Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
That shipping oil by rail is dangerous was underscored yesterday when a 100-plus-tanker-car oil train derailed 25 miles west of the North Dakota-Minnesota border. Approximately 20 oil tankers — no one knows for sure, as it’s still too hot to get close enough for an accurate count — are burning, generating sooty particulates and toxic gases that prompted Casselton, ND, officials to evacuate much of the town.
A standard petroleum tanker car holds approximately 670 barrels of oil (roughly 28,000 gallons), so roughly 13,000 barrels of Bakken crude are going up in smoke. That’s a lot of oil, but just 1.3 percent of the Bakken’s daily production, which has exceeded the capacity of the pipelines serving the Bakken fields. Pipelines are safer, but they take time to build, so there will be many more crashes of oil trains before new pipeline capacity becomes operational.
At present, most of the trains carrying Bakken oil are heading east, but as the oil field’s production grows, so will the number of oil trains traveling west, along the Flathead River, and through the Flathead Valley. Even if the probability of 20 tank cars filled with oil going into the river is low — and I don’t know that it is — the consequences of a 20-car spill would not be insignificant.
Meanwhile, as Justin Franz reported in the Flathead Beacon, the Bakken boom is already affecting the Flathead through cancelations of at least five AMTRAK passenger trains in December:
The reasons for Amtrak’s perpetual lateness through the Flathead Valley is because of booming freight business on BNSF Railway’s line through Montana and North Dakota.
According to railroad spokesperson Matthew Jones, more oil is coming out of the Bakken region of Montana and North Dakota, which means more trains. But Jones said other trains are also fighting for space on the main line. Domestic intermodal, industrial products and grain traffic have all seen major increases this year. And trains carrying new automobiles have increased by 10 percent over last year. On the tracks between Glasgow and Minot, there is an average of 38 freight trains a day. That’s 18 more trains than the daily average in 2008, at the height of the economic downturn, and one more train than the previous average record set in 2005.
AMTRAK carries skiers from the midwest to Whitefish, so canceled AMTRAK trains have an adverse economic impact on the Flathead. Whether most of the skiers affected stay home or travel to Whitefish by automobile or airplane is a question for which I have no answer. But driving and flying are more expensive than traveling by rail, so would-be train riders who come to Whitefish by alternate transportation have less money to spend when they get here.
The Casselton derailment and fire will have an impact not only on rail safety, but on the politics of pipeline construction.