The majority of FracTracker’s posts are generally considered articles. These may include analysis around data, embedded maps, summaries of partner collaborations, highlights of a publication or project, guest posts, etc.

FracTracker Alliance

Pipelines vs Oil Trains

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By Juliana Henao, Communications Intern

Media outlets have been very focused recently on reporting oil train derailments and explosions. Additionally, the Keystone XL pipeline has hastened political debates and arguments for years by both political parties since its initial proposal in 2008 – and the May 19th pipeline oil spill in California isn’t helping matters. In the midst of all of this commotion, a million questions are being asked, yet no one can seem to reach a conclusion about what method of transporting oil is truly safest and economically feasible – or if we are just stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Some say the solution to this problem is transporting the volatile crude via pipelines, while others believe it is a matter of increasing regulations, standards, and compliance for transport by train. The answer is simply not simple.

In light of this, a few of the folks at FracTracker gathered some facts on pipelines vs oil trains to lay out this issue in a clearer fashion.

Let’s start with trains.

Benefits

Due to the increasing demand of crude oil supply, there has been increasing activity in the transportation of crude oil by rail, which provides flexibility and quick transportation throughout the U.S. and its 115 refineries. Railroads are also willing to offer shippers shorter contracts than pipelines and other transportation methods, making them a more favorable method of crude oil transportation.

In 2008, U.S. freight trains were delivering somewhere from 9-10,000 carloads of crude oil. In 2013, they delivered roughly 435,560 carloads of crude oil, showing a 20-fold increase in crude oil shipments.

Risks

Oil trains, as well as pipelines, can pose a detrimental risk to communities and public health in the case of an explosion and/or spill. Danger Around the Bend describes in detail the dangers of transporting Bakken Formation crude oil from North Dakota to parts all over the country.

Some of the risks of transporting volatile crude via train have been clearly depicted in the news with announcements of spills, derailments, and explosions in urban and suburban areas, putting many people in harm’s way. Despite the decrease in spills between 1996 and 2007, devastating train accidents like the one on July 6, 2013 have raised questions about the safety of transportation by train.

train_incidents_english

Learn more about this trend and the increasing risk of exploding oil trains in a post by Randy Sargent of CMU.

Trains and train tracks in general can be very dangerous, as demonstrated by the deadly Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia this May. The total number of incidents in 2014, according to the Federal Railroad Administration, sum up to 11,793 – with 818 of those being fatal. These fatalities have been linked to a range of possible causes, but the numbers depict the gravity of safety issues within the railroad regulations.

Regulations

When it comes to train safety and regulations, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is in charge. Some of the current efforts to increase the safety of oil trains include safer tank car design, adding breaking power, reducing the train speed limits through urban areas and increasing crew size. One of the most important improvements, however, includes an increase in oil spill response, which is managed through the National Oil and Hazardous Substance Contingency Plan.

Now, let’s talk pipelines.

As we all know, finishing the Keystone XL pipeline has stirred years of controversy, since this project was initially proposed back in 2008. On January 31, 2014, the U.S. Department of State released the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would transport up to 830,000 barrels of tar sand oil per day through an 875-mile long pipeline running from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf Coast area. Below we have mapped the current and proposed tracks of the Keystone, along with the numerous ports, refineries, and rail lines:


The Keystone XL, Alberta oil sands, North American oil refineries and associated ports. View fullscreen and click Details for the metadata behind this map.

The SEIS discussed the impacts that the proposed pipeline would have on the environment and public health based on research, modeling, and analysis. One of the many purposes of the SEIS is to focus on whether the proposed project serves the national interest by comparing the risks to the benefits – discussed in more detail below.

Risks

The current risks associated with pipelines are similar to the risks associated with other modes of transporting oil across the United States. Oil spills are among the highest risks, but with the XL pipeline, it’s a more profound risk due to the type of oil being carried: tar sand oil. Tar sand oil, also known as heavy oil, is known for its tedious processing and its many environmental implications. Burning one single barrel of oil produced from Canadian tar sands generally emits 170 pounds of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. It also requires large amounts of energy and water, much of which cannot be recycled, to separate the oil from the tar sands and transform the oil into a form of petroleum that can be processed by refineries.

According to the final SEIS:

The proposed project would emit approximately 24 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year during the construction period (up to three times as much than producing conventional crude), which would be directly emitted through fuel use in construction vehicles and equipment as well as land clearing activities including open burning, and indirectly from electricity usage.

Additional risks associated with the XL pipeline include potential groundwater contamination of major aquifers – particularly the Ogallala Aquifer – as well as deforestation, habitat destruction, and fragmentation.

In the event of an oil spill from the Keystone XL or other pipelines crossing the U.S., the responsibility for who cleans it up does not fall on TransCanada. According to a report from the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC), tar sand oils are exempt from paying into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Amendments that would require TransCanada to pay the 8-cent-per-barrel fee to the fund have not been passed.

Devastating oil spills such as the one in Santa Barbara in mid May reflect the impact it not only has on wildlife, but on the local culture, especially on those who depend on fisheries and whose lives revolves around surfing in the brisk waters of the Pacific Ocean. 21,000 gallons of crude oil covers roughly 4 miles of Santa Barbara’s coast now, extending about 50 yards into the water.

Benefits

Jobs, jobs, jobs. The economic stimulus is one purported advantage to the XL pipeline. During construction, proposed project spending would support approximately 42,100 jobs, directly and indirectly and around $2 billion in earnings throughout the US, according to the final SEIS. Despite different job creation estimates, any number will contribute significantly to the US gross domestic product, associating a huge economic growth with the construction of the proposed XL pipeline. (TransCanada estimates around 13,000 construction jobs and 7,000 manufacturing jobs, which is about 3 times higher than the State Department’s estimate.) In addition, the cost of paying for the Keystone XL project ($3.3 billion) would not be placed on the U.S. but on Keystone.

