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HomeMy WebLinkAboutResponse from Fed Railroad Administration Stafford, Kathleen From: Snyder, Ashley Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 8:59 AM To: Stafford, Kathleeni, Subject: FW: Response from Federal Railroad Administration BCS Correspondence AshLeU N. Sndder Assistant Clerk of the Board Butte County Administration 25 County Center Drive, Suite 200, Oroville, CA 95965 T: 530.538.2867 1 F: 530338.7120 Twitter l Eacebook I YoqTube I Pinterest From: Hatcher, Casey Sent:Tuesday, October 25, 2016 4:06 PM To: Connelly, Bill<BConne,lly@buttecounty.net>; Wahl, Larry<LWahl@buttecounty.net>; Kirk, Maureen <M Kirk@ buttec�o u nty.net>; Lambert, Steve <SLam bert@ buttecounty.net>;Teeter, Doug<DTeeter@buttecounty.net> Cc: Hahn, Paul <PHa!hn@buttecou nty.net>;Taggart, Kevin<ktaggart@buttecounty.net>; Snyder,Ashley <ansnyder@buttecounty.net> Subject: Response from, Federal Railroad Administration Good Afternoon. As Paul mentioned during the CAO update today, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), a division of the U.S. Department of Transportation, responded to the Board's September 6, 2016 letter concerning rail transport of hazardous materials in the, Feather River Canyon. Here is a summary of the letter. • The FRA provided a link to the actions that have been taken to reduce the risk to public safety and the environment from moving crude oil by rail as well as additional details for specific actions that have been taken in this regard. • The letter addressed the Board's request to analyze alternative rail routes for these, materials and indicates the railroad is responsible for analyzing the safety and security risks of the routes used along with available alternative routes. Railroads analyze a minimum of 27 risk factors in this,determination. • The FRA provided a link to training opportunities for responding to emergencies along rail corridors. • The FRA conducted a track inspection near tunnel 5 below Highway 70 and found zero deficiencies. Thanks. Casey ca4ey Hatche4, Principal Management Analyst / PICS .Butte County Administration 25 County Center Drive, Suite 200, Oroville, CA 95965 T: 530.538.61821 M: 530.5183508 Twitter I Eacebook I YouTube I Pinterest U.S. Department 1200 New Jersey Avenue,SE of Transportation Washington,DC 20590 Federal Railroad Administration OCT 1 9 2016 Mr, Bill Connelly Chair-, Butte County Board of Supervisors Administration Center- 25 enter25 County Center Drive, Suite 200 Oroville, California 95965 Dear Mr. Connelly: This letter is in response to YOUr September 6, 2016, letter to the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) Administrator, Sarah Feinberg, regarding the Butte County Board of Supervisors concerns with the rail transport of hazardous materials, including Crude oil, through the Feather River Canyon (Canyon) in California. In your letter, you: • request that the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) study alternative routes other than through the Canyon for trains transporting crude oil and other hazardous materials, • ask DOT to take intermediate actions to modify rail transportation of hazardous materials through the Canyon while conducting the requested analysis, and • express specific concern with track conditions near tunnel 5 below Highway 70. DOT and FRA understand and share your concerns with the rail transport of hazardous materials, and crude oil in pailicular. Safety is our top priority, and we are taking a comprehensive approach to enhance the safe transportation of all hazardous materials, including crude oil and other energy products. DOT's approach, through FRA and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PI-IMSA), includes prevention, mitigation, and emergency preparedness and response. We have taken numerous actions to reduce the risk to public safety and the environment posed by movements of crude oil and other ener.(,),y products by rail, A cornprehensi\(e list of those actions is available online at: http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/hazmat/osd/chronology Specific examples of actions taken include: 0 In May 2015, PFIMSA, in coordination with FRA, issued a final rule for Enhanced Tank Car Standards and Operational Controls for High-Hazard Flammable Trains (HHFTs, which are trains transporting large quantities of flammable liquids, including crude oil). This final rule adopts requirements designed to reduce the consequences and, in some instances, reduce the probability of accidents involving trains transporting large quantities of flammable liquids. The final rule regulates operation in terms of speed restrictions, braking systems, and routing. It also adopts safety improvements in tank car design standards, a sampling and classification program for Unrefined petroleum-based products, and notification requirements for local government entities. Mr. Bill Connelly Page 2 • On July 29, 2016,PHMSA, in consultation with FRA, issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing to expand the applicability of comprehensive oil spill response plans based on thresholds of liquid petroleum oil that apply to an entire train. Railroads would be required to have specific oil spill response plans and resources in place