New York will disclose when, where trains ship oil
New York will soon disclose the routes and schedules of freight trains hauling tanker cars filled with Bakken crude oil as they pass through New York on their way to coastal refineries.
New York State announced Friday it has denied a request by CSX Transportation and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
The railroads began providing the information to the State Emergency Response Commission on June 7 under an emergency order signed by U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
The decision to release the data was announced by Jerome Hauer, state Commissioner of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, who also informed the railroads in a letter.
“The state’s review concluded that the information is not sensitive security information,” Hauer said, indicating it will be released to local emergency planners and to the public through Freedom of Information requests.
An agency spokeswoman said Friday the date the information will be released has not yet been determined.
New Jersey officials recently announced they were reviewing a similar request for non-disclosure, but officials in some states such as Florida, California and Montana have decided to release the information, according to the Associated Press.
So-called unit trains with 100 or more tankers of crude oil regularly run through Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Utica to terminals in the Albany area. The oil arriving in Albany is either moving through the Port of Albany for shipment by barge and tanker, or on the CSX river line on the western shore of the Hudson River south to New Jersey.
The Canadian Pacific also is operating oil tanker shipments that move south from Rouses Point to the Albany area.
Safety concerns about the shipment of crude oil by rail has grown in the past couple years as the frequency of the shipments has grown.
An estimated 434,000 tanker loads of crude oil were shipped by rail in the United States last year, compared to only 9,500 in 2008, according to the Association of American Railroads.
The National Transportation Safety Board reports there have been 16 significant freight rail accidents in the U.S. and Canada since 2006 involving trains carrying crude oil or ethanol, including one last July that killed 47 people in Canada.
Crude oil and ethanol fires caused by derailed freight trains are left to burn out on their own because first responders can’t extinguish them, according to fire safety officials.
Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York announced last month he is co-sponsoring legislation by Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota requiring the Federal Emergency Management Agency to form a panel to address freight derailments involving hazardous materials and crude oil tankers.
The proposed panel would bring together emergency responders, federal agencies and others to address training issues and best practices for responding to derailments.
BTUMULTY@gannett.com
Twitter: @NYinDC