Safe transport? State and local officials want a say in the routing of railroad chemical tank cars, like these in Boston. The Bush administration wants to let railroads do that themselves. (John Nordell/The Christian Science Monitor/File)
Rule OK’s chemical tankers through cities
The railroad regulation is one of the latest ‘midnight rule changes’ by the outgoing administration.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer/ December 15, 2008 edition
Reporter Alexandra Marks discusses the fight between the Bush administration, railroads and cities and towns across the country over moving dangerous chemicals by railroad cars and the threat of terrorism.
New York
The Bush administration has finalized a controversial regulation that will allow railroads to continue to ship dangerous chemicals through major cities.
That has infuriated some city officials, security experts, and environmentalists because it preempts all local efforts to control if, when, and how those railroad tank cars move through their communities.
Federal security officials have long considered railroad tankers full of such chemicals as chlorine or anhydrous ammonia to be potential weapons of mass destruction. If attacked by a terrorist or disturbed individual in the middle of a city they could cause thousands of deaths.
The finalization of the rail routing rule is one of the latest “midnight rule changes” pushed through by the outgoing administration in an effort imprint its preferences on the federal bureaucracy.
It’s a common political maneuver when the White House changes hands. But it’s controversial, and although many last-minute rule changes are eventually reversed, it takes time.
In this instance, the regulation leaves the decision of which route to take with deadly chemicals primarily in the hands of the railroads. Critics contend that this leaves too many communities vulnerable to a serious security threat and that state, local, and federal officials should have more input to ensure the chemicals are transported along the shortest, safest, and most secure routes.
States want more say in train routing
The National Conference of State Legislatures has called on the incoming Obama administration to rescind the regulation quickly.
“These are going to be seemingly unilateral routing decisions made by the railroads without the ability of state and local policymakers or other knowledgeable experts to have any input whatsoever as to how these trains are routed through our jurisdictions,” says Susan Parnas Frederick, federal affairs counsel of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The Bush administration and the railroads defend the rule, saying it will require the railroads to ensure such materials are shipped on the “safest and most secure” routes. The railroads must assess 27 different criteria before determining which route is best, including proximity to densely populated and environmentally sensitive areas. Officials at the Federal Railroad Administration also say that there is a specific mechanism in the new rule that allows local officials to have input about their own communities.
“There is an opportunity for local communities to provide their views on potential routings,” says Warren Flatau, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration. “And if they believe the railroad’s decision did not take their concerns into account, they could certainly come to us and ask us to audit the railroad’s decision.”
Critics note that there will be no way for local or state officials to know for sure if their concerns are being taken into account. That’s because there is no requirement that state and local officials be notified of the route once it is finalized or be informed of the decisionmaking process that determined it. Such decisions are considered “security sensitive” by the federal government and so will remain secret from state and local officials.
“All of the documentation will be secret, and the results will be secret,” says Fred Millar, a consultant to the environmental group Friends of the Earth. “It’s conceivable that not a single elected official in this country will be told the results of this, because the only people that need to be told are people with a ‘need to know’. Challenging any decision is just going to be a can of worms.”
Railroads pledge public safety
But railroad officials say such concerns are overblown, and they insist they will ask for local input in making their decision, as they always have.
“The railroads are already working with local governments and [hazardous material] people and the chemical companies and will continue to do so,” says Tom White, a spokesman for the Association of American Railroads in Washington, an industry trade group.
He also insists the regulation is designed in a way that best protects the public, because the people who are best equipped to understand the security of hazmat transport are the ones making the decision.
“It is the railroads who understand best what is required to transport hazardous materials, and it is the railroads who understand best the routes and their technical limitations,” says Mr. White. “If you started giving local authorities the ability to mandate rerouting you could end up with a situation where it would be impossible to move the stuff at all. Why? Because every local community would then do that.”
The American Chemistry Council in Arlington, Va., which represents chemical companies, asserts that the transport of hazardous materials should be in federal, not state and local, hands. “Our primary concern has always been that there be a federal approach to this,” says council spokesman Scott Jensen. “You really need to take a comprehensive approach to the routing of chemicals because of the very nature of the rail system.”
But state and local officials are concerned the railroads may end up favoring routes that are the most financially expedient rather than the most secure. “Without the input of state and local officials it’s hard to know what will motivate the decisions in routing,” says Ms. Frederick.
Comments
2. Casey Jones | 12.15.08
No public review. No notification. No accountability. No telling what’s in those containers or how much damage it could do. The American Bhopal is one step closer. Thank you, Bush administration–I feel so much more secure now.
3. Neil Fraser | 12.15.08
If trains aren’t allowed to carry dangerous chemicals, that will push them onto the roads. Highway accidents are far more common than railroad accidents. This is another case of the safest option being killed by NIMBYism.
4. Roger | 12.15.08
This rule change has been in the works for some time, it was well known for people who concern themselves with these issues, there was nothing sneaky about it. There is public review in the form of regulations that have been in place and evolved for decades regarding the cars and how they are handled. There is notification to emergency services with the most dangerous cargoes, they just don’t call you. The claim that there is no accountability is just ridiculous. There is telling what’s in the cars - there is a number on all four sides that can be looked up in the Emergency Response Guidebook that all emergency services carry, the waybills carried by the conductor has detailed info and ChemTrec also has the info and every emergency responder knows how to contact them. Railroads have always been allowed to transport dangerous materials through cities. Where else can they go? That’s where the customers are. And railroads have insurance. The railroads do not want an accident any more than you do. They have a much better safety record than the trucking industry. Do they notify you when you are driving next to them? The point that the both of you and the author missed was that this regulation is more restrictive than not having this regulation.