According to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHSMA), the industry and their operators have reduced the risk of hazardous materials transportation incidents with death or major injury by 4% every 3 years, and since 2002, they have reduced the risk of a pipeline spill with environmental consequences by an average of 5% per year.1

Still, there is more work to be done. Safety issues that the pipeline industry is aiming to fix include:

  • Infrastructure: Repair obsolete pipeline infrastructure through a pipeline integrity management program and investigate new technologies that can detect pipeline risks.
  • Improving human error and safety culture: Increase the focus on safety beyond compliance standards and evaluate the potential value of safety management systems.
  • Adding secondary containment: Limit the spread of HAZMAT in the event of a failure in the primary container, and improve leak detection.
  • Transparency: Increasing transparency for companies and their accountability

Check out the infographic below for a summary of all of these pros and cons:

Moving Forward

All methods of transporting oil present various risks and benefits based on the available data. Explaining both sides of this coin allows us to assess each method’s impacts on our economy, environment, and public health. Through these assessments, we can make more informed decisions on what truly serves the nation’s interests. Oil and gas transport is a dangerous business, but all transportation industries are improving their management programs and increasing their regulations to provide citizens peace of mind and the safety they deserve. In light of ongoing issues, however, some would ask if these risks are even necessary.

For example, the growth of safer energy resources such as solar energy would significantly cut down the risks mentioned above in addition to providing jobs and stimulating the overall economy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Solar Foundation, the growth in direct industry jobs for solar has outweighed oil and gas for the past 3 years. In 2014, new jobs created for the solar industry were more than twice the jobs created for the oil and gas industry. Based on 2014’s economics, Kepler Cheuvreux stated that all renewables are already more competitive than oil priced at $100 per barrel — This is because renewables have a higher net energy return on capital invested (EROCI).

As a reader and a citizen, it is important to know the pros and cons of the current activities taking place in our country today. We must be aware of loopholes that may be putting our states, cities, or counties into harm’s way, as well as recognize alternative energy sources and regulatory oversight that lessen the threats that oil extraction and transport pose to our health and environment.

Footnote

1. These statistics are based from the Census Bureau analysis and Bureau of Transportation Statistics as of July 2012.

Guest Author

The Science Behind OK’s Man-made Earthquakes, Part 1

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By Ariel Conn, Seismologist and Science Writer with the Virginia Tech Department of Geosciences

On April 21, the Oklahoma Geological Survey issued a statement claiming that the sharp rise in Oklahoma earthquakes — from only a couple per year to thousands — was most likely caused by wastewater disposal wells associated with major oil and gas plays. This is huge news after years of Oklahoma scientists hesitating to place blame on an industry that provides so many jobs.

Now, seismologists from around the country — including Oklahoma — are convinced that these earthquakes are the result of human activity, also known as induced or triggered seismicity. Yet many people, especially those in the oil industry, still refute such an argument. Just what is the science that has seismologists so convinced that the earthquakes are induced and not natural?

Hidden Faults

Over the last billion years (give or take a couple hundred million), colliding tectonic plates have created earthquake zones, just as we see today in California, Japan, Chile and Nepal. As geologic processes occurred, these zones shifted and moved and were covered up, and the faults that once triggered earthquakes achieved a state of equilibrium deep in the basement rocks of the earth’s crust. But the faults still exist. If the delicate balance that keeps these fault systems stable ever shifts, the ancient faults can still move, resulting in earthquakes. Because these inactive faults are so deep, and because they can theoretically exist just about anywhere, they’re incredibly difficult to map or predict – until an earthquake occurs.

Thanks to historic reports of earthquakes in the central and eastern United States, we know there are some regions, far away from tectonic plate boundaries, that occasionally experience large earthquakes. Missouri and South Carolina, for example, suffered significant and damaging earthquakes in the last 200 hundred years, yet these states lie nowhere near a plate boundary. We know that fault zones exist in these locations, but we have no way of knowing about dormant faults in regions of the country that haven’t experienced earthquakes in the last couple hundred years.

What is induced seismicity?

As early as the 1930s, seismologists began to suspect that extremely large volumes of water could impact seismic activity, even in those regions where earthquakes weren’t thought to occur. Scientists found that after certain reservoirs were built and filled with water, earthquake swarms often followed. This didn’t happen everywhere, and when it did, the earthquakes were rarely large enough to be damaging. These quakes were large enough to be felt, however, and they represented early instances of human activity triggering earthquakes.[1]

Research into induced seismicity really picked up in the 1960s. The most famous example of man-made earthquakes occurred as a result of injection well activity at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. The arsenal began injecting wastewater into a disposal well 12,000 feet deep in March of 1962, and by April of that year, people were feeling earthquakes. Researchers at the arsenal tracked the injections and the earthquakes. They found that each time the arsenal injected large volumes of water (between 2 and 8 million gallons per month, or 47,000 to 190,000 barrels), earthquakes would start shaking the ground within a matter of weeks (Figure 1).

Rocky Mountain Arsenal fluid injection correlated to earthquake frequency

Figure 1. Rocky Mountain Arsenal fluid injection correlated to earthquake frequency

South Carolina experienced induced earthquakes after filling a reservoir

Figure 2. South Carolina experienced induced earthquakes after filling a reservoir

When the injections ended, the earthquakes also ceased, usually after a similar time delay, but some seismicity continued for a while. The well was active for many years, and the largest earthquake thought to be induced by the injection well actually occurred nearly a year and a half after injection officially ended. That earthquake registered as a magnitude 5.3. Scientists also noticed that over time, the earthquakes moved farther and farther away from the well.

Research at a reservoir in South Carolina produced similar results; large volumes of water triggered earthquake swarms that spread farther from the reservoir with time (Figure 2).

When people say we’ve known for decades that human activity can trigger earthquakes, this is the research they’re talking about.

Why now? Why Oklahoma?

Class II Injection Well. Photo by Lea Harper

Injection Well in Ohio. Photo by Ted Auch

Seismologists have known conclusively and for quite a while that wastewater injection wells can trigger earthquakes, yet people have also successfully injected wastewater into tens of thousands of wells across the country for decades without triggering any earthquakes. So why now? And why in Oklahoma?

The short answers are:

  • At no point in history have we injected this much water this deep into the ground, and
  • It’s not just happening in Oklahoma.

One further point to clarify: General consensus among seismologists is that most of these earthquakes are triggered by wastewater disposal wells and not by hydrofracking (or fracking) wells. That may be a point to be contested in a future article, but for now, the largest induced earthquakes we’ve seen have been associated with wastewater disposal wells and not fracking. This distinction is important when considering high-pressure versus high-volume wells. A clear connection between high-pressure wells and earthquakes has not been satisfactorily demonstrated in our research at the Virginia Tech Seismological Observatory (VTSO) (nor have we seen it demonstrated elsewhere, yet). High-volume wastewater disposal wells, on the other hand, have been connected to earthquakes.