to respond to any oil spill within a certain timeframe. o In accordance with the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act of 2015 this oil spill response plan Notice of Proposed Rulemaking also proposes to require railroads to share information about HHFTs with state and tribal emergency response commissions to maintain and improve community preparedness. This would codify and expand existing notification requirements for crude oil shipments in DOT's May 7, 2014, Emergency Restriction/Prohibition Order. • To provide an additional layer of safety, FRA launched the Crude Oil Route Track Examination(CORTEX) program. CORTEX is an all-out, full-court inspection blitz on crude oil routes. Under this initiative, FRA sends dozens of additional inspectors to a specific region of the country to conduct inspections, specifically looking for safety hazards, deficiencies, and violations of track safety regulations along crude oil routes. Each CORTEX inspection shines a bright light on the routes where crude oil is transported, When we find problems, we take quick action. In February 2016, FRA conducted a CORTEX inspection of Feather River Canyon and reported any deficiencies to the Union Pacific railroad for attention. Regarding your request for DOT to analyze alternative rail routes for hazardous materials other than through the Canyon and to meanwhile take certain intermediate actions, Federal regulations already require railroads transporting certain types of hazardous materials—including large quantities of flammable liquids such as crude oil to analyze the safety and security risks of the routes used and available alternative routes. In conducting this risk analysis, railroads must analyze a minimum of 27 risk factors, including: • the presence of environmentally sensitive or significant areas; • the volume of hazardous materials transported; • track type, class, and maintenance schedule; • presence or absence of signals and train control systems along the route; • proximity to iconic targets; • population density along the route; and • emergency response capability along the route. In July 2015, FRA reviewed the Union Pacific route risk analysis for origin-destination pairs carrying commodities, including HHFT, covered under 49 C.F.R. § 172.820. FRA determined Union Pacific was using the route with the lowest risk score. PHMSA's routing rule also requires covered railroads to provide a point of contact to State and/or regional fusion centers and state, local and tribal officials in jurisdictions that may be affected by routing decisions and who contact the railroad to discuss routing decisions. See 49 C.F.R. § 172.820(g). We encourage the Butte County Board of Supervisors to directly contact Mr. Bill Connelly Page 3 the railroads operating through the Canyon for additional information on their routing decisions and to discuss any specific routing or emergency response concerns. Any concerns can be directed to Mr. Wesley J. Lujan,Vice President of Public Affairs at Union Pacific at (916) 789- 6015 or at WJLUJAN@UP.COM. In regard to your concern that communities along rail corridors be fully prepared to respond to emergencies, I would like to describe some of the training that we offer and have conducted across the country. This past spring, PHMSA and FRA launched the Transportation Rail Incident Preparedness and Response Program, which is a free Web-based training for emergency responders across the country. The course focuses on responses to rail incidents involving Class 3 flammable liquids, which includes crude oil and ethanol. To learn more about the resources available to the municipalities in Butte County under this program,please visit: http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/hazmat/osd/emergencyresponse/TRIPR You may also be interested to know that the Transportation Technology Center Inc. (TTCI), which is owned by the FRA and managed by the Association of American Railroads, has trained 1,500 first responders in TTCI's Crude by Rail Training for First Responders course. The training at TTCI is provided at no cost to communities and first responders. Should the municipalities in Butte County be interested in pursuing this training,please refer them to Mr. Forrest Wieder, at Forrest—Wieder@aar.com. In your letter you also raised concerns with railroad conditions near tunnel 5 below Highway 70. We appreciate your alerting us to these conditions, and we assigned personnel to investigate. In early October, FRA sent an automated track inspection vehicle, or geometry car,through the section noted in your letter to check for compliance with Federal Track Safety Standards. The geometry car found zero deficiencies. FRA staff also inspected this section of rail to confirm the geometry car's results and confirmed they found the track to be without deficiencies and in excellent condition. Someone from FRA's Region 7 Office, located in Sacramento, California will follow up with you to arrange a meeting to discuss this issue further. Region 7 can be reached at (916) 498-6540. Thank you again for writing to FRA with your concerns. If you have further questions on this or any other topic, please contact me at(202) 493-6282 or at john.alexy@dot.gov. Sincerely, Karl Alexy Director, Off ceyafetynalysis