View the November 2018 seminar recording
Jennifer Symoun
Good afternoon or good morning to those of you to the West. Welcome to the Talking Freight Seminar Series. My name is Jennifer Symoun and I will moderate today's seminar. Today's topic is Hazardous Materials Shipments: Economic and Safety Considerations.
Before I go any further, I do want to let those of you who are calling into the teleconference for the audio know that you need to mute your computer speakers or else you will be hearing your audio over the computer as well.
Today's seminar will last 90 minutes, with 60 minutes allocated for the speakers, and the final 30 minutes for audience Question and Answer. If during the presentations you think of a question, you can type it into the chat area. Please make sure you send your question to "Everyone" and indicate which presenter your question is for. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but I will start off the question and answer session with the questions typed into the chat box. We will also take questions over the phone if time allows and I will provide instructions on how to do so once we get to that point.
The PowerPoint presentations used during the seminar are available for download from the file download box in the lower right corner of your screen. The presentations will also be available online within the next few weeks, along with a recording and a transcript. I will notify all attendees once these materials are posted online.
Talking Freight seminars are eligible for 1.5 certification maintenance credits for AICP members. In order to obtain credit for today's seminar, you must have logged in with your first and last name or if you are attending with a group of people you must type your first and last name into the chat box.
PDH certificates are also available for Talking Freight seminars. To receive 1.5 PDH credits, you will need to fill out a form. Please see the link in the chat box. Certificates will be emailed one week after the seminar. A seminar agenda has been included in the file download box for those who need to submit an agenda to their licensing agency.
Finally, I encourage everyone to please also download the evaluation form from the file share box and submit this form to me after you have filled it out.
Today we'll have three presentations given by:
Our first presentation will be given by David Willauer a Freight Transportation Manager with Cambridge Systematics with 26 years of experience in multimodal transportation and emergency planning. This includes 11 years in consulting as a senior transportation and emergency management subject matter expert and 15 years as the Planning Director for the Greater Portland, (Maine) Council of Governments. He has managed or contributed to statewide freight plans, freight supply chain studies and statewide hazmat plans in multiple states and jurisdictions. David is the Vice-Chair of the TRB Committee on the Transportation of Hazardous Materials.
David Willauer
Thank you, Jennifer. Good afternoon, everybody. I've got a few slides to share with you about the hazmat 101, if you will, and dangerous goods. I will have a few remarks about regulatory oversight, and I would like to share with you some examples of why hazardous materials have been a big part of the U.S. energy revolution and how it translates to selected hazmat supply chains.
There is a brief overview of what I'll be presenting, and I will start with hazardous materials. In the U.S. it is defined as a substance or material that, when transported in commerce, is capable of posing an unreasonable risk to these factors: health, safety, property, and the environment. But in the rest of the world it is known as dangerous goods, particularly in Transport Canada, and you can see a definition there from Transport Canada, as well as from the United Nations. It is defined differently around the world, but the common theme is that while some of these products pose some danger while being transported, dangerous goods are products that are inherently dangerous whether or not they are in transport, which I think is the best way to put it.
It is classified in the following manner, with 9 hazard classes. These are placards on railcars or trucks that show the different types of hazardous materials. And they also have a UN number in the middle of the placard. When you see a 1203 number, for example, you know it is refined petroleum/gasoline. If you see a number that is 1075, you know it is propane , and so forth. And these numbers are useful both in terms of transport but also for first responders to know how to respond to an emergency.
Some of these classes can be multiple classes. For example, you might see more than one placard on a truck, because it might have several hazardous materials, or hazardous materials that require 2 placards or more.
The other thing that I would like to share with you today is that hazmat is really everywhere in the U.S. and around the world. Over 1 million shipments every day, as you can see, it is very multimodal. These show four modes, but don't forget the pipelines are an important mode as well. Much of the refined petroleum is transported around the U.S. by pipeline, and many of today's freight plans don't actually mention pipelines. So, if you are updating your freight plan, don't forget that pipelines also involve a very important investment in freight -- even though it is a private investment – and has implications for the hazardous material shipments, particularly by volume.
If you listen to the industry representatives that are responsible for lots of these products, you will hear things like this, which is that "chemicals are used every day by industries to ensure the safety of our water and our food" -- that is the American Chemistry Council. And the Association for American Railroads will also let you know that freight railroads transport essential hazardous materials, 99.999% of which reach their destinations. Which is remarkable given the volumes that they ship. The American Petroleum Industry will also tell you about petroleum products fueling our nation's economy. And as many of you probably know, we are the leading exporter of refined petroleum of the world now. And that's getting into this energy revolution concept that I will speak to in a moment.