At the VTSO, we looked at about 8,000 disposal wells in Oklahoma that we suspected might be connected to induced seismicity. Of those, over 7,200 had maximum allowed injection rates of less than 10,000 barrels per month, which means the volume is low enough that they’re unlikely to trigger earthquakes. Of the remaining 800 wells, only 300 had maximum allowed injection rates of over 40,000 barrels per month — and up to millions of barrels per year for some wells. These maximum rates are on par with the injection rates seen at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, and our own plots indicate a correlation between high-volume injection wells and earthquakes (Figure 3-4).

Triangles represent wastewater injection wells scaled to reflect maximum volume rates. Wells with high volumes are located near earthquakes.

Figure 3. Triangles represent wastewater injection wells scaled to reflect maximum volume rates. Wells with high volumes are located near earthquakes.

Triangles represent wastewater injection wells scaled to reflect maximum pressure. Wells with high pressures are not necessarily near earthquakes.

Figure 4. Triangles represent wastewater injection wells scaled to reflect maximum pressure. Wells with high pressures are not necessarily near earthquakes.

This does not mean that all high-volume wells will trigger earthquakes, or that lower-volume wells are always safe, but rather, it’s an important connection that scientists and well operators should consider.

Starting in 2008 and 2009, with the big oil and gas plays in Oklahoma, a lot more fluid was injected into a lot more wells. As the amount of fluid injected in Oklahoma has increased, so too have the number of earthquakes. But Oklahoma is not the only state to experience this phenomenon. Induced earthquakes have been recorded in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, West Virginia and Texas.

In the last four years, Arkansas, Kansas, Ohio and Texas have all had “man-made” earthquakes larger than magnitude 4, which is the magnitude at which damage begins to occur. Meanwhile, in that time period, Colorado experienced its second induced earthquake that registered larger than magnitude 5. Oklahoma may have the most induced and triggered earthquakes, but the problem is one of national concern.

Read Part 2

Footnote

[1] Induced seismicity actually dates back to the late 1800s with mining, but the connection to high volumes of fluid was first recognized in the 1930s. However, the extent to which it was documented is unknown.

Oil train - Photo by Washinton House Democrats
FracTracker Alliance

Increasing Risk from Exploding Crude Trains

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By Randy Sargent, Carnegie Mellon CREATE Lab and Samantha Malone, FracTracker Alliance

In the past two years, crude oil trains have exploded 10 times, killing 47 people.

LacMegantic

Lac-Mégantic, Quebec: 47 killed

NewBrunswick

Outside Plaster Rock, New Brunswick

Casselton

Outside Casselton, ND

Aliceville

Outside Aliceville, AL

Lynchburg

Outside Lynchburg, VA

WV

Outside Mt. Carbon, WV

Timmins

Outside Timmins, Ontario

Galena

Outside Galena, IL

 

 

Heimdal

Outside Heimdal, ND

Gogoma

Outside Gogama, Ontario

It could have been much worse. Eight of the ten trains exploded in rural areas. The train that flattened half the business district of the small town of Lac-Mégantic might have killed hundreds of people if it had exploded during business hours.[1] Residents in Philadelphia have dodged a bullet several times already; they’ve seen two oil train derailments there that fortunately did not explode. And last week’s Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia that killed 8 people and injured more than 200 could have been much worse, had it impacted an oil train in that area.

Today we ship 17 times as much oil by rail as we did in 2010. This past year we shipped 14.5 billion gallons of oil — that’s 6,700 oil trains the size that destroyed Lac-Mégantic:

This chart above and the ones that follow are derived from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s recently provided data tracking crude oil movements by rail.

Why do oil trains explode so easily?

Like a carbonated beverage with dissolved CO2, oil extracted from Bakken wells naturally has lighter hydrocarbons in it, such as methane, ethane, propane, and butane. Methane — natural gas — is the lightest of the gases and boils out quickly at surface pressure. But ethane, propane, and butanes, known as light ends or natural gas liquids in the oil industry, take time and/or heat to boil out.[2]

In the most prolific oilfield in the U.S. today, North Dakota’s Bakken formation, most of light ends are left in the oil before loading on the train, to maximize value of what is sent to the refinery. But much like a soda bottle, the pressure increases with temperature and motion, with pressurized ethane, propane, and butane at the top. With those highly volatile gases under pressure, all it takes to create an explosion is a leak and a spark, and both commonly happen in a derailment or collision.

All ten exploding crude trains carried oil from the Bakken.

In contrast, shale oilfields in Texas do stabilize crude by removing light ends prior to shipment by rail.

Where are the exploding Bakken oil trains going?

Bakken trains travel through much of the US and Canada, heading to refineries on the coasts. Increasingly, they are traveling to East coast refineries, which now handle over half of Bakken crude oil production.

Closer to home for the authors, Pittsburgh is a popular waypoint for Bakken oil trains. Known for its steel industry in the 20th century, Pittsburgh continues to sport a large rail infrastructure. Its rails go through very densely populated areas, a good thing when the rails carried ore and steel and coal for the mills. But it’s a disaster waiting to happen now that the rails are bringing explosive oil trains through the city.

CMU

Oil and compressed gasses transit Carnegie Mellon University multiple times daily, Pittsburgh, PA

Oil trains travel across Pittsburgh's North Shore and Downtown multiple times daily, as well

Oil trains travel across Pittsburgh’s North Shore and Downtown multiple times daily, as well

 

A significant and growing fraction of Bakken oil trains carrying 1 million gallons or more transit Pittsburgh, with ~30 a week based on Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency data released for five days in October 2014. Prior to the disclosure, volunteers spent a day with us in 2014 recording traffic along one of several routes into the city to learn more about whether / how the trains might pose a risk to city residents and workers. Learn more about what we found here.

Why does this matter?

As crude-by-rail traffic continues to increase, it is only a matter of time before an oil train explodes in a populated area again. Imagine any of the 10 explosions so far taking place instead in downtown Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, or flattening a school in suburban Chicago, for example.

Map of Lac-Mégantic destruction from the Toronto Star’s article, “Where they died”

Map of Lac-Mégantic destruction from the Toronto Star’s article, Where they died. Click to explore the interactive map.

Learn more about the Lac-Megantic disaster through the eyes of those who lived through it.

What can be done

One attempt to make these trains safer, by requiring new tanker cars be built to a safer standard, does not appear to have helped; the most recent 5 exploding trains used the newest, “safer” tanker cars.

