the FRA and PHMSA.

NTSB Announces Inquiry into Crude Oil and Ethanol Shipping

The National Transportation Safety Board published a meeting notice in Monday’s Federal Register (79 FR 20922-20933; available on line today) concerning a public forum to be conducted about the rail transportation of crude oil and ethanol. The public meeting will be held on April 22^nd thru 23^rd in Washington, DC.

The NTSB members will be acting as a board of inquiry and there will be a number of invited panels of technical experts from the Federal Road Administration (FRA), the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA), railroad owner/operators, emergency responders and industry groups. A listing of the panels and their members can be found on the Forum agenda web page and the panel member biographies can be found here.

Areas to be addressed during the two-day meeting include:

• A review of crude oil and ethanol railroad accidents

• Tank Car Design, Construction, and Crashworthiness

• Rail Operations and Approaches to Risk Management

• Emergency Response to Tank Car Releases of Crude Oil and

Ethanol

• Federal Oversight and Industry Initiatives Related to Crude Oil and Ethanol Transportation by Rail

The NTSB is soliciting public input on the topics being considered. Written comments may be emailed to the NTSB at railsafetyforum@ntsb.gov. There are no provisions for the public to provide oral presentations at the forum. The forum will be web cast and the web cast will be available for three months after the meeting.