Inside Energy (https://insideenergy.org/tag/bnsf/)
The coal industry’s recent downturn is casting ripples throughout the economy in the West. In Wyoming, the unemployment rate is climbing faster than any other state in the country—and it’s not just miners who are struggling.
Coal production is at a 30-year low. Layoffs are moving beyond coal mines to the railroads that transport coal, hitting conductors like Adam Fotta in Grand Junction, Colorado.
With temperatures dropping across the northern United States, power plants would usually be stockpiling coal in preparation for higher electricity demand during the winter months, but this year, that’s proving problematic.
Environmental groups are suing the U.S. Department of Transportation over the shipment of crude oil in older railroad tank cars. The lawsuit follows a series of arguments, complaints and regulation changes over the past few months regarding safety rules and industry secrecy, which Inside Energy investigated during the summer.
EarthFix reports on a culture at BNSF railway that dismisses safety concerns and retaliates against workers who report.
An analysis of waybills – freight receipts kept by railroad companies – shows that the vast majority of crude oil traveling on rails comes from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and moves on large trains that can be more than 100 cars long. This map shows a time-lapse view of where oil trains came from from 2012. For a full explanation of this data, see, “Train Waybills Unlock Crude Oil Mysteries.”
A dozen or more trains carrying crude oil from the Bakken region are moving across northern Montana every week, skirting the edge of Glacier National Park. More trains — far fewer in number – pass through populated regions farther south. Governor Steve Bullock released the route information this week, making Montana the latest state after Washington to buck railroads’ requests to keep the information out of public hands.
We’ve been tracking the rise of crude oil moving on railroads over the past few weeks, and we’ve learned a great deal. Some things we know:
A lot more crude oil is traveling by rails now than it was a few years ago, the equivalent of one railroad tank car every 77 seconds. Several recent crude-by-rail accidents have been deadly and devastating. Crude-by-rail accidents are on the rise, but the rate of accidents isn’t necessarily increasing. Railroad companies are now required to tell local authorities when they’ll be moving Bakken oil through their communities, but are fighting this requirement.
Hundreds of thousands of tank cars full of crude oil snake across the nation each year, and the number is only increasing — in the last five years, it’s jumped 14-fold. Along with that, there’s been an increased number of accidents, derailments and spills. Public safety advocates are clamoring for more information about where the trains are going and how much crude they’re carrying, but it’s been almost impossible to come by. Regulators don’t collect it and the railroads have refused to disclose it. Why the secrecy?
We know that a lot of crude oil is traveling by rail, but where exactly it is traveling, how much and how often, remains a secret.