But there are effective measures that are in our power to take:

Photo and Video Credits

Endnotes

  1. The direction that the ignited oil flowed after the incident also played a significant role in the path of the damage and fatalities.
  2. Light Ends information
OES Workshops
Guest Author

Our Energy Solutions

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14 workshops in 7 countries on 3 continents

A FracTracker team has just returned from North Carolina where fracking has been given the green light by the state’s government. Time may tell what reserves are contained within the Mesozoic basins but already landmen are knocking on doors and striking deals with willing landowners. Offshore drilling is also under consideration in a state where tourism – fueled in part by renowned beach destinations – is a $20 billion a year industry.

OES Panel in Asheville

OES panel answering questions in Asheville, NC

The visit was for Our Energy Solutions, a project bringing 14 workshops to seven countries on three continents. The aim is to help build a global community of engaged citizens and stakeholders who are informed of the risks of fossil fuels (like oil and natural gas), enlightened about renewable energy opportunities, and inspired to share ideas for a more sustainable planet.  The attendance, interest, and dialogue at the North Carolina workshops were inspiring. People young and old came out to prove there is great concern about these issues. While acknowledging the complexities of energy and climate challenges, they seemed willing to dig-in, reach-out, engage, and act. The audiences owned the “Our” in Our Energy Solutions.  Just weeks earlier, another team from FracTracker and the Ecologic Institute – the lead collaborators in Our Energy Solutions – launched the project with workshops in Florida, hosted by the South Florida Wildlands Association. In North Carolina, our partners were Environment North Carolina and MountainTrue. These regional and statewide groups offer abundant ways to get involved and illuminate a better path forward.

BackPageAlt2_windmillsBoth states are at risk from accelerated and more extreme hydrocarbon extraction, but both also bear significant potential for broad success with renewable energy. While only 0.1% of Florida’s current generating capacity comes from solar, it has some of the strongest incoming solar radiation in the country. North Carolina sports the best conditions for offshore wind energy on the east coast. The Tarheel State ranked 2nd in the nation for new installed solar capacity in 2014, and the same year, over 4,300 North Carolinians worked in the solar power industry. Already, 4,800 Floridians work in the solar industry.

Wellsbycounty-Feature

Well density by county in the U.S.

The volatile economics of oil and gas, the effects of fossil fuel combustion on the planet, and the impairment of human health and the environment caused by extraction necessitate other approaches to meet our energy needs. Our Energy Solutions will strive to showcase brighter possibilities – one workshop at a time. Next stop, Argentina – May 5-12th.

Check out Our Energy Solutions on Facebook and join the conversation!

CA Crude Oil by Rail Shipments and Railway Accidents
Kyle Ferrar, MPH

CA Crude Oil by Rail Shipments and Railway Accidents

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By Kyle Ferrar, Western Program Coordinator, FracTracker Alliance

Incidents in California involving oil-by-rail cars increased from 3 in 2011 to 25 in 2013. There were 24 incidents within the first 6 months of 2014, and oil spills from rail cars increased from 98 in 2010 to 182 in 2013.1 With such an increase in oil train incidents, we have to ask what the state is doing to protect public safety.

CA Crude Oil by Rail – The Status Quo

California is currently far behind states like New Hampshire and Minnesota that have taken more control over in-state hazards, and have passed laws aimed at forcing rail and pipeline companies to abide by more rigorous emergency response measures instead of relying on the federal government and undertaking state-level spill response plans. These state movements are in response to the existing federal oversight, which critics cite as inadequate.2

State environmental health officials have acknowledged the dangers of a derailment, but have downplayed the risk – comparing the hazard of an incident to be similar to ethanol or gasoline, based on volatility. They do not believe oil train derailments are as hazardous as other materials transported by rail such as chlorine or ammonia. The bigger concern, though, is the huge volume of Bakken crude oil that is being shipped by rail. A recent report by the State of California Interagency Rail Safety Working group acknowledged this and identified key vulnerabilities along CA rail lines; Destinations of the crude trains in CA are the Bay Area via the Feather River or Donner Pass, Bakersfield via the Tehachapi Pass, and Los Angeles via the same route. These routes pass through the state’s most densely populated areas, as well as through some of the state’s most sensitive ecological areas, and each route has at least one high hazard area for derailments. Other issues identified include the impact of earthquakes on trains and rail lines and a shortage of emergency response capacity.

At-Risk Populations

A recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council used census data to identify at risk-populations for communities living near the rail lines that can be used for transporting shipments. The analysis identified a total of nearly four million people in the Bay Area and the Central Valley alone that live within 1 mile (the U.S. DOT isolation zone for a crude tanker fire) of a crude shipment rail line. The authors go on to provide the following recommendations to prevent crude oil train accidents:

  1. Remove Defective, Dangerous Tankers from Crude by Rail Service
  2. Impose Safer Speed Limits
  3. Reroute Around Sensitive Areas
  4. Provide Emergency Responder Resources
  5. Make Additional operational Safety and Oversight Improvements
  6. Exercise Local Government Powers4

Crude Oil Shipment Trends

Support of these recommendations is most important as more crude shipments in CA are on the horizon. A recent permit application by the Phillips 66 oil company included a proposal to use Amtrak passenger lines to transport Bakken crude through the San Francisco Bay Area. A review of the proposal by Hinman Consulting Engineers found that over the next 30 years, there is an approximate 28% risk of derailment in the heavily populated stretches of Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, Santa Clara, San Jose and others. This estimate is assuming there is no increase in shipping volumes. The damage of an accident was estimated by the researchers, and the analysis showed that approximately 47,000 households and $22 billion in improved property value lay within the projected blast zone, 1000 feet from the railway. A projection of the damage from a single accident estimated that an average of 117 households along with $244 million in property value could be destroyed. Hinman also stated that “this figure does not include loss of revenue, environmental cleanup costs, loss of human life, or other societal costs.”5 A proposal by Valero Refining Co. plans to ship 100 crude oil tank cars a day through downtown Sacramento and downtown Davis to Benicia.

