Local Angle: Oil trains put Northwest communities at risk

As The Columbian’s recent coverage has pointed out, Vancouver could become the site of the largest oil-by-rail facility in the United States.

The staggering increase in the amount of oil coming through the Northwest each day has already created an unprecedented risk to our people, our economy, our traffic and our environment. Our communities assume all of the risks while big oil companies get all of the rewards.

As a result of the Bakken oil boom in North Dakota, an estimated 2.87 billion gallons of crude oil now crosses Washington each year, through the heart of communities across the Northwest. Vancouver — at the intersection of major rail lines and the Columbia River — is already heavily impacted by the surge. Oil traffic here would dramatically increase if the proposed Vancouver Energy terminal is built.

The Washington Department of Ecology estimates that the amount of crude oil that comes through our state could triple by 2020 to nearly 9 billion gallons each year. The number of fully loaded oil trains that cross our state each week could go from 19 to more than 100 within the next few years.

There’s an immediate risk to public safety when highly flammable fuel passes near our neighborhoods, schools and parks. Since July 2013, there have been nine serious oil train derailments across North America — more than we experienced during the past four decades combined. An oil-train explosion last year in Quebec, Canada, killed 47 people and wiped out half a downtown area.

Oil is — chemically and economically — a volatile commodity that displaces locally manufactured goods from our limited rail and port space. Putting more oil on our tracks would harm local businesses, manufacturers and farmers who rely on trains to transport their goods to overseas markets. It would also result in more traffic congestion in our downtowns stretching from King County to Vancouver, and make it more difficult for emergency personnel to respond to calls.

United front

The surge in oil transport also increases risk of oil spills contaminating Columbia River and Puget Sound, which can result in long-term environmental damage. It’s a scenario we saw earlier this year when an train spilled more than 20,000 gallons of crude oil into the James River just outside Lynchburg, Va. Local communities — not the oil companies — pay for the emergency response and much of the cleanup costs.

At the local level, we work hard to ensure that our first responders have the equipment and training they need to respond to oil-train derailments, spills and fires. But we need state and federal action to prevent these expensive, potentially life-threatening tragedies from occurring in the first place.

To ensure that we have a unified front across the entire Northwest, we created the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance, which brings together more than 130 elected leaders from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia. It’s a broad coalition of local leaders from urban and rural areas who share a commitment to better understand the full costs and risks from oil transport and coal export.

We recently outlined recommendations for additional requirements and resources to strengthen inspection, disclosure and safety requirements for oil transport by barge and rail. We urge our state lawmakers and federal agencies to take these actions to maintain public safety now.

We appreciate Gov. Jay Inslee’s leadership on this important issue and for expediting the Department of Ecology’s study on oil transport by rail and barge, which shines a light on the growing risks and impacts to our communities. Now we need other leaders at the state and federal levels to demonstrate the same commitment to public safety.

Our shared long-term goal is to take advantage of our region’s proven ability to develop innovative solutions and establish the Pacific Northwest as a global center of clean energy. In the meantime, we will work together to ensure that oil and coal companies don’t take up our limited rail space, put our communities at risk and harm our local economy.

Bart Hansen is a Vancouver City councilmember. Dow Constantine is the King County executive and leader of the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance.