Think the concerns about the dangers of more and more oil trains crossing the country and our state are overstated? Think again.
During the last week of January, McClatchy New Service’s Washington D.C. Bureau reported that state and federal officials are investigating an oil spill from a railroad tank car at the BP Cherry Point refinery last November, but key agencies didn’t know about it for at least a month.
The spill wasn’t discovered until the train arrived at the refinery on Nov. 5, when Federal Railroad Administration inspectors discovered oil stains on its sides and wheels, according to reports reviewed by McClatchy. Further inspection revealed an open valve and a missing plug. The car was also 1,611 gallons short.
So what happened to those 1,611 gallons of oil? As McClatchy reported: “Neither the railroad, nor the third-party company that unloaded the oil at the terminal, however, could determine where the missing oil had spilled, making it likely that it had leaked somewhere along the train’s 1,200-mile path between the loading terminal in Dore, North Dakota, and the refinery, near Ferndale.”
Some 1,611 gallons of oil spilled somewhere along the train’s 1,200 mile journey, and was only noticed once it reached its destination. And then, as McClatchy discovered, key agencies did not know about the spill for at least a month. That’s despite the fact that an oil spill of that size from a marine tanker, a refinery or a storage facility would normally trigger an automatic well-established set of notification requirements that would result in the information about the incident flowing promptly to local, state and federal agencies, McClatchy reported. There are also state and federal hotlines to report oil spills; another route not taken by those who discovered the oil at Cherry Point.
It wasn’t until Dec. 3 that the Washington state Utilities and Transportation Commission found out when it received a copy of the report BNSF Railway submitted to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Railroads have 30 days to file such reports.
The news never reached the state Department of Ecology, which responds to inland oil spills; the U.S. Coast Guard, which responds to oil spills along navigable waterways; or the Whatcom County Unified Emergency Coordination Center. The agencies were informed of the spill by McClatchy. BNSF and BP both issued “not our fault” statements.
State law requires railroads to report any hazardous materials release to the state emergency operations center within 30 minutes of learning of the incident; the report BNSF filed to federal regulators indicates that no local emergency services were notified at the time of the incident, McClatchy reported.
Washington has four rail inspectors, but not one for locomotives and equipment, McClatchy reported. With a state inspector at the site, the spill would have been reported immediately.
It’s clear that a state inspector is needed at our largest refinery. Language can easily be added to oil train safety bills already introduced in the Legislature to make it so. It’s the very least we could do.
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