TPT September 2013

Global Marketplace

“In the face of such criticism, numerous oil companies have switched to rail transport,” wrote Mr Ravinsky. “But many are questioning that assumption in the aftermath of the Lac- Mégantic tragedy.” › A third party – the Canadian government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper – is certain to figure prominently in the stand-off now forming. Critics of oil transport by rail point to faulty monitoring of sufficiently strict regulations on the transport of hazardous materials by rail. According to the Montreal Gazette , the rules stipulate inspection of safety systems before and during every trip. However, Mr Ravinsky wrote, the government “has taken a back seat on enforcing the regulations, leaving most of the responsibility to the companies themselves.” Avrom Shtern, a spokesman for the Montreal-based Green Coalition, locates the source of the problem precisely there. “I think the government, especially after austerity cuts, relies more and more on the industry to police itself,” Mr Shtern told the Monitor . “It’s unacceptable. You can’t just write rules and expect [the railroad companies] to police themselves.” In Mr Shtern’s view “it is high time” the government came back into the game and reined in the companies: “They’re not doing their job,” he said. › To yet another cohort, the debate over transportation is moot, given the inherent risks of oil dependency. Peter Brown, a professor of geography at McGill University in Montreal, told Monitor guest blogger Daniel J Graeber (9 July), “Whether we transport by rail or pipeline we need to get away from an oil economy, which the Harper government is completely oblivious to.” The Canadian broadcaster CTV observed that the 6 July derailment is not the first accident involving oil transport by rail in the country this year. In May, a train derailed near the town of Jansen in rural Saskatchewan, spilling 24,000 gallons of oil. In June, 3,400 gallons of diesel fuel were spilled in Frontenac, another town in Quebec not far from Lac- Mégantic. As Americans and Canadians fume, an unsightly mound of high- carbon, high-sulphur ‘petcoke’ keeps on growing in Detroit “In something resembling a bottle return program, Detroit’s enormous petroleum coke pile, a byproduct of Canadian oil sands, is making its way back to Canada.” The reference, by Ian Austen of the New York Times , was to a three-story-high, uncovered, blocklong black mound on the waterfront of Detroit, Michigan, that for months has upset that city’s residents as well as others across the river in Windsor, Ontario. Owned by Koch Carbon, a company controlled by American industrialists – the prominent conservative brothers Charles and David Koch – the detritus is a byproduct of

Oil and gas After a rail disaster in Quebec, a railways vs pipelines debate flares anew over the transport of ‘black gold’ Early in the morning of 6 July, a train moving 72 carloads of crude oil derailed in Lac-Mégantic in the Canadian province of Quebec. The resulting crash and series of explosions destroyed 40 houses, forced 2,000 evacuations from the town, and killed at least 30 people, with 20 or more others missing and presumed dead days later. The fire was visible by satellite from space. While the investigation into the derailment continues, one thing was immediately clear. The deadly event revived arguments about the relative safety of the two principal modes of transporting oil over long distances: rail and pipeline. Proponents of the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, vigorously opposed by Canadian and American environmentalists, believe that the Quebec accident will boost support for the approval they are seeking from US President Barack Obama. Framing the controversy in the Christian Science Monitor (Boston), Jeremy Ravinsky noted a Toronto Star report that transporting oil by train has become more popular in recent years due to concerns over pipeline safety. In 2009, according to the Canadian Railway Association, 500 carloads of oil were transported across Canada by rail. This year, the estimate is for 140,000 carloads. According to the Globe and Mail (also Toronto-based), this massive increase is at least partly attributable to the fierce political opposition oil companies face over pipelines, which entail the risk of oil spills. Projects such as Keystone XL – which would run from Alberta, in western Canada, to Texas – offer a faster way to move oil, but the spills they may create are typically much larger than those resulting from train accidents. (“Deadly Train Derailment in Quebec Sparks Debate over Oil Transport,” 8 July)

The crude oil caused explosions that killed 30 people in Quebec

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September 2013