Responses by CA Regulators and Railroads

To plan for this increase in rail traffic, Sacramento passed a shipping charge to prevent and manage spills that will result in $11 million in 2015. Another bill has been introduced to impose a second shipping fee on oil companies to train and equip first responders to deal with major spills and fires on railroad lines. An additional bill was also authored requiring rail carriers to communicate more closely with state emergency officials about crude oil rail movements.6

The map below shows where spills and train accidents have occurred in CA since 2011. When zoomed out the map shows areas with higher incidence rates of accidents, but when zoomed to a higher resolution the map differentiates the accidents by year.7

CA Crude Oil by Rail and Railroad Accidents

View Full Screen

In the map above, a hot spot analysis shows the frequency of railroad accidents, such as derailments. Areas with the highest incidence rates are shown in yellow. The actual locations and descriptions with dates of these accidents can be seen by zooming in using the plus (+) button in the top left corner of the map, and clicking on a diamond symbol. Shown in red and green are the BNSF and other railroad lines used for the transportation of crude by rail.

BNSF Route

Figure taken from BNSF’s U.S. DOT disclosure to the state of California for emergency preparedness.9

From what little data has been released, it is clear that BNSF railway intends to ship two Bakken crude trains per week carrying more than one million gallons of crude through the CA counties of Butte, Contra Costa, Lassen, Modoc, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Yuba.8 The same information from Union Pacific Railroad has not been made public by the state of CA. The route shown in the figure to the right has been mapped in the FracTracker Alliance’s California Crude Shipment Routes and Railroad Accidents map above. From the map, you can see that there have been numerous accidents already on this BNSF rail line, particularly near Stockton and in the heavily populated North Bay Area.

References

  1. California Office of Emergency Services. 5/6/14. Historical HazMat Spill Notifications. Accessed 3/8/15.
  2. Douglas E. 6/16/14. 2 States Beef Up Oil-by-Rail and Pipeline Safety After String of Accidents. Inside Climate News. Accessed 3/9/15.
  3. Interagency Rail Safety Working Group. 6/10/14. Oil by Rail Safety in California. California Office of Emergency Services.
  4. Bailey D. 6/2014. It Could Happen Here: The Exploding Threat of Crude by Rail in California. Natural Resources Defense Council. Accessed 3/10/15.
  5. Reis E & Coughlin A. 6/6/2014. New Proposed Oil Transportation Calls for Rational, Risk-Based Mitigation Approach. Hinman Consulting Engineers. Accessed 3/11/15
  6. Bizjak T. 6/16/14. California to impose fee on crude oil rail shipments; funds to be used for spill prevention, cleanup. The Sacramento Bee. Accessed 3/10/15.
  7. U.S. DOT. 5/7/2014. Emergency Order. Docket No. DOT-OST-2014-0067. Accessed 3/10/15.
  8. California Public Utilities Commission. 2015. Railroad Safety and Operations. Accessed 3/8/15.
  9. U.S. DOT. 9/30/14. Re: U.S. Department of Transportation Emergency Order Docket Number DOT-OST-2014-0067 (Issued May 7, 2014). Accessed 3/10/15.
Frac
FracTracker Alliance

Fracking’s Most Wanted – An NRDC Issue Paper

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Lifting the Veil on Oil & Gas Company Spills & Violations

NRDC Issue Paper • April 2015

Today Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a report in conjunction with work by those of us at FracTracker Alliance.

We launched this investigation to determine what information about oil and gas company violations is publicly available on the Internet, how accessible it is, and whether it provides an adequate understanding about the practices of different companies.

This report highlights the information gaps about the frequency and nature of oil and gas company violations; such data is only publically accessible in 3 states – even though 36 states have active oil and gas development.

Read Report

April 2015 (PDF)

To take the review one step further, we analyzed the data that was available from these states – Pennsylvania, Colorado, and West Virginia. The results show that companies have been issued a series of violations, some of which were quite severe.

Of these companies, the following 10 had the most violations overall, in order of most to least:

  1. Chesapeake Energy (669)
  2. Cabot Oil and Gas (565)
  3. Talisman Energy (362))
  4. Range Resources (281)
  5. EXCO Resources (249)
  6. ExxonMobil (246)
  7. EQT Corporation (245)
  8. Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (235)
  9. Shell (223)
  10. Penn Virginia Corporation (186)

Find out more information, including the top violators in PA, CO, and WV, on NRDC’s website or by reading the full report (PDF)

Contact: Kate Slusark Kiely, 212-727-4592 or kkiely@nrdc.org

 

Mess is near Stone Lantz pad, WV. - Photo by Bill Hughes
FracTracker Alliance

Stream Crossings – Oil and water don’t mix

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By Bill Hughes, WV Community Liaison, FracTracker Alliance

West Virginia has generously allowed the shale gas industry to occupy parts of our private land (for profit), namely the Lewis Wetzel Wildlife Management Area (LWWMA). This area is known for 13,500 acres of slopes, trails and forests, providing its inhabitants with great opportunities to hunt, fish, hike and camp.

The state of West Virginia does not own the mineral rights for the LWWMA, and the citizens of West Virginia can only manage so much; therefore, it is the responsibility of the Department of Natural Resources, on behalf of all WV citizens, to care for and manage public lands like LWWMA. With much surprise, the DNR has not only allowed oil and gas occupation of LWWMA, but has not been permitted to impose any regulation, supervision, or any other type of state-initiated enforcements. This approach is primarily due to the lack — or absence of inspectors in the Office of Oil and Gas — division of the Department of Environmental Protection. Often the inspectors that are available are simply playing catch up since the industry and market made some unexpected changes, according to DEP spokeswoman, Kathy Cosco.

Where is the reclamation?

I have been of the impression that once drilling and fracturing is done and the wells are put into production, that some form of reclamation must occur. To my dismay, no part of the drilling industry has taken responsibility for stream crossings, and clearly has no intention in doing so. Everybody has ostensibly packed their bags and gone home, leaving a mess of abandoned stream crossings behind. It is very apparent that no improvements will be done voluntarily by the companies that have created all the well pads in the area. Now the question remains: are we stuck with the stream crossings the way they are now? Or can the state order that these abandoned, inadequate stream crossings be removed?

How Not to Do Stream Crossings

The four photos below depict the deplorable, unacceptable, and disgraceful conditions of the stream crossings left behind by the drilling industry. The DNR and the State of WV have known about these conditions for years, yet have not required that any improvements to be made. Click on each poor stream crossing image to enlarge it:

Near Dry Ridge, API 47-103-02433. All of the water is flowing around the pipes.

