Fight looming over secrecy of oil shipments by rail

Last edited Thu Jun 12, 2014, 11:28 AM - Edit history (1)

The link goes to the Vancouver, Washington, Columbian, as Vancouver is the location of a proposed terminal.

Fight looming over secrecy of oil shipments by rail

Transportation agency, railroads favor confidentiality

By Curtis Tate, McClatchy Washington Bureau
Published: June 10, 2014, 5:34 PM

WASHINGTON — A requirement from the U.S. Department of Transportation last month to limit the release of information about Bakken crude oil shipments by rail has set up a conflict between railroads, states and the federal government that could wind up in court.

DOT and the railroads want state agencies to keep the information confidential, but some states have not agreed to comply, citing their open records laws. Washington is among the states that did not sign a nondisclosure agreement with railroads.

On Tuesday, McClatchy received a response to an open records request submitted to the Washington state Military Department on Monday. The state has given BNSF Railway until June 24 to seek a court order to block the release of information McClatchy requested about crude oil train frequency, volume and routing in state.

In an e-mail, BNSF spokeswoman Courtney Wallace declined to say how the railroad would respond.

An oil train travels through downtown Vancouver in April. According to state estimates, crude oil shipments in Washington went from zero in 2011 to 17 million barrels in 2013. (Zachary Kaufman/The Columbian)

I think the cat is out of the bag on this one. (I know about the thread elsewhere at DU, where someone rescued a cat from being drowned, but that's the saying.) There are so many groups of railfans tracking the whereabouts of trains, and online scanner feeds (including one for Vancouver), and websites where you can look up train symbols and figure out what's in those trains, that it's just a pretense that no one can figure out where the oil trains are.

DOT-111 tank car

According to a nonpartisan report from the Congressional Research Service: U.S. Rail Transportation of Crude Oil: Background and Issues for Congress, a tank car can hold 700 barrels. Note that DOT-111s come in different capacities, so that's just an average.