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.

Ethanol Safety Training

There is an interesting short article over at www.ProgressiveRailroading.com about a series of ethanol safety seminars that will be held in California next month. The training co-hosted by the Renewable Fuels Association and the Ethanol Emergency Response Coalition (EERC) will address some of the peculiar problems that emergency responders will face with ethanol and ethanol-blended fuels incidents. Since ethanol fuels are typically moved by truck or rail (not pipeline for a number of technical reasons) first responders far from ethanol production facilities (and their associated expertise) are having to deal with ethanol related spills and fires.

The seminars will focus on:

• An introduction to ethanol and ethanol-blended fuels;

• Chemical and physical characteristics of ethanol and hydrocarbon fuels;

• Transportation and transfer of ethanol-blended fuels;

• Storage and dispensing locations;

• Firefighting foam principles and ethanol-blended fuel;

• Health and safety considerations for ethanol-blended fuel emergencies; and

• Tank farm and bulk storage fire incidents

For those not able to attend these seminars (and more are planned outside of California), the EERC has a web site with training materials for local responders to use to familiarize themselves with the ethanol response issues.