Near Dry Ridge, WV. API 47-103-02433

Near Sees Run at Buffalo Run, WV

Near Sees Run at Buffalo Run, WV

Stone Energy well pad on Buffalo Run near Lantz Farm and LWWMA

Stone Energy well pad on Buffalo Run near Lantz Farm & LWWMA

Mess is near Stone Lantz pad, WV

Stream crossing mess near Stone Lantz pad, WV

These examples might be why some folks are more than just a little incredulous when the DNR said that it was going to lease public lands under the river for drillers to take advantage of, promising and assuring that they protect the Ohio River from any drilling-related problems. If the DNR cannot handle the size of the stream water flow, or find a better way to enforce responsible behavior from the drillers, then the Ohio River and the citizens of West Virginia are surely in trouble.

In Need of Higher Standards

The picture below is a depiction of a good stream crossing, installed by someone other than a drilling company. Is there any hope that we will ever expect drillers to do this quality of reclamation to the places we cherish and call home? From an enforcement standpoint, it is clear that these actions will not be voluntary. West Virginia’s DEP has several divisions that focus on land reclamation, environmental remediation and land restoration; however, all of these encourage voluntary action, something we don’t expect to see from drilling companies in the near future.

Buffalo Run crossing going to the William WGGS compressor station. This is what all the permanent stream crossings should look like.

Buffalo Run crossing going to the William WGGS compressor station. This is what all the permanent stream crossings should look like.

Washington Co. Production Layout
Matt Kelso, BA

A Closer Look at PA’s Unconventional Production Data

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By Matt Kelso, Manager of Data and Technology

Twice per year, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) releases its unconventional oil and gas production and waste reports, which is a good opportunity to check on what’s happening with the industry as a whole. In the past, FracTracker has analyzed this data as soon as it became available. That strategy proved to be a mistake, however, as it is common for some of the operators to release data after the deadline, meaning that early versions of the report can be incomplete. To mitigate the effects of late reporting, the data in this analysis was downloaded from the PADEP on March 10, 2015, several weeks after the reports were first published.

While the production and waste reports are released together, and appear together on the same map below, the FracTracker Alliance will analyze the data from these two reports in separate blogs, with this one focusing on PA’s unconventional production data.


PA Unconventional O&G Production and Waste – July 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014. Click here to access the full screen map, with legend, details, and additional controls.

Producing Wells

The production report lists the amount of gas produced per well in thousands of cubic feet (Mcf), as well as oil and condensate totals in 42 gallon barrels. Also included are the spud date and the number of days that each well produced in each of the three categories. This allows us to take a look at how the age of the well factors into its daily production rates:

Average daily production values for PA unconventional wells between July and December 2014, sorted by year well was spudded.

Figure 1: Average daily production values for PA unconventional wells between July and December 2014, sorted by year well was spudded.

The average daily production values in Figure 1 were calculated from all wells reporting production for the given commodity type. For example, of the 1,467 wells on the report with a spud date in 2010, 1,221 (83.2%) of those produced some gas in the latest reporting period, and the average daily production of that group is 1,300 Mcf. Only 102 wells spudded that same year reported condensate production, averaging 6 barrels per day, and 35 wells produced oil, also averaging 6 barrels per day. It’s also worth pointing out that the majority of wells drilled last year were not yet in production for the reporting period.

Wells drilled in 2013 produced 38% less gas than wells those drilled in 2014, and the newer wells are producing 4.4 times as much as wells drilled in 2010.

Average daily production (Mcf) for unconventional wells in PA between July and December 2014, sorted by spud year.

Figure 2: Average daily production (Mcf) for unconventional wells in PA between July and December 2014, sorted by spud year.

In Pennsylvania, gas production amounts are quite high, while liquid hydrocarbon returns are fairly modest. In this six month period, operators reported 2.13 trillion cubic feet of gas production, 2.1 million barrels of condensate, and 171 thousand barrels of oil. Over 71% of all oil was produced in Washington County in Southwestern Pennsylvania, while other counties in the western part of the state made up the rest of the production. Washington County also accounts for 94% of all condensate produced from the state’s unconventional wells.

FracTracker wanted to see if there were any liquid production trends when we sorted the data by operator. Of the 1,146 active wells on the report in Washington County, 769 (67%) are operated by Range Resources Appalachia, LLC. Their wells produced 1,955,302 barrels (97%) of the condensate in the county, meaning that the remaining 377 wells from other operators produced a combined 50,915 barrels of condensate.

At first, it seems a bit anomalous that all of the other producers in the county should have such low a total for condensate. Some of this is likely attributable to defining the difference between condensate and oil. The way the data are presented, it seems as if they are two separate liquid hydrocarbon products. However, the difference really amounts to the liquid’s density, with heavier, thicker fluids considered to be oil, while condensates occupy the lighter, less viscous end of the spectrum. Condensate is also legal to export, while crude oil is not.

Oil and condensate production in Washington County from July to December 2014, by operator.

Figure 3: Oil and condensate production in Washington County from July to December 2014, by operator.

With this in mind, when we look at the liquid production in Washington County over the six month period, it seems likely that what Range Resources considered to be condensate was classified as oil by Chesapeake. The complete lack of liquid hydrocarbon production by any of the 259 wells operated by CNX, Rice, or EQT in the county does seem curious at first, but none of the three operators are active in any of the six municipalities reporting 100,000 or more barrels of liquids. Unconventional liquid hydrocarbon production in Washington County – and PA for that matter – is limited geographically, with the highest returns limited to a handful of municipalities close to the northern panhandle of West Virginia.


Unconventional wells reporting liquid production in Washington County from July to December 2014. Among unconventional wells in Pennsylvania, those in Washington County accounts for over 71% of oil production and 94% of condensate production.

Non-Producing Wells

Spudded PA Unconventional wells not producing - July to December 2014

Figure 4: Spudded PA Unconventional wells not producing – July to December 2014

Altogether, there are 2,351 wells on the production report that are listed as spudded but are not producing any of the three commodity types. The report includes a section for operators to explain why there is no production, as well as data about the well’s status. The reason that the majority of these wells are not producing are relatively straightforward; they are either plugged, have an inactive status, are not yet complete, or are shut-in, awaiting a pipeline connection.

In prior discussions with PADEP, active wells were described to us as those that had been spudded and not yet permanently plugged. There are also some conditions that can put the well into an inactive status at the operator’s request, for up to five years.

Figure 5: Operators with the most unconventional active wells that are not in production – excluding observation wells, those that were not completed during the reporting period, or those that are shut-in, awaiting additional infrastructure.

