OIL IN QUEBEC TRAIN DISASTER WAS MISLABELED

[GeorgeGist]

Source: AP

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian transportation safety officials have told U.S. officials that the oil carried by the train that derailed in Quebec in July was misclassified as a less dangerous type of crude.

The board's chief investigator, Donald Ross, said Wednesday the train's shipment of North Dakota crude oil was mislabeled as "Group 3" conventional crude, when it should have been given a more explosive "Group 2" classification.

The unattended train carrying oil from the Bakken region rolled away and derailed, with several of its oil tankers exploding in the middle of the Lac-Megantic, near the Maine border. The explosions and fire killed 47 people.

Safety regulations for the transport of crude oil differ depending upon the type of oil and its flashpoint — the lowest temperature at which it will ignite

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/oil-quebec-train-disaster-was-mislabeled

[BlueToTheBone]

1. These companies lie, cheat, steal and kill

for the best profit.

[hobbit709]

2. "Mislabeled", my ass. That was done because it saved them some money.

They just hoped nothing would happen.

[valerief]

15. ^^^this^^^

[adirondacker]

30. With 99.9% certainty! nt

[Nye Bevan]

3. This is why I am more open to the Keystone pipeline than many DUers.

One way or another, the oil will be transported. And the pipeline, with appropriate safeguards, would seem to be about the least risky way to do it.

[Stargazer99]

6. what makes you think the same thing will not happen?

If there are not enough enforcement now, what makes you think the XL pipe line will be any more principled?
Are you a conservative posting on this board? Or are you just that naive?

[Nye Bevan]

8. Hey buddy, easy with the "are you a conservative" crap.

I've been here longer than you, and unlike you I am a donor. If you want to have a civil debate, you need to be a little easier on your trigger finger with the troll accusations.

[Stargazer99]

9. I've been on this board before you

And to me you sound like a conservative....consider the trigger pulled

[Nye Bevan]

10. I will leave you with the words of Skinner.

It betrays an utter lack of creativity on the part of the people making the accusation. They are so convinced that they are right that they cannot imagine someone else might hold a different point of view in good faith. Either that or they are incapable of advocating for their own point of view on the merits.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1259&pid=2716

PS 2004 < 2006

[Stargazer99]

23. I still think where there is smoke there is fire

Your comment about being here before me and a paying individual sounds like money talks-a Republican value

[wordpix]

27. you don't get it, then - Keystone is the line in the sand

We don't need tar sands oil and we don't need to ship it by rail, tanker truck or sea. We need more solar-wind-biofuels providing electricity.

When do you propose that we end the fossil fuel addiction? When the oil runs out and it's too late? (By too late, I mean if the oil runs out at a time when we have no other systems/sources for electric generation on a large society scale, we're screwed). When YOUR water supply is full or oil or gas? When YOUR house is on fire from a runaway oil tanker?

[NickB79]

28. Less risky day-to-day, but one accident could be huge

A ruptured pipeline could theoretically spill far more oil than a derailed trainload.

Besides that, if XL operates at all like every other oil pipeline in the world, you can expect to see frequent, small leaks at a regular basis. A few hundred gallons here, a few thousand there. Individually, they're not much, but over the course of a year they represent a LOT of pollution.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, GeorgeGist.

[silvershadow]

5. If *I had mislabeled it, I would have been in jail by sundown. Because "they" are a corporation,

(and I use the euphemism "they" to indicate the artificial entity), "they" will probably pay modest fine to some agency.

[Myrina]

17. ... a modest fine that they will then write off of their taxes ...

.... and probably end up actually getting a refund for.

[silvershadow]

19. Yes. I think I'm doing it wrong. I think I need to incorporate, for the business purpose of

providing myself a humble abode and life. Everything I do will be a part of that business, in the interest of the shareholders (me, and maybe a few close friends who want to see me have a good life). I wonder if that would work?

[surrealAmerican]

22. I'm hoping the Canadians find a person who's responsible for this ...

... because you're right: corporations don't spend time in jail.

