U.S. Issues Safety Alert for Oil Trains - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/08/business/us-orders-railroads-to-disclose-oil-shipments.html
Calling the movement of crude oil by rail an “imminent hazard” to the public, the federal Department of Transportation said on Wednesday that railroads would be required to notify local emergency responders whenever oil shipments traveled through their states.
The emergency order follows a spate of accidents that have raised concerns about the safety of the trains that carry increasing amounts of crude oil from the #Bakken region of North Dakota across the United States.
It said railroads with trains that carry more than one million gallons of Bakken crude, the equivalent of about 35 tank cars, must provide state emergency commissions with detailed information about their shipments within the 30 days of the emergency order. Typically, oil trains carry 100 cars or more.
The requirement includes disclosing the number of trains each week, the specific routes the trains will travel and which counties they will cross.
Until now, railroads were under no obligation to disclose any of that information and provided it only under strict conditions if it was requested.
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The announcements come a week after an oil train derailed in Lynchburg, Va., spilling 30,000 gallons into the James River, erupting into flames and forcing the evacuation of 350 people.
It was the latest in a series of accidents that have caught industry regulators as well as railroads off guard. Last year an oil train exploded in #Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people.
The announcement on Wednesday included regulators’ starkest language yet about the dangers of crude oil transport; the regulators have been accused by lawmakers and safety advocates of being slow-footed.
The number of accidents, the order said, “is startling, and the quantity of petroleum crude oil spilled as a result of those accidents is voluminous” in comparison with past accidents.