Still, there are a number of active wells that don’t fall into any of these categories, leaving us with no clear idea as to why they are not producing. The 10 operators with with the most active wells not in production – excluding observation, incomplete, and shut-in wells – are listed in Figure 5: Chevron, Chief, Southwestern, Cabot, and Anadarko.

Included in the statewide totals are three wells listed as having the incorrect operator, 32 wells where the reason for no production is listed as “Plugged well” but the well status is active, and 339 wells with active statuses where the reason for no production was left blank. Two operators, Chevron Appalachia and Chief Oil & Gas, account for 46% of these wells where the reason for non-production is uncertain.

 

Kyle Ferrar, MPH

Responses to the Rash of Oil Train Incidents

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By Kyle Ferrar and Samantha Malone

Throughout the U.S. more crude was spilled from rail incidents in 2013 than the prior four decades combined. Recently, in a period of three weeks, there were four* derailments of crude oil trains carrying Bakken and other Canadian crudes resulting in fire and explosions, with multiple cars rupturing and set ablaze.1 One of the most recent incidents occurred on March 5th in Galena, Illinois, just north of Chicago (video below). The fires resulting from crude derailments blaze so hot that emergency responders and firefighters are not able to get close enough to extinguish them.  The only option is to let the fire burn out. This process can take days, during which local communities are subject to impaired air quality if not evacuated.2

*This number was revised 4/19/15.

Here we explore how regulators are responding to this public health risk and the new rules being put in place.

Oil Train Incidents Prior to August 2014


Derailments and accidents that occurred prior to August 1, 2014. Click here to view map fullscreen3

Regulatory Responses

Local Bakken Oil and Oil Train Resolutions

In response to these incidents and concerns, at least 50 cities and counties around the country have enacted or proposed resolutions regarding oil trains and Bakken oil. Some of these resolutions ask for direct action while others simply express concern publicly about the risks that the transportation of volatile crude oil by rail poses within their communities.

Resolutions Passed By Local Jurisdictions in California

While we have not collected all of these repossess, a good sample is shown below by state:

STATE TYPE
California
Berkeley, CA Resolution no. 66516
California State Senate Safety provisions in budget
Davis, CA Resolution
Martinez, CA Resolution No. 106-14
Moorpark, CA Letter
Oakland, CA Resolution no. 85054
Richmond, CA Resolution no. 26-14
Sacramento Area Council of Governments Letter
San Jose, CA Letter
San Luis Obispo, CA Letter
Santa Cruz County, CA Letter
Simi Valley, CA Letter
Illinois
Barrington/Chicago, IL Commission letter to President Obama
New York
Clinton County, NY Proposed taskforce
Hyde Park, NY Resolution no. 9:8 – 2 OF 2014
Newburg, NY Resolution no. 230-2014
New York State NY Governor letter to President Obama
Philipstown, NY Resolution
Rockland County, NY Meeting plus resolution
Oregon
Hood River, OR Resolution 2014-22
Columbia River Gorge Commission, OR/WA Resolution
Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, PA Proposed
Philadelphia, PA Resolution no. 150129-A01
Washington
Aberdeen, WA Resolution no. 2014
Anacortes, WA Resolution no. 1889
Auburn, WA Resolution no. 5050
Bainbridge Island, WA Resolution no. 2014 – 18
Bellingham, WA Resolution no. 2014-03
Chehalis, WA Resolution
Columbia River Gorge Commission, OR/WA Resolution
Edmonds, WA Resolutions no. 1317 & no. 1280
Elma, WA Resolution
Hoquiam, WA Resolution no. 2014-10
Kent, WA Proposed resolution
King County, WA Resolution 2014-0164
Montesano, WA Resolution
Mount Vernon, WA Resolution no. 879
Mukilteo, WA Resolution no. 2014-12
Ocean Shores, WA Resolution no. 727
Olympia, WA Resolution no. M-1812
Port of Olympia, WA Resolution no. 2014-07
Quinault Indian Nation Issued opinion
Seattle, WA Resolution no. 31504
Safe Energy Leadership Alliance SELA letter to DOT and WA Governor
Spokane, WA Resolution
Stevenson, WA Resolution no. 2014-279
Vancouver, WA Policy resolution 5b
Washington State Council of Firefighters Resolution no. 14-33
Washougal, WA Resolution no. 1048
Whatcom County, WA Resolution no. 2014-001

If any of the PDF’s linked to above do not load, refresh your browser.

Thank you to the many groups and individuals who have helped to compile this list above, such as Audubon Washington and Forest Ethics.

If you would like to recommend additions to this oil trains local actions list, please do so using the comment form at the bottom of this page.

Federal and National Responses

In an official request, the federal Department of Transportation ordered rail companies to provide the shipping details only to state emergency response officials. Due to the health and safety implications of crude by rail, groups like Earth Justice say the public has the right to know what is going through their backyards.4 The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and a working group for the state of New York both found numerous deficiencies in the regulation of rail safety. The Working Group found that there are serious risks throughout the state from oil by rail in addition to significant gaps in local emergency response capabilities.5, 6

To reduce the actual intensity of these incidents, federal regulations establishing “vapor-pressure cap” rules go into effect this April. This specific regulation puts a limit on the amount of explosive gas allowed in the tanker cars. Crudes with greater amounts of short chain hydrocarbons are more volatile (lighter) and therefore more explosive. Bakken crude is considered “light” and “sweet” (more volatile short chain hydrocarbons) and therefore is more flammable/explosive than other crudes.7 Oil producers will have to measure the actual vapor pressure of the crude. The current practice is to calculate the vapor pressure using standards that are not specific enough for the lighter Bakken crude. Measuring the vapor pressure of each tank using an established protocol (i.e. regulatory standards) is therefore necessary to ensure an accurate knowledge of vapor pressure.8

The new standards for North Dakota crude will require operators to filter the crude in order to bring the vapor pressure down to 13.7 psi, a level comparable to the 13.5 psi standard for most automobile gasoline. The North Dakota Petroleum Council criticized the regulations, saying the explosive components of the Bakken crude are what give it such high value. NDPC also criticized the standards for temperature and pressure as being unnecessary.9 The recent West Virginia train that derailed and exploded would have violated this rule according to the testing conducted in North Dakota before departure. Crude involved in the Lac-Mégantic disaster was far below this standard, with an estimated vapor pressure of 9.3.10

Canadian Pacific Railway, the second largest rail company in Canada, wants the authority to refuse to haul crude oil and other hazardous materials due to liability concerns. This change would require an overhaul of the Canada Transportation Act that requires railways to haul any and all legal goods in rail cars that meet safety standards. The Board of Directors asked, “‘What kind of exposure do we have and what kind of exposure are we [exposing] the public to by hauling some of these commodities?” The U.S. railway BNSF, owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, has also protested against a similar U.S. federal regulation.11

Are the recent regulations enough?