[One_Life_To_Give]

7. Would it have changed anything?

I don't remember any difference in the trucking regulations for carrying group 2 or 3. Would a railroad treat them any differently? Thought it was more of an FYI for first responders than additional transportation requirement.

[TheMadMonk]

24. It makes a fuck load of difference to the emergency...

...responders if no one else.

It also would have made a huge difference to at least some of those 47 killed, because they would have been evacuated immediately.

Class 3 products burns slowly, and generally only if they are soaked into some sort of wicking material.

Class 2 products explode if you look at them funny.


I don't know for sure, but I do suspect that rail transport regulation could well be different: Slower maximum permissible speeds and larger intervals between trains. Also separating carloads of volatiles from each other, just so they don't all go up in one massive explosion exactly like this one.

But doing those things mean less profit making movements per hour on the main line, and a lot more revenue eating movements in the yards.

[One_Life_To_Give]

26. Class 3 such as Diesel and home fuel oil don't need a wicking material

How much difference do you think there is in regulations between a class 3 like diesel and a class 2 like kerosine?

As a first responder it matters to me that an ordinary spill of 10,000gallons one generates sufficient vapors to possibly travel to a nearby ignition source while the other doesn't. In tthe case of shipping I don't know that Kerosine is more expensive to ship than diesel. The truck driver certainly doesn't get paid more nor does it regulate quantity on the truck change what other chemicals could be carried in a mixed load. Not like carrying explosives, blasting agents, poisons or radioactive materials.

[TheMadMonk]

29. Absent enough radiant heat or agitation to raise some vapours, pooled diesel WILL NOT BURN.

They demonstrated that on Mythbusters, the diesel burnt whilst exposed to a naked flame (propane torch), but self-extinguished the moment the heat source was removed. Hell, it's perfectly possible to extinguish a naked flame in petrol or even alcohol if you know what you're doing.

Gas, liquid, or solid, NOTHING burns unless an oxidiser can be brought into intimate molecular contact with the combustible material.

It doesn't take much to be a wick, even a lump of dirt will suffice, it just has to be something which increases the surface area exposed to the air (oxygen within it) to the point where enough VAPOURS are generated to maintain a self-sustaining exothermic chemical reaction, AKA fire. The wick can even be virtual/the air around us: given the right conditions, pooled liquids will produce enough vapour to burn at the meniscus/periphery but not in the middle, generating a hollow flame.



Mate, if you are a first responder (I'm guessing you're NOT a FIREFIGHTER or you'd already know this), take the time to learn a bit more about exactly what it takes to make a fire, when a fire can become a whoomping (but minimally injurious) fireball, and when a fireball can be a neighbourhood flattening explosion. Go that extra mile to work with the firefighters, so they don't have to work around you.

If you're a cop, give me your address, and I'll be around with a clue by four immediately. HOT PURSUIT IS NOT AN ADEQUATE REASON TO ABANDON YOUR SQUAD CAR ON THE TRACKS <pejorative assumed>!


Decent knowledge of any given situation is the difference between being able to take a calculated risk for a patient, and the current policy of standing back and watching people die unnecessarily, if there's the slightest possibility of risk to the responders. (Particularly trained volunteer responders.)

When I was a child, a BASIC first aid course covered damned near everything short of suturing and reduction of fractures and dislocations (and even then, the methods of immobilisation we were taught brought about self-reduction in many cases).


Today, it's cover your own arse, cover your own arse, cover your own arse, apply pressure to any bleeding or commence CPR (after you first covering your own arse) if and as appropriate, make them comfortable, call for help. Even pressure bandaging for snakebite has been discarded under the assumption that a first responder can be on the spot within minutes.

I will never take another first aid course in my life, unless required to do so by an employer, and if I am, I will do exactly as told by my last two instructors and allow the accreditation to lapse as soon as possible, because if I'm certificated, I'm liable for every consequence of my actions. I can save a patient's life and still be held 100% responsible for his paraplegia. As a civilian acting in good faith, my entire lifetime of training and the fruits of (un)common sense are available to me, and my arse is automatically covered by the law provided my action aren't totally egregious.


Whoo, quite a segue there.

