http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/01/03-7
Published on Thursday, January 3, 2013 by Common Dreams
'An Accident Waiting to Happen': As Rail Increasingly Transports
Crude, Opponents Sound Environmental Alarm
Rails see 'game-changing opportunity for their business'
- Andrea Germanos, staff writer
As oil production in the Bakken area of North Dakota and Montana
skyrockets, rail companies are capitalizing on pipeline gaps and
reaping profits by transporting the crude while environmental
watchdogs call the practice "an accident waiting to happen."
Reuters reports that "it's a booming business for North America's
railroads, and should remain an important niche market for years to
come."
"BNSF has been hauling Bakken crude out of the Williston Basin area
for over five years. In that time, we have seen the volume increase
nearly 7,000 percent, from 1.3 million barrels in 2008 to 88.9
million in 2012," Dave Garin, BNSF group vice president, Industrial
Products, stated in September. "We see this trend continuing and we
are committed to serving this growing market now and in the future."
Union Pacific Corp. chief executive Jack Koraleski also sees the
continuing oil boom as profit boom for his industry. "We think we're
going to continue to grow the oil business. The rate of growth will
slow from its current over-excited pace, but we still think it will
continue to be a good business for us," he told Reuters.
And Jeffery Elliot, a rail expert with the New York-based consulting
firm Oliver Wyman, told the Associated Press, "The railroads are
looking at this as a unique opportunity, a game-changing opportunity
for their business."
While rail executives see dollar signs by hauling the oil, critics
warn the risk of disaster is high.
"This is all occurring very rapidly, and history teaches that when
those things happen, unfortunately, the next thing that is going to
occur would be some sort of disaster," Jim Hall, a transportation
consultant and former chairman of the National Transportation Safety
Board, told AP.
AP adds that the Association of American Railroads even acknowledged
that the likelihood of a rail accident could be double or triple that
of a pipeline problem.
"It's an accident waiting to happen. It's going to be a mess and we
don't know where that mess is going to be," Wayde Schafer, a North
Dakota spokesman for the Sierra Club told AP, and described using
rails over pipelines as "the greater of two evils."
As environmentalists concerned over spills continue to thwart
pipeline progress and advocate for clean energy, the new stage of
direct actions may be on the nation's rails.
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