Ethanol has become a large biofuel, transported all over the U.S., and it is also exported. And natural gas has really expanded, given the fact that we have lots of production in the Appalachian region. So, I will speak to that as well.
Hazmat is a significant part of U.S. freight flows. 12% is not a huge percentage, but it is a piece of every mode you can think of. And this is an example of some projected volumes for freight transportation in the U.S. by rail, truck, and by maritime means. And you can see that knowing some of these freight volumes, they are expected to grow significantly, affecting highways, railroads, and waterways in the years to come.
Because it is a hazardous material, there are a lot of regulations that go with it. This is an example of some of the parts of the hazmat regulatory framework, with each of the modal divisions having a role, such as carriage by rail, carriage by aircraft, and rules for shippers and packaging, for example. And each of these regulations come with lots of specifications for how hazardous materials should be shipped and packaged throughout the U.S. And it is not just the U.S. DOT that provides regulatory oversight. There are other federal agencies that have a role, including the ATF and the military; the EPA, for example, when you are storing hazardous materials at chemical facilities around the country; lithium batteries, shipped by air now, are getting a lot of visibility at the FAA; and FERC has been busy with facility siting; and also what FMCSA is doing with cargo tanks and so forth. There are a lot of federal agencies that have a role for one reason or another in hazardous materials transportation.
The most important part of hazmat incidents is knowing how to respond to that incident, and you will hear from David Schoendorfer with an example of what railroads are doing. But every industry pays particular attention to preparing for incidents that may occur. And because of the industrial accidents that occurred in the 1980s, the most significant of which was Bhopal in 1985. The nations around the world responded to it by paying closer attention to chemical facilities, regulatory and safety issues, paying more attention to responding to those incidents. And in the U.S., Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, or EPCRA, which included the formation of the State Emergency Response Commissions. And at the local level it's the Local Emergency Planning Committees. Industry also has first responders. There are hazmat contractors for the railroads and pipelines, and strict protocols for how to respond to incidents. And an Emergency Response Guidebook that was developed by the U.S. and Transport Canada, with other countries participating, that lays out all the things you need to know about protective actions, distances from certain substances, whether it's released by rail or by road. So, this is an important part of hazardous material transportation is what to do in an incident, and how to mitigate some of those instances by not building communities close to chemical facilities. Remarkably, some of you may know that 25 or 30 years ago when these chemical facilities were built, there were no houses or developments around them. But over the years, encroachment has really played a big role in how close some of these communities are now to these chemical facilities. And this is a problem throughout the U.S., so we have been working with communities to look for ways to mitigate some of these impacts.
The Energy Revolution, that I mentioned at the outset, can't be underscored more significantly by the oil and gas shale plays around the U.S. This is a map of where the crude oil and natural gas shale plays are. And it has resulted in significant growth in crude oil production, dry gas production, and the natural gas liquids that come from dry gas. These are having a big impact on the U.S. transportation system. In the sense of a supply chain, you can see that crude oil is developed and produced for refined petroleum products, but it also a feedstock for chemical production and methane gas is extracted from the natural gas to be put into a pipeline or liquefied. And contained in the natural gas are the so-called natural gas liquids like propane, butane, and ethane, transported by rail (and ethane often by pipe), and these have significant implications for supply chains in the U.S. And the location of the petroleum refineries is a big part of that picture. 50% of the country's oil refineries are in the Gulf Coast, and the Gulf Coast refineries are set up to refine heavier crude oil.
Those products are then piped throughout the U.S. You can see the red or orange lines represent crude oil pipelines, the green are natural gas liquids, and then refined petroleum in the purple lines. And as you can see, the Gulf Coast refineries fuel most of our East Coast cities, and some of our Western cities as well, and throughout the Midwest. So, it is a significant network and infrastructure in the U.S.
Freight railroads also play a significant role in the transportation of hazardous materials, and you will hear from one today. There are seven Class I railroads in the U.S. and Canada, and in Mexico, that transport products all over North America.
The other way to look at natural gas distribution is to look at the location of where the natural gas processing plants are, which are these blue dots that you can see in the middle of the country and over here in the Appalachians. And then all these green dots are power plants that are being fueled by natural gas, now 30% of our country's fuel and heating needs. A significant natural gas pipeline network that basically supplies most of these power plants. But there are locations where the pipeline network does not reach, and this is where liquid natural gas, once liquefied, can be transported by truck to places were pipelines don't go. In a recent study, we looked at LNG by truck using information from the energy information administration to show some of the LNG that is transported by truck in the U.S. It is currently not allowed by rail in the U.S., it is allowed in Canada, and they're both exploring that issue, and the exploration includes revisiting the D.O.T. 113 tank car that is used to transport cryogenic liquids. This is an example of how the truck network can supplement the pipeline network in areas of the U.S. were pipelines don't exist.
