The population density in the Delaware River valley is very high, and should be protected from risks of fires and explosions as an entire train could burn and explode.
From an Article by Marc Levy, Minneapolis Star Tribune (AP), August 18, 2020
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A coalition of six environmental advocacy groups asked a federal judge on Tuesday to block a new Trump administration rule to allow rail shipments of liquefied natural gas, a new front in the movement of energy products backed by both the natural gas and rail freight industries.
The groups will argue in court that, among other things, the administration did not adequately study the new rule to ensure that the activity it is authorizing is safe for workers, communities and the environment, said Jordan Luebkemann, a lawyer for Earthjustice, which is representing the groups court.
The rule, they said, would allow shipments of the flammable and odorless liquid known as LNG by rail in tanker cars that are untested and that cannot withstand high-speed impacts.
“Under this new rule, it’s only a matter of time before we see an explosion in a major population center,” said Emily Jeffers, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.
The U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration declined comment. The agency published the rule late last month in the Federal Register and it takes effect in the coming days.
The rule comes amid foundering prices for natural gas in the U.S., as court and regulatory battles over pipeline projects have slowed movement of the nation’s world-leading gas production to markets.
The country’s natural gas boom has fueled massive growth in LNG exports, growing last year by more than 65 times the amount exported in 2015, according to federal figures.
The rule requires enhancements — including a thicker outer tank made of steel with a greater puncture resistance — to the approved tank car design that, for decades, has been approved for shipments of other flammable cryogenic materials, such as liquid ethylene and liquid ethane.
Previously, federal hazardous materials regulations allowed shipments of LNG by truck, but not by rail, except with a special permit.
Fifteen states also objected to the rule during the comment period. Those states included Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where the Trump administration issued a special permit in December to ship LNG by rail from northern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale natural gas fields to a yet-to-be-built storage terminal at a former explosives plant in New Jersey, along the Delaware River near Philadelphia.
From there, the LNG is expected to be exported to foreign markets for electricity production, although the applicant, a subsidiary of New Fortress Energy, has told federal regulators that some domestic industrial use is possible.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
See also: Marcellus LNG “Bomb Trains” Approved for Travel thru Philadelphia to New Jersey — Federal officials will let LNG be shipped by rail to Gibbstown, N.J., port on Delaware River, Andrew Maykuth, Philadelphia Inquirer, December 9, 2019
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
See also: The High Risks of Fires & Explosions on LNG Railroad Cars — Some 15 states oppose Trump plan to allow LNG shipments by rail, MARC LEVY, Associated Press, WSAV NBC News 3, January 14, 2020
Point Your RSS Reader to FrackCheckWV.net/feed/
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Transporting LNG by rail: Trump’s new challenge for the US freight sector
An executive order on energy infrastructure by US President Donald Trump proposes that liquefied natural gas (LNG) be carried by rail, but critics have described rail cars carrying hydrocarbons as ‘bomb trains’. Can LNG be transported by rail without a repeat of the 2013 Lac-Mégantic disaster? Julian Turner reports:
Transporting LNG by rail: Trump’s new challenge for the US freight sector – Future Rail | Issue 75 | July 2019
https://rail.nridigital.com/future_rail_jul19/transporting_lng_by_rail_trump_s_new_challenge_for_the_us_freight_sector#
Help Put the Brakes on the Bomb Trucks and Trains
We need your help stopping a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project before it starts. Many of you have already signed our petition calling on the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to say NO to a permit that would set in motion plans to move fracked liquefied methane gas from northern Pennsylvania via trucks and trains to Gibbstown, New Jersey where it would be transferred on to massive ships for export. Thank you!
Word has it that the DRBC’s vote could as early as mid-September, so we’re asking those of you who haven’t already signed to please add your names. And we’re asking all of you to share the petition with your networks.