[One_Life_To_Give]

31. 1/2 cup of gas

Back when we still used #2 in the smokehouse at the fire academy, we used a small gasoline trailer (1/4-1/2 cup) to start the fire.

Main point is still the placard having a 3 instead of a 2 didn't change the transportation requirements. As I understand it the fire was going before FD arrived. From what little I have seen reported I don't think the Command Officer would have changed/altered any actions based upon the placard having been properly indicating or not.

I question that a 10,000 gallon tank car of gasoline is more expensive to ship than a 10,000 gallon tank car of diesel. As I don't recall a difference in the trucking regulations concerning the carriage of 1 vs the other.

Not to trivialize the mis-identification. It's indicative of a possible systemic issue. But the hype in this thread is out of proportion to the actual specific action. It's more that other issues may have also been treated lazily. Does this extend to other materials shipped on the train? What does it say about the maintenance of the cars?

[TheMadMonk]

32. Fire was going. Had not exploded. Might still have been a chance to evacuate.

There's one difference that's going to be there at EVERY class 2 FIRE, a need to evacuate a potential blast zone immediately.


IF cars of volatiles are supposed to be separated by cars carrying less flammable cargos, or travel slower, (I don't know, it just makes sense that this should be the case) then it follows that it should be more expensive to ship.

There must be some profit taking motive to the mis-labeling, else the practice would be suicidally pointless.

[JustAnotherGen]

11. This could be huge

Their placards/hazmat notifications on those cars were mislabeled across HOW many states? To get from ND to Province Quebec via rail . . . DOT has to fine them and those fines are huge.

[JimboBillyBubbaBob]

12. It should have been.....

.....labeled napalm!

[frylock]

13. just an oversight, i'm sure..

fuckers.

[Sunlei]

14. I did not realise that 'crude' is so explosive. I guess some pipelines are a disaster in a wildfire.

[EC]

16. So I'm sure there will

be criminal charges, right?

[Divernan]

18. Correct labeling was changed in North Dakota train yard. That puts it on the US/EPA re regulating.

Ross said the fuel had been taken by truck from 11 Bakken wellheads to a train yard in North Dakota. Shipping documents from the truck companies that the TSB saw showed the fuel had been correctly listed as PGII. But when the train left, the classification had somehow changed to PGIII, he added.

Asked how that could have happened, Ross answered: "Good question." Tests on a tanker train that was following the one involved in the disaster on the rail line showed that it too was carrying PGII fuel that had been documented as PGIII.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/crude-deadly-canadian-crash-violently-explosive-newspaper-123452529--finance.html

[Nihil]

25. Kick for your important update.

> Correct labeling was changed in North Dakota train yard. That puts it on the US/EPA re regulating.

> Tests on a tanker train that was following the one involved in the disaster on the rail line showed
> that it too was carrying PGII fuel that had been documented as PGIII.

That is systemic criminal behaviour.

No "oops we made a mistake" get-out plea on this one.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

20. I'm on the NTSB listserv.

This showed up in my inbox just a while ago:

Statement of Acting Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman on TSB Canada’s Advisory on Lac-Megantic Derailment

Sept. 11, 2013

Earlier today, our colleagues at the Transportation Safety Board of Canada issued safety advisory letters to Canadian and U.S. regulators regarding the proper description of hazardous materials on shipping documents. The advisories arise from the TSB’s ongoing investigation into the freight train derailment and subsequent fire in Lac-Megantic, Quebec in July. We share the TSB’s concern. Clearly understanding the hazardous characteristics of what is being transported is one of the keys to safe transportation.

The TSB's letters can be found at:
www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/medias-media/communiques/rail/2013/r13d0054-20130911.asp

TSB calls on Canadian and U.S. regulators to ensure properties of dangerous goods are accurately determined and documented for safe transportation
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/medias-media/communiques/rail/2013/r13d0054-20130911.asp

[roamer65]

21. Bakken crude is a lighter, much more volatile crude.

I had read a while back that refineries will mix it with heavier sour crudes to get a refinable blend.

The mislabeling needs to be investigated and charges filed against those responsible.