The most destructive incident to-date was the Lac-Mégantic, Quebec derailment that killed 47 people on July 6, 2013. Following the Lac-Mégantic explosion, U.S. regulators issued an emergency directive that trains carrying hazardous materials could no longer be left unattended with the engines running unless they first received approval from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). The actual implementation of the rule only requires the railroad operators to prepare a plan for such activity and have it on file. There is no requirement for approval from the FRA.3

Other more substantive regulations are slowly coming into effect; for example, by 2017 the weaker DOT-111 oil tanker cars will be retired and all crude will be transported in safer Model CPC-1232 tank cars. Of note, however, is the fact that all five of these recent incidents have involved the safer, reinforced Model 1232 tank cars. A video of the recent derailment outside of Chicago can be seen below.


Galena, Illinois oil train derails with safer model CP-1232 tank cars that had been retrofitted with protective shields.

Data Transparency and Information

Not much detailed information is known publicly about the amount of crude being shipped by railway, the source of the crude, or which routes will be used, but research by the FracTracker Alliance has identified the expansion of crude shipments in communities throughout New York State. In the City of Buffalo, 33% of residents live within the ½ mile blast zone of a railway with crude oil tanker shipments, for example.12 Additional work by groups such as ours and Oil Change International has identified gaps in oversight that may not be possible for state or federal regulations to address. Because the nature of shipping by rail involves long distances and periods of time with infrequent cargo checks, any type of oil spill that goes immediately unnoticed may make it impossible to issue an effective response. Such is the case of a spill in Washington State, shown in the map below.12

In order to preserve the confidentiality of this information, the BNSF and other rail carriers have claimed trade secret exemptions to keep the information and data from being released to the public. The U.S. Department of Transportation has found the oil shipments by rail to “constitute an imminent hazard” and has required that carriers notify the State Emergency Response Commission (SERC) in each state that it operates trains transporting 1,000,000 gallons (23,809.5 barrels) or more of Bakken crude. This information has not been released to the public due to security concerns, however.13

References

  1. Wikipedia. List of Rail Accidents. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_%282010%E2%80%93present%29#2015). Accessed 4/19/15.
  2. Stern, Marcus; Jones, Sebastian. U.S. Crackdown on Oil Trains – Less Than Meets the Eye. 12/8/2014. Inside Climate News. Accessed 3/10/15.
  3. Kelso, Matt. 2014. North American Petroleum Transportation by Rail. FracTracker Alliance. Accessed 3/10/15.
  4. Bizjak, Tony. Tate, Curtis. 10/7/2014. Details about Crude Oil Rail Shipments Shrouded in secrecy. The Sacramento Bee. Accessed 3/10/15.
  5. 1/23/14. Safety Recommendation R-14-1. Accessed 3/5/15.
  6. State of New York. 4/30/14. Transporting Crude Oil in New York State: A Review of Incident Prevention and Response Capacity. Accessed 3/10/15.
  7. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. 2014. Operation Safe Delivery Update. U.S. Department of Transportation. Accessed 3/12/15.
  8. Pichler, Hannes, and Josef Lutz. 2014. Why Crude Oil Vapor Pressure Should Be Tested Prior to Rail Transport. Advances in Petroleum Exploration and Development2.
  9. Scheyder, Ernest. 12/9/2014. North Dakota to require every barrel of crude oil be filtered. Reuters. Accessed 3/10/15.
  10. Gold, Russel. 3/2/15. Crude on Derailed Train Contained High Levels of Gas. Wall Street Journal. Accessed 3/10/15.
  11. Eric Atkins. 3/4/2015. Canadian Pacific wants to limit shipments of dangerous goods. The Globe and Mail. Accessed 3/12/15.
  12. Kelso, Matt. 1/29/15. Regulatory Gaps for Train Spills?. FracTracker Alliance. Accessed 3/14/15.
  13. S. DOT. 5/7/2014. Emergency Order. Docket No. DOT-OST-2014-0067. Accessed 3/10/15
Matt Kelso, BA

Population Near Railroads in Allegheny County, PA

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By Matt Kelso, Manager of Data and Technology

In a joint project with PennEnvironment earlier this month, we analyzed the number of people who live within a half-mile of active rail lines in Pennsylvania and are therefore potentially at risk of an oil train explosion similar to the recent ones in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec; Lynchburg, Virginia; and Mount Carbon, West Virginia. To take that project one step further, we have taken a closer look at the population near railroads in Allegheny County, the second most populous county in PA with over 1.2 million inhabitants. Of the various figures, we found that Pittsburgh has over 183,000 people that live with half-mile mile of an active rail line.

In Philadelphia, the city’s boundary takes up the entire county of the same name, but in Allegheny County, the municipal boundaries are considerably more fractured. In fact, Pittsburgh is just one of 130 municipalities in Allegheny County; its 305,704 inhabitants represent just 25% of the residents in the county, and 13% of the metropolitan area. For the sake of simplicity, residents from the various cities, boroughs, and townships in the county will often say they are from Pittsburgh when speaking with people from outside the region, although they might actually live in Blawnox, McKees Rocks, or Swissvale, for example.


Estimated population within a half-mile of active rail lines in Allegheny County, PA. Click here to access the legend and other map tools.

Here is a list of the top ten municipalities with the largest estimated population in the at-risk zone:

Municipalities in Allegheny County with the largest estimated population within a half-mile of railroads.

Municipalities in Allegheny County with the largest estimated population within a half-mile of railroads.

Not surprisingly, the most at-risk municipality in Allegheny County is Pittsburgh, with over 183,000 people living within a half-mile of an active rail line. During any given workday, when individuals flock into the city, even more individuals would theoretically be at risk of an oil train disaster. Following Pittsburgh, Baldwin, West Mifflin, and Shaler all share similar numbers at risk, with Baldwin seeing the greatest percentage of its population at risk of the three. While Castle Shannon and Carnegie have lower populations than the other municipalities, a significant proportion of their residents (93-95%) are near rail lines.