5. Jake Brotherhood | 12.16.08
As a professional firefighter, hazmat certified, I can tell you with experience and certainty that prohibitions on transporting dangerous materials through population centers and other areas (certain tunnels for example) are in place because we know better.
Let’s pretend the restrictions are removed for expedience, and the inevitable accident occurs. How on earth are you going to evacuate a major metropolitan city? How on earth are you going to establish a perimeter, or better still decontaminate what’s left…every building, every closet of clothes.
Someone mentioned “the railroad companies don’t want accidents” Of course they don’t, but neither do I and neither do 2 million of my closest friends I live with down wind from the impact point. Someone mentioned insurance, if I were the insurance carrier I would hire an engineer to drive the train around the population center every time, since the amount of lost productivity each trip would still be a sliver of my exposure to my combined losses if a poison rail car or twelve bleved or leaked in downtown Los Angeles or Chicago.
6. Jeff | 12.16.08
Over the last few decades, railroads have produced a very good safety record when transporting hazardous chemicals. The risk incurred by urban routing of these materials is tiny compared to many other risks to our security. Furthermore, there are in many cases no other alternatives to the route: either the origin or destination is in an urban area, or no railroad tracks go around the city in a convenient way. And trucks have a much worse safety record, and are more vulnerable to sabotage and incidental rupture.
Hazardous materials need to be transported, and railroads (even operating through urban areas) offer the safest method of doing so. While I’m not happy about many of the Administrations proposed “midnight rule changes”, this one is not worth getting upset about.
7. Fred | 12.16.08
Jeff, this is not about safety but about SECURITY, requiring some post-9/11 re-thinking of what’s an acceptable risk. As even CSXT railroad has lamented publicly, “After 9/11 the public has turned against us on this” – that is, folks really think by now that it is insane to be carrying poison gas cargoes into our major cities unnecessarily.
So this issue is about not allowing the railroads to continue “pre-positioning” in our major High Threat Urban Areas cargoes that the federal regulators call Weapons of Mass Destruction. One chlorine tank car, the chlorine industry warns its user facilities in the venerable Pamphlet 74, can produce a poison gas cloud at a lethal level 15 miles downwind and 4 miles wide. Too bad American citizens are being deliberately kept in the dark about this – ask your neighbors if they know. Terrorists surely do.
8. YPmule | 12.17.08
I am retired from a major railroad and worked with HazMat documentation and the computer programs that determine the route and scheduling of freight cars. Folks that think train cars can be rerouted around towns must not be familiar with where the tracks are. Its not like a truck that can just take a more rural route - the train has to stay on the tracks! The rails were (for the most part) built before the towns grew up around the tracks. Many towns sprang into being because the railroad went thru that point on the map.
What is wrong with this picture is the fact that as consumers we WANT the products that are produced with hazardous chemicals. If there was no demand for the end product, then we wouldn’t be having this issue (and co-workers wouldn’t have died from a chlorine leak!)
9. Dave | 12.17.08
I am a toxicologist working on a rail hazardous materials flow study for a state government. States and first responders are definitely going to have a hard time finding out information on what’s going through their towns. When asked for hazmat data, about half the rail companies in the state were helpful and provided information. About half told me to get lost (not because it was necessarily a security issue, but more along the lines of ‘we don’t provide this information to anyone’). I didn’t try to get actual routes, just the types and amounts of chemicals. Rerouting is certainly going to be an issue but some rerouting is definitely possible. Rail is going to be more and more vital as petroleum becomes scarce and rail companies need both more regulation and more money for needed expansion.
10. Wilbur | 12.17.08
>>Neil Fraser said, “If trains aren’t allowed to carry dangerous chemicals, that will push them onto the roads. Highway accidents are far more common than railroad accidents. This is another case of the safest option being killed by NIMBYism.”<<
The concern isn’t just accidents, it’s terrorist targeting. Each rail tank car has three or more times the capacity of a tank truck, and they are coupled together in multiples. They are confined to rails that usually route through urban centers rather than around them as interstates do.
11. sy levy | 12.18.08
Even in its death throes the Bush administration will do anything to increase corporate profits at the expense of the American public. Transporting dangerous chemicals at any time is dangerous. No-brainer! Allowing transportation corporations to be unregulated and make up their own rules is just another invitation to disaster.
This should not be a decision made by a profit-making organization. It has to be monitored by the United States government as part of a comprehensive effort to prevent terrorist attacks on tempting targets which can kill hundreds of thousands of American citizens. It’s not a question of whether or not it is more economically preferable to use trucks or trains for transportation of dangerous materials. A terrorist attack upon a train carrying thousands of gallons of deadly substances which could well equal a small nuclear explosion in our midst. There must a military force to watch over such shipments and new methodology to safeguard trains and tracks. Think what a simple hand held missile could do to spread death throughout our cities. Leave it to Bush to put profits above people. Sy Levy
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1. Paul | 12.15.08
If railroads are allowed to transport dangerous materials through cities, they should be required to post a bond equal to the amount of damage that a derailed train could cause.