From: EcoWatch
by
Earthjustice has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Sierra Club and ForestEthics, challenging the Department of Transportation’s rejection of their July request for an immediate ban of DOT-111 rail tanker cars carrying volatile crude oil from the Bakken shale formation.
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| A fireball follows the derailment of two trains, one carrying Bakken crude oil, outside Casselton, North Dakota last December. Photo credit: U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration |
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) called in 2012 for an
immediate ban for these tankers, which are prone to puncture in the
case of accidents, crashes and rollovers, causing explosions and fires.
Two-thirds of the rail cars carrying crude oil through the U.S. are
DOT-111s. The industry has insisted
that discontinuing their use or phasing them out rapidly would be too
costly, asking for four years to phase out the older cars and up to six
years for the newer ones. This lawsuit challenges the Department of
Transportation’s assertion that they have responded sufficiently to the
dangers posed by the cars.
The court filing said,
“Petitioners ask the Court to set aside and remand the
Secretary’s denial of the petition to ban shipping Bakken crude oil in
unsafe tank cars because the Secretary failed to consider pertinent
evidence and several relevant factors, including the Secretary’s past
findings that the surge in crude-by-rail shipments of Bakken crude in
dangerous tank cars poses imminent hazards and emergency unsafe
conditions, the number of rail accidents and oil spills likely to occur
during the time it will take to stop shipping Bakken crude in the most
hazardous tank cars through rulemaking, Canada’s more expeditious phase
out of the most hazardous tank cars and the safety hazards of allowing
the industry to more than double the crude oil fleet before removing the
most dangerous tank cars from crude-by-rail shipping.”
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