Another view: Nation needs safer means to move oil

This editorial originally appeared in the Des Moines Register:

Two weeks ago, a train pulling 105 tank cars loaded with crude oil derailed in Lynchburg, Va. Thirty thousand gallons of petroleum spilled into the James River and about 350 people were evacuated when the fuel erupted in flames.

You may have missed this story, because these derailments and exploding oil tankers have apparently become so common as to be old news. But it is still a big deal to the people in the states and cities along rail lines that carry increasing volumes of crude oil from the Bakken region in North Dakota, Wyoming and Canada.

So, it was good news that the U.S. Department of Transportation last week issued emergency rules requiring railroads to notify state and local emergency-response officials when making large shipments of Bakken crude oil. Under current practices, railroads are not required to notify states of movements of hazardous cargo. The emergency rule applies to trains carrying more than 1 million gallons of Bakken crude, or about 35 tank cars.

This is an important step in light of the increased rail shipment of crude oil, mostly as a result of the dramatic growth of Bakken Oil drilling. The Iowa Department of Transportation reported that railroads hauled 27,251 tank cars through Iowa last year carrying crude oil and other petroleum products, but local officials are not alerted when these trains move through their communities.

Railroads have been secretive about shipments of hazardous substances for security reasons. But state and local public safety officials should be fully informed so they can be prepared for the potential of oil spills, explosions or fires.

Whereas trains in the past pulled a small number of tank cars mixed among freight cars, today trains carrying oil may include 100 or more tank cars. This concern is not just a matter of rising volume of oil shipments but is also due to the explosive nature of the fuel oil being extracted from the Bakken formation. That led to another set of new rules requiring shippers to more carefully classify the oil being shipped so federal, state and local safety agencies know what they are dealing with.

The Lynchburg accident was only the latest in a string of oil-tanker accidents, the worst being last July's derailment in Canada that resulted in an explosion that killed 47 people and wiped out a major part of a Quebec town's business district.

"The number and type of petroleum crude oil railroad accidents ... that have occurred during the last year is startling, and the quantity of petroleum crude oil spilled as a result of these accidents is voluminous in comparison to past precedents," the DOT said in announcing the new rule.

The U.S. DOT is also developing new rules that will require oil shippers to adopt a safer design of oil tank cars, but there clearly are larger issues. For one, the federal government should speed up approval of oil pipelines, which are far and away the safest, most efficient way to move large volumes of oil. It's worth noting that the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project would reduce the number of trains carrying Bakken crude.

Environmentalists' objection to pipelines is at its heart an objection to exploiting buried reserves of crude oil, a leading contributor to the greenhouse gas blamed for climate change. That concern is reasonable, but the best solution is to wean America off its dependence on oil. Until that happens, the oil we use should be transported safely.

SNAPSHOT

THE ISSUE: Rail safety

THE REGISTER'S VIEW: Rules requiring notification of large crude oil shipments are a step forward.