Resource World Magazine

54 www.resourceworld.com a p r i l / m a y 2 0 1 5 "If we look at all incident releases (including significant), 49% involved releases of less than five cubic metres while the four largest incidents accounted for more than 80% of the total volume released," said Reicher, adding that this amounted to just 0.0005% of the total liq- uid transported. "In other words, 99.9995% of the liq- uid product was safely delivered." Reicher said safety is the top priority for CEPA members. Their Integrity First program is designed to improve management systems and best practices in the areas of safety, the environment, and socio-economic benefits, focusing on pipeline integrity manage- ment, emergency management and control room management (the human factor). "The pipeline industry is very confident in its ability to safely transport products to market, as 97% of Canada's daily natural gas and onshore crude oil is transported using our member companies' pipeline systems," Reicher said, adding that only 3% is transported by other methods. He said these other methods are viewed as a complement to pipelines, as all methods are needed to get the product to market. If pipelines didn't exist, 15,000 more trucks or 4,200 more rail cars would be needed daily to move the 3.3 million barrels of petroleum product that now go via pipelines. "Pipelines are the most practical, efficient and economical means of trans- porting large volumes of crude oil and natural gas…because the systems are carefully scheduled, monitored and con- trolled," he said. "Despite all the best efforts of pipeline companies and local communities, inci- dents do occur from time to time. Pipeline companies have stringent emergency response procedures to protect public safety in case of an incident." Alleviating the concerns of pipeline opponents is not the role of CEPA, he said, which strives to engage with key stakeholders and build trust by being transparent and honest through the entire lifecycle of pipeline projects. "Our role as an organization is to provide credible and factually correct information based on science. It is not our goal to change opinions of protesters but rather to provide all Canadians objective information that is based on facts, to help them become bet- ter informed when making decisions about whether to support pipelines." Could rail do more to transmit the natural resources upon which the world increasingly depends? Imagine a small town facing the pros- pect of having eight or more trains of 100-tanker cars daily carrying crude oil through the community with the incum- bent risks of derailments and disasters. With existing pipelines running at capacity and government, pressured by aboriginal and environmental groups, lag- ging in approving new ones, Canadian railways are doubling the quantity they carry each year, hitting 60,000 carloads in 2014. In the US, rail movement jumped from 9,500 carloads in 2008 to 500,000 in 2014, driven by a boom in the Bakken oil patch where pipeline limitations force 70% of the crude to move by rail. But with growth comes risks. The 2013 Lac-Mégantic, Québec disaster killed 47 people and caused more than $1.2 billion in damage when an unattended 74-car freight train carrying Bakken formation crude ran away and derailed, resulting in a fire and the explosion of multiple tank cars, destroying the community's downtown. That wasn't an isolated incident. In February, more than a million litres of bitumen was released after a derailment near Gogama, Ontario. In March, 10 oil tanker cars derailed and spilled in the same area and in Galena, Illinois, a 103-car train loaded with crude derailed and eight of them burst into flames, causing a wide- spread evacuation. Not surprisingly, a 2013 report by Deloitte concluded that, "the economics and the safety record of rail compared to pipelines makes rail a limited and short- term solution at best…To maximize (the oilsands') potential, we are simply going to need more pipelines". "That pipelines are safer than trucks or trains should come as no surprise," said Kenneth P. Green, Senior Director, natural resources, for the Fraser Institute. In his HuffPost business blog he noted that pipe- lines are fixed infrastructure with little exposure to the elements, fewer opportuni- ties for operator or mechanical failure, and with greater capacity for real-time moni- toring and pre-planning for remediation based on the specific and well-understood characteristics of the pipeline route. Pipeline routes are also often built away from densely populated areas while trains and trucks are on fluid routes subject to constant change, offering far more oppor- tunities for breakdown, operator error and injuries to workers as well as the public, while rail and road pass through major population centres, putting more people at risk when an accident happens. "Environmentalists and anti-fossil-fuel allies have successfully stalled the devel- opment of safer pipeline capacity for years now," Green said. "As a result, more oil is transported by railways, increasing health and environmental impacts rather than reducing them. "Environmentalists who engage in anti- pipeline crusades risk causing more harm than good. Their pipeline-stalling actions are diverting oil to rail; oil that would otherwise be transported more safely by pipeline." Still, the US and Canada are trying to co-ordinate newer rail standards but nei- ther country has settled on a new tank car design. Ottawa recently announced it will create an oil-by-rail disaster relief fund, forcing companies shipping oil on trains to pay into a pot to cover all costs of a derailment, including damages to victims and funds for municipalities to clean up spills and put out fires. The companies will pay $1.65 per shipped tonne into a pool to cover damage costs that exceed the rail- way's liability insurance, which will range from $25 million up to $1 billion. The American government predicts trains hauling crude oil or ethanol will derail an average of 10 times annually in the next two decades. The projection, in a Department of Transportation analysis, says derailments could cause more than $4 billion in damage and possibly kill hun- dreds of people if a serious accident were to happen in a densely populated area. Experts say the numbers show the need for stronger tank cars, more effective

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