Ottawa to designate crude oil as highly dangerous

By The Globe and Mail @globeandmail

 

Globe and Mail investigation leads to Transport Canada implementing tougher safety and testing measures for shipping oil by rail 

 

Jacquie McNish ‏@jacquiemcnish 37m

In wake of #Lac-Megantic disaster Ottawa identifies oil on rails as risky, will designate oil as highly dangerous

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Ottawa to designate crude oil as highly dangerous

The federal government will, for the first time, designate crude oil a highly dangerous substance and introduce tougher safety and testing measures for shipping oil by rail, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt has told The Globe and Mail.

The fundamental shift, in response to mounting concerns about crude safety, comes after a Globe investigation detailed how the oil that exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Que., last summer was far more dangerous than regulators and shippers considered. The investigation found that numerous warning signs about the volatility, corrosiveness and content of the crude were ignored before the disaster.

Until now, the government considered crude flammable, but not highly explosive. 

 

However, massive fireballs erupted in Lac-Mégantic on July 6 after a train carrying 72 tankers of crude oil derailed, killing 47 people and levelling much of the downtown. It is the worst railway disaster in Canadian history.

Those new rules will require railways and importers to have specific emergency plans for crude, including ensuring specialized response teams are available along the route in the event of an accident. The first ERAP was put in place for chlorine and propane after the 1979 derailment of a train in Mississauga led to the evacuation of about 220,000 people.

Such steps have been considered for crude oil, but never implemented. 

 
Transport Canada must decide which forms of crude are on the list and whether rules will differ depending on volume of oil. In the past five years, a shortage of pipelines has resulted in unprecedented amounts of oil moving by rail, including trains of more than 100 tanker cars.
Ottawa has said it will require hazardous-materials shippers to carry more insurance to cover derailments, so towns like Lac-Mégantic are not left with a cleanup bill. 

 

 

That step was announced in the federal Throne Speech in October.

 

 The government said it would take “targeted action” to increase the safety of transporting dangerous goods.  

 

 

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