Here’s the link to share —
https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/stop-fracked-gas-export-on-the-delaware-river
The transport of LNG poses unique safety hazards. Our partners at the Delaware Riverkeeper Network describe it this way. “An LNG release boils furiously into a flammable vapor cloud 620 times larger than the storage container. An unignited ground-hugging vapor cloud can move far distances, and exposure to the vapor can cause extreme freeze burns. If in an enclosed space, it asphyxiates, causing death. If ignited, the fire is inextinguishable; the fire is so hot that second-degree burns can occur within 30 seconds for those exposed within a mile. An LNG release can cause a Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion. The explosive force of LNG is similar to a thermobaric explosion – a catastrophically powerful bomb. The 2016 U.S. Emergency Response Guidebook advises fire chiefs initially to immediately evacuate the surrounding 1-mile area. No federal field research has shown how far the vapor cloud can move, so in the most recent serious Plymouth, Washington, LNG fire, they evacuated a 2-mile radius.”
Do you want to be in the car behind that truck that crashes or at the crossing where that train derails? Those of us on the proposed route don’t want that either. Do you want the DBRC to guarantee years more of climate-killing natural gas production and consumption by effectively green-lighting the industry’s expansion into new markets overseas? Neither do we. We need your help in sending the strongest message we can to the DRBC to tell them put our safety first and vote NO! Please sign and share our petition.
Appreciatively, Karen Feridun
https://sign.moveon.org/partnerships/karen-feridun
Biden-Buttigieg put the brakes on ‘bomb trains’
From an Article by Sarah Okeson, AlterNet DC Report, March 20, 2021
President Joe Biden, known as “Amtrak Joe” for his train trips to Washington, D.C., from Delaware as a senator, could reverse the Team Trump approval of “bomb trains” carrying carrying liquefied natural gas.
The Trump rule financially benefits an energy company tied to a hedge fund that loaned millions to the Trump Organization and the Kushner Companies. New York prosecutors are examining those financial ties to Trump.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said during his confirmation hearing that he planned to take a “hard look” at the rule.
Liquefied natural gas is even more volatile than Bakken crude oil carried on trains like the one that derailed and caught fire on July 6, 2013, in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people. Most of the victims had to be identified with DNA samples and dental records. The bodies of five of the people were never recovered.
In April 2019, Trump called for federal rules to be rewritten so trains could carry liquefied natural gas. Drue Pearce, the political appointee who was the deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, helped shepherd the regulation through the agency.
The Biden administration asked a federal judge in February to put lawsuits challenging the rule on hold to give Biden regulators time to review Trump’s rules that affect climate disruption. Biden issued an executive order the day after he was sworn in to review rules that may worsen greenhouse gas emissions.
Earthjustice, one of the environmental organizations involved in the lawsuits, said the rule could bring LNG railroad cars through virtually all major U.S. cities and that a disaster could destroy an entire city.
Vapor clouds from liquified natural gas that ignite can burn as hot as 2,426 degrees. Liquefied natural gas is odorless because ethyl mercaptan, the foul-smelling compound added to natural gas for residential use freezes above the boiling point for liquefied natural gas.
On Oct. 20, 1944, liquefied natural gas leaked from a storage tank at East Ohio Gas Co. in Cleveland and got into the sewer lines, causing explosions over a square mile. The explosions and fires spread through 20 blocks, killing 130 people and destroying 79 homes and two factories in a neighborhood of Slovenian immigrants.
The Trump regulation financially benefits New Fortress Energy, a publicly traded company founded by billionaire Wes Edens. Fortress Investment Group, a New York City hedge fund co-founded by Edens, was part of a deal to loan the Trump organization $130 million to help build the Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago in 2005.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. has subpoenaed documents from Fortress about the deal.
Trump couldn’t pay the loan which ultimately grew to about $150 million, according to documents filed in the New York Supreme Court by New York Attorney General Letitia James. She is investigating possible fraud by the Trump Organization.
James said that Fortress forgave more than $100 million of the loan, money that may have been taxable.
Fortress also loaned $57 million in October 2017 to a Jersey City, N.J., real estate project owned by Kushner Companies. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, transferred his stake in the project to a family trust.
SoftBank Group, a Japanese firm, bought Fortress Investment Group in 2017.
https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/bomb-train/