Local residents and advocates have been fighting explosive crude oil trains in Baltimore since 2014. From stopping a new crude oil terminal in 2015 to introducing a landmark piece of legislation zoning out all new and expanded crude oil terminals just last month, activists have made great strides in the fight to protect the city from bomb trains.
Watch the short documentary below to learn more about our campaign to stop bomb trains in Baltimore! Check it out! And after you watch, contact your Baltimore City Councilmember and urge them to support the Crude Oil Terminal Prohibition!
The video was made by Travis Edwards in conjunction with our partners at Clean Water Action and features South Baltimore community leaders Rodette Jones, Ann Robinson, and Keisha Allen.
Baltimore City Councilmembers Mary Pat Clarke and Edward Reisinger will introduce a crude oil terminal prohibition to protect the 165,000 Baltimoreans who are threatened by trains carrying explosive crude oil through the city.
BALTIMORE, MD — Today, City Councilmembers Mary Pat Clarke and Edward Reisinger will introduce a bill to prohibit the construction of new and the expansion of existing crude oil terminals in Baltimore City. City Council Bill #17-0150 defines crude oil terminals as a prohibited land use in the city’s zoning code and if passed, would prevent Baltimore City from becoming a hub for crude oil train transfers – a fate that would put neighborhoods along the train route at significant risk. Councilman Edward Reisinger of Baltimore’s 10th District and bill co-sponsor, said, “Most of my district is within one mile of the tracks that crude oil has been transported on. I don’t want any more crude oil tank cars putting the neighborhoods in my district at risk.” Transport of crude oil by rail skyrocketed in the midst of the fracking boom in the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota, and a string of destructive derailments has followed. Crude oil has been known to travel through Baltimore City, and there are two terminals currently permitted to ship crude oil in the city. 165,000 Baltimoreans live in the crude oil train “blast zone” – the area that could be directly impacted if a train were to derail and explode in the city. There have been many close calls with freight trains in Baltimore, including last year’s derailment of 13 train cars in the Howard Street Tunnel. Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, representative of Baltimore’s District 14 and bill sponsor, said, “In a time of low demand, this legislation freezes in place our current capacity for crude oil storage and transfer. When the next boom comes, this limited capacity will help to protect Baltimore from crude oil train hazards.” To date, 24 religious leaders in Baltimore City have signed ontoa letter urging the City Council to support the bill. Their letter reads: “We sign this letter as faith leaders whose communities would be directly endangered by crude oil trains … We have a responsibility to protect our neighbors inland from the Port of Baltimore. Any terminal that continues to enable the burning of fossil fuels is to us a ‘dangerous object.’” This bill is being introduced during criminal trials concerning the crude oil train derailment that occurred in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in 2013 that killed 47 people. Although it is clear that lax regulations and unsafe railroad management policies led to the tragedy there, two railroad workers are being blamed for the explosion. This incident stands as a reminder that crude oil trains are unsafe for our communities, for our workers, and for the environment and also demonstrates the potential litigation that would result from a derailment and of the rail carriers’ proclivity for avoiding responsibility. Background: In 2014, a Texas-based company called Targa Terminals applied for a permit to ship crude oil through an additional terminal in South Baltimore. If approved, the terminal could have brought an additional 380 million gallons of explosive crude oil through the city’s rail lines every year. The Maryland Department of the Environment denied that permit after it found the company did not meet air pollution requirements. The zoning ordinance introduced on Monday would prevent any future crude oil terminals from being constructed in the city, thus preventing an increase in crude oil train traffic. In June, the Baltimore City Council unanimously passed a Climate Resolution that outlined specific steps the City should take to protect residents from the impacts of climate change. The resolution notes that crude-by-rail traffic enables “the extraction and combustion of some of the most climate-polluting oil on the planet” and calls for the City to “limit the development and expansion of facilities that handle crude oil.” This crude oil terminal prohibition is an opportunity for the Council to follow through on that commitment. Baltimore’s terminal prohibition bill follows similar efforts to zone out crude oil terminals around the country. In 2016, Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington passed zoning code changes to protect their residents from dangerous and polluting fossil fuel infrastructure. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 16, 2017 CONTACT:
Jennifer Kunze; Clean Water Action; 240-397-4126; jkunze@cleanwater.org
Taylor Smith-Hams; Chesapeake Climate Action Network; 650-704-3208; taylor@chesapeakeclimate.org
One year after a train carrying acetone derailed in the Howard Street Tunnel, advocates called on the City Council to take steps to protect public health and safety from trains carrying explosive crude oil through the city.
BALTIMORE — Today, residents of Baltimore’s crude oil train blast zone, MICA staff and faculty, elected officials, and labor and environmental advocates rallied to commemorate the 1-year anniversary of a train derailment in the Howard Street Tunnel and discussed the public health and safety threats posed to Baltimoreans by dangerous crude oil trains.
During a rally in Frost Plaza on Tuesday June 13, speakers recalled last year’s dangerous 13-car derailment, which carried highly flammable substances including acetone and natural gas and took over 24 hours to clear. The speakers renewed demands from community members, local activists, and environmental organizations for the City Council to take steps to protect the public from trains carrying hazardous cargo such as crude oil through Baltimore. Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, representative of Baltimore’s District 14, said: “Crude oil transport through Baltimore is a dangerous venture. At the least, our residents require State and local coordination to secure better notice of such transport, more secure carriers than now employed, and a concerted plan of prevention and response to potential accidents.” Councilwoman Clarke speaks to the crowd. Valeska Populoh, a faculty member at MICA, reflected on last year’s derailment: “The incident has raised my concerns about the transport of hazardous materials on these rail lines so close to our campus and the surrounding community, the potential threats to health and safety that these pose, as well as the potential for disruption of traffic and daily life in this central part of Baltimore in the event of another derailment.” David McClure, President of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1300, said: “Each day our 2,500 MTA workers transport the people of Baltimore to work, school, the doctor, or wherever they need to go. And our riders’ safety is our number one priority. I repeat, it’s our number one priority. And now it’s time for the City Council to put the safety and health of the people first. It’s time to put a stop these trains from carrying dangerous crude oil and other hazardous cargo travelling through these densely-populated neighborhoods before we have a disaster on our hands.” ATU Local 1300 President David McClure addressing the crowd.
During the rally, activists held a large replica “oil train” that read “Stop Oil Trains,” hand-painted signs of fire and explosions, and a map of Baltimore’s oil train “blast zone” in front of the site of last year’s derailment.
The press conference came a few days after members of the Baltimore City Council and Maryland General Assembly toured South Baltimore neighborhoods that are threatened by crude oil train traffic. On Friday, June 9th, community leaders concerned about the potential for a catastrophic explosion led the elected officials on a tour of Mt Winans, Westport, and Curtis Bay and saw some of the most vulnerable points in Baltimore’s infrastructure for a derailment and explosion. Elected officials and staff members from the Baltimore City Council and Maryland General Assembly toured the oil train blast zone on Friday, June 9th, 2017. This photo was taken at the southern end of the Howard St Tunnel, 1.5 miles from site of last year’s derailment at the northern end of the tunnel. Photo credit: Clean Water Action. Tour participants travel over an at-grade crossing in Fairfield in South Baltimore. At-grade crossings have been identified by rail companies as some of the most dangerous points of rail infrastructure. Background: Transport of crude oil by rail has skyrocketed in the midst of the U.S.’s fracking boom in the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota and in tar sands extraction in Canada, and a string of derailments has followed. The worst incident occurred when a train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec in 2013, killing 47 people and leveling the town.
165,000 Baltimoreans live in the oil train “blast zone” – the area that could be directly impacted if a train were to derail and explode in the city. There have been many close calls in Baltimore, including last year’s derailment of 13 train cars in the Howard Street Tunnel. And just a few months ago, a fire broke out in a scrap yard across the street from the crude oil shipping terminal in Fairfield in South Baltimore.
Concerned residents and local advocates are calling on members of the Baltimore City Council to take action to protect Baltimoreans from this unnecessary public health and safety risk.
Over the last year and a half, our campaign to stop dangerous and explosive oil trains in Baltimore has built some serious momentum. This is a blog post about what we’ve accomplished, and what we have planned next. In the winter of 2014, CCAN and partners submitted hundreds of public comments in opposition to Targa Terminals’ proposed crude oil and tar sands shipping terminal in Curtis Bay. In addition to submitting comments, technical comments filed by the Environmental Integrity Project got state regulators attention. The Maryland Department of the Environment halted the company’s permit, stopping construction of the terminal and potentially keeping over a million gallons of oil from running through our city every day. During that process, the Baltimore Sun reported that another terminal was already shipping crude oil out of the city, and that explosive crude oil trains were likely running through the center of the City, but rail companies CSX and Norfolk Southern were suing the state of Maryland to keep route information secret. A DOT-111 Train running through Baltimore along 26th street near Charles Village. So, in July of 2015, nearly a hundred of us rallied outside of City Hall as part of a National Week of Action to stop oil trains, calling for public disclosure of train routes. That same day, the City Council held an informational public hearing about crude oil trains, and, slowly, us and the City Council started to learn more about this shady industry. Of course, the rail companies refused to show up, prompting even more questions from the City Council. After that hearing, they agreed that something needed to happen. Finally, last Fall, we started to shed some light. In September, a Baltimore judge ruled against rail companies, forcing them to release oil train route information to the public, confirming that explosive crude oil trains do run through the heart of our city and put 165,000 people (or a quarter of the city’s population) at risk. Now, the city council is ready to take action. Just last week, City Council President Jack Young introduced a bill to study the health and safety impacts that oil trains place on the city. These are unprecedented studies that should tell us even more about the burden oil trains place on communities. We will be able to answer questions like: what pollutants leak out of oil trains in communities near rail lines? Or, what should the city do in the event of an oil train derailment and explosion? Of course, these simple questions should have been answered before we allowed oil trains to run through the heart of the City, but it’s heartening to see the City Council finally asking questions like this to expose this industry for what it is: an extreme risk to communities that we shouldn’t have to bear. Ultimately, we know that there is no safe way to transport oil. Whether it’s by rail, pipe, or truck, crude oil is too much of a danger for communities and for the climate. The only way to ultimately protect ourselves is to transition away from our dependence on fossil fuels. But exposing the oil train industry and giving communities the knowledge that they deserve is an important first step. If you want to learn more about crude oil trains and what we’re planning next, come to CCAN’s Town Hall on Thursday, February 11th in Baltimore. We’ll be joined by a guest from Lac-Megantic, Quebec, who will share her personal experience of the oil train disaster that destroyed her community. We’ll also hear from representatives from the City Council, who will discuss their recent action, and what we need to do to pass the ordinance and get it signed by the Mayor.
In the past four weeks, there have been four train derailments, four explosions, and four terrifying examples of communities and lives at risk from crude oil trains. As a consequence, crude oil has spilled into waterways, potentially contaminating drinking water, hundreds of people have had to evacuate their homes, and fires have burned for days.
With so many derailments and explosions from crude oil trains, it seems like train car disasters are the new normal. But why? An exponential increase in oil extraction via fracking in North Dakota has led to a surge of crude oil travelling by rail in recent years. This extreme form of energy extraction produces highly flammable and explosive oil that simply can’t be transported safely, yet more and more is moving through our communities every day. A lack of publicly available information on crude by rail, weak federal oversight, and limited emergency planning only add to the problem.
However, there is good news: states and cities across the country are responding to citizens’ concerns, and taking action to shed light on this dangerous practice.
Now Maryland is joining in the fight. Delegate Clarence Lam (D-12) is the lead sponsor of House Bill 1073, which addresses some of the problems listed above. This bill was introduced in response to recent derailments and the potential threat of a new crude oil shipping terminal in Baltimore, proposed by Texas-based Targa Resources. If the terminal is approved, the city of Baltimore and rail communities throughout Maryland could face a new surge of over a million gallons of explosive crude oil every day, which you can read more about in my previous blog post. The bill would require Maryland state agencies to study risks and impacts in the event of a crude oil spill during rail transport. On top of that, the bill would also require rail companies to disclose the amounts and routes of crude oil transport throughout the state, something rail companies are currently suing the state of Maryland to keep secret.
The bill so far has received a broad array of support from community members, neighborhood associations, Democrats, Republicans, railroad employees, and environmental groups alike. Last Wednesday, during a hearing in Annapolis, I testified in favor of the bill, along with Delegate Lam, Ana Rule (a PhD researcher at Johns Hopkins), and Will Fadely from Clean Water Action. The bill garnered no testimony in opposition.
With oil train disasters happening on a seemingly weekly basis, it’s clear that urgent action should be taken. This bill is a common-sense first step forward to shed light on the risks in Maryland. It’s not a question of what to do “if” a crude oil train derails and explodes, it’s a question of “when” a train derails and explodes in Maryland, where would it happen, and how can we make sure all emergency responders are prepared.
Of course, we are continuing to work as hard as we can to make sure crude oil doesn’t flow through Baltimore. At a minimum, if passed, Del. Lam’s bill will give citizens, elected officials, and emergency responders basic information about the scope of the risks. Click here to keep up the pressure on the Baltimore City Council and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake: Keep Crude Oil out of Baltimore!
I was taking the short drive in Baltimore from Locust Point to Fort McHenry after meeting with a CCAN activist at a local coffee shop. “It’s worth taking 5 minutes to breath in the history of this part of the city,” she said. “It’s where the Star Spangled Banner was written, it’s where American troops fought off the British to protect the city of Baltimore in the War of 1812.” Crossing the bridge onto Fort McHenry, it’s also where I saw first hand the size and scope of Baltimore’s next big fight: hundreds of DOT-111 (Department of Transportation) trains, or “soda cans on wheels” in the rail yard on Locust Point, potentially carrying explosive North Dakota crude oil or toxic Alberta tar sands.
Transport of Bakken crude oil has been poorly regulated and, subsequently has had an abysmal track record when it comes to safety and environmental destruction. Most crude oil is transported on outdated DOT-111 trains from the fracking fields of North Dakota or the tar sands in Alberta, Canada — crossing cities, rural towns, state parks, watersheds, aquifers, and mountains; all travelling thousands of miles to finally get to refineries. Sometimes, a wheel slips off the track, and that can cause a derailment, which usually punctures the tank. This inevitably causes an oil spill, and easily ignitable Bakken crude oil explodes. When that happens, the resulting explosions look like what nightmares are made of. A crude oil train derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec last year. Source: Quebecor Media Inc.
Tragically, it was only after a massive explosion in Canada, that killed 47 people and leveled a town, that federal regulators decided to take action to propose rules to make crude oil transport safer. Yet, even after massive amounts of environmental destruction, dangerous DOT-111 trains still carry crude oil throughout our country. “Most of the explosive crude oil on U.S. rails is moving in tanker cars that are almost guaranteed to fail in an accident,” says Earthjustice attorney Patti Goldman, who is currently litigating against the Department of Transportation after failing to ban DOT-111 trains from current use.
Now, oil companies are trying to use Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay as a throughway to ship Bakken crude and Alberta tar sands to refineries along the East Coast. A Texas based company called Targa Resources is proposing to retrofit an industrial shipping terminal in Curtis Bay to ship over 9 million barrels of oil per year, which equates to over a million gallons of crude oil every day. That means hundreds of DOT-111 “bomb trains” traveling through Baltimore City neighborhoods every year.
Is it worth having these travel through Baltimore? No way. The risks drastically outweigh the meager, if any, benefits, especially with so many unknowns. Currently, there has been no study on safety impacts, environmental health impacts, economic impacts, or train traffic impacts that Targa’s proposed shipping terminal would have on city of Baltimore. Rail companies are even refusing to disclose the routes that crude oil would travel through the city, going so far as suing state regulators to keep this information secret. But, there is a solution — we can put pressure on the Baltimore city council to halt local permits on Targa’s facility, effectively passing a moratorium on increased crude oil trains through Baltimore, until environmental, safety, economic, and traffic impacts are studied and this information becomes available to the public. The public has a right to know what is traveling through their neighborhoods. Over 75 community members arrived and learned about the potential for crude oil trains to travel throughout their community.
We need to act fast to keep our city safe — and already, we’re gaining real momentum. Since launching our campaign in October, we’ve held two town hall meetings, packed a public hearing, collected hundreds of public comments to the Maryland Department of the Environment, met with City Councilmembers, and petitioned all throughout Baltimore neighborhoods to raise awareness of this dirty and dangerous plan. We’ve even been featured on the front page of the Baltimore Sun!
We don’t need to wait until a tragedy happens in the city of Baltimore for the city council to take action. They can and should take action right now to protect their constituents.
