Quebec rail disaster questions safety of oil transport

Wendy Koch | USA TODAY

A runaway train that exploded and killed more than a dozen people in a Canadian town is raising safety questions about moving crude oil by rail — just as such transport is taking off in the United States.

To handle the boom in U.S. oil production, notably in North Dakota, the nation's seven major railroads moved nearly 234,000 carloads of crude oil last year. That's up from 66,000 carloads in 2011 and 9,500 in 2008, according to the Association of American Railroads which represents large railroads. Another big jump is expected this year.

"We have a strong safety record of moving hazardous materials, including crude oil," says AAR spokeswoman Holly Arthur, adding that the Quebec disaster on Saturday involved a short line — not a major or Class 1 railroad.

Yet the tragic derailment of the train's 73 tanker cars, all but one of which were carrying crude oil from North Dakota, is intensifying the debate over whether President Obama should approve the 875-mile northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Backers says the Canada-to-U.S. pipeline, which would carry heavy crude oil known as tar sands from the Alberta region to the upper Midwest, would be a safer way to carry oil than rail. Critics say the Quebec accident shows neither mode is safe, so the nation should move away from oil.

"This has been an awfully sober reminder that moving crude oil is dangerous. ... The more you move, the more risk there is," says Martin Tallett, president of EnSys Energy, a Massachusetts-based consulting firm that is doing an updated market analysis of the Keystone project for the State Department. He expects the rail explosion will make "people extremely uncomfortable" about moving more crude oil.

Keystone backers say the tragedy underscores the benefit of pipelines. "If this oil shipment had been carried through pipelines, instead of rail, families in Lac-Mégantic would not be grieving for lost loved ones," wrote Diana Furchtgott-Roth in Toronto's Globe and Mail. She's a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, which is partly funded by the fossil-fuel industry.

From 2005 through 2009, Furchtgott-Roth says federal data show that rail has higher rates of serious incidents, injuries and fatalities than pipelines. She says rail had 2.08 incidents per billion ton-miles (a ton of weight moved 1 mile), compared with 0.58 for oil pipelines. In an issue brief released in May, she said Americans are more apt to be struck by lightning than be killed in a pipeline accident.

The State Department, which is reviewing the Keystone project because it crosses a national boundary, cited her findings in its draft environmental review in March. It said even if the pipeline were rejected, it's unlikely to "significantly impact the rate of extraction in the oil sands" because developers could transport the oil by rail or other modes instead.

Arthur says rail may have more small incidents than pipelines, but the average pipeline spill is four times larger than a rail one. She says three-quarters of rail oil spills involved less than 5 gallons in the last decade.

Neither is safe, says Anthony Swift of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group opposed to the Keystone pipeline. He says while rail may be moving an increasing amount of U.S. oil, he says most of it is light crude — not the heavy tar sands extracted in Canada.

A Goldman Sachs analysis last month said that moving tar sands by rail is difficult and costlier, because it's heavier (rail cars have weight limits) and requires specially made rail cars that can heat the viscous oil.

Swift says the Quebec accident doesn't bolster the State Department's argument that rail is a feasible pipeline alternative for transporting tar sands. Obama is expected later this year to decide whether to approve the billion-dollar Keystone XL pipeline.