Keeping tabs on all of the oil-by-rail projects cropping up in the Northwest just got easier.
A new online map offers the public a comprehensive view of main and short rail lines in the region and locations of all 13 operational, under construction or proposed crude-by-rail off-loading hubs. It also includes brief details about the Oregon and Washington projects, including permitting status and estimated train volumes.
The interactive map (http://bit.ly/1o76V8l) is one product of the Regional Response Team and the Northwest Area Committee (www.rrt10nwac.com). The groups, composed of federal and state personnel, are charged by federal law to protect public health and safety by ensuring effective, coordinated responses to spills of oil and other hazardous materials.
The map complements the groups’ ongoing work to craft new oil-spill response plans and to boost existing ones, Conor Keeney, oil spill equipment and contractor coordinator for the state Department of Ecology, said Wednesday. Keeney serves as chairman of the Northwest Area Committee and coordinates the committee’s oil-by-rail task force.
“All the work that we’re doing on the task force is kind of based on that map,” he said.
The work by the Regional Response Team/Northwest Area Committee is underway as shippers increasingly use rail as a readily available and cheap method of moving abundant oil to markets as North America experiences a production boom.
In 2013 alone, nearly 17 million barrels of oil were hauled across Washington by rail, according to the Department of Ecology. That’s up roughly 40 percent in one year. Before 2012, virtually all of the state’s oil came by way of pipeline and marine vessel.
The Regional Response Team/Northwest Area Committee map shows 13 active, under construction or proposed oil-train facilities in Washington and Oregon. Washington could harbor up to 11 of them, including the facility proposed for the Port of Vancouver by Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies that would be the Northwest’s largest oil-by-rail transfer terminal.
That project, currently undergoing an environmental-impact review by the state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, would handle as much as 380,000 barrels of oil per day for eventual conversion into transportation fuel. Gov. Jay Inslee has the final say over whether it gets built.
The other 10 oil-train projects in Washington include three sites in Anacortes, Tacoma and Cherry Point that began receiving crude by rail in September 2012, April 2013 and December 2013, respectively. All of the projects in Washington amount to 21.8 actual or estimated trains per day, according to data compiled by the Regional Response Team/Northwest Area Committee.
Oregon, meanwhile, is home to two oil-train projects: Global Partners’ up-and-running oil-train terminal in Clatskanie, Ore. and a plan by Arc Logistics Partners LP to build a rail-and-marine oil terminal in Portland.
It’s unclear how many trains per day Arc Logistics Partners anticipates receiving as part of its planned facility in Portland. But Global Partners receives about three unit trains per week at its Clatskanie, Ore., operation, according to the Regional Response Team/Northwest Area Committee.
Add together the train-traffic figures for projects in Washington and Oregon, and the total actual or estimated oil trains per day for both states rises to just above 22.
Because some of the oil-train projects are in various stages, Keeney said, it’s important to understand that the per-day train estimates may change. “It’s definitely more of an estimate rather than a hard number,” he said. He also noted that not all of the rail lines shown on the map are necessarily being used to transport crude.