The other emerging trend that I will share with you about LNG is that it is being exported from the U.S. more than imported. These are some of the volumes projected for LNG exports, mostly in the Gulf Coast.
Other emerging markets that go alongside LNG production in the U.S. are using it for fuel -- heavy mining operations, fueling for ships. Several railroads are exploring the use of LNG for propulsion, but the Florida East Coast Railroad is the only one currently operating locomotives fueled by both natural gas and diesel, with a specially designed tender car, along Florida's east coast, by special permit.
The other large volume hazmat that is getting a lot of visibility because of the blending requirements in the U.S. is ethanol, which is really grain alcohol produced by a corn byproduct in the Midwest, and then transported by rail -- because it is generally too corrosive to go in a pipeline -- to all of our fueling and major metropolitan areas on the East and West Coast. Ethanol is mostly produced in the Midwest and then transported by rail, a little bit by barge, and then by truck. And it is continuing to increase in terms of volumes, so much so that we are now exporting quite a bit of ethanol as well. It's transported across the U.S. by rail and then exported out of Los Angeles in ships. The other indicator of the use of ethanol is some of the stations that use E 85, which is 85% ethanol in every gallon for newer vehicles.
The final supply chain I would like to share with you is anhydrous ammonia, and you might ask why I point this out. It is one of the top poison inhalation hazards in the U.S., alongside chlorine gas and ethylene oxide. First responders are truly concerned about poison inhalation hazards and how they're shipped. You can see that anhydrous ammonia is shipped by multiple types of containers and modes of transport. It is imported, as well as produced in the U.S., primarily as a fertilizer and also a refrigerant. And as a refrigerant, you don't see too many truck shipments because it is a closed system, and you don't need to produce too much of it to keep a refrigeration system going. But as a fertilizer, it is transported in much larger volumes and you often see rail tank cars serving fertilizer plants with anhydrous ammonia.
Here is an example of how some of the distribution looks like in the U.S., with the ammonia plants as these red triangles, and you can see the different rail networks that are used to transport anhydrous ammonia. So, it is an important hazardous material, and usually within the top 10 chemicals of concern in almost every state in the U.S. So, we pay particular attention to it to make sure that first responders know how to deal with it and how we can prepare for a potential release.
So, there is a quick overview of hazmat 101. I will stop there and turn it back over to Jennifer. Thank you.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you, David, I know there are few questions in there, we will get to those after the presentations. Our next presentation will be given by David Schoendorfer, Hazardous Materials Manager for Norfolk Southern Railway Corporation. David began his railroad career in the Transportation Department with Norfolk Southern in 1985 and has worked in the railroad hazmat field for the past 28 years. He is currently based in Atlanta as system manager hazardous materials. A certified hazardous materials manager, David currently chairs the AAR Hazardous Materials Committee. He also is chairman of the AAR AskRail Task Force and serves on the AAR Tank Car Committee, the AAR Spent Nuclear Fuel Task Force, and the National TRANSCAER Committee. Before joining Norfolk Southern, David served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania.
David Schoendorfer
Thank you, Jennifer. Good afternoon, everybody. I appreciate being invited to participate in the webinar today. Let me flip the slides. After a brief introduction on rail, we'll talk about four primary topic areas on how to manage risk: preparedness, those are the things were talking about to consider in advance of an incident; prevention -- I will give some examples of initiatives to prevent incidents, and if an incident occurs, can we keep the product in the container; and then response -- If the product gets out of the container, how do we respond? In 20 minutes, we can only touch briefly on each one of these, so let's get started.
First of all, just a couple of notes on the U.S. rail safety statistics. In 2017, U.S. railroads achieved the safest year ever in train accidents and collision rates. Industrywide, rates have dropped 30% in the past 10 years. This slide shows the distribution of the hazmat shipments by car type for NS, which are probably fairly reflective for the industry. About a quarter of the hazmat shipments are shipped in intermodal. For the most part, these shipments do not pose a high risk, because they generally involve smaller quantities, and many carriers have various restrictions on certain high-risk materials. About two thirds of all hazmat materials are shipped in tank cars, and generally hold between 20,000 and 30,000 gallons each. There are many different tank car specs and they vary depending upon commodity. One important note, very few tank cars are owned by railroads. Most are owned by tank car builders, leasing companies, or shippers.
Here is a list of the top 25 hazmat commodities shipped in 2017. Number one on the list is alcohols NOS, commonly called ethanol. Another flammable liquid right at the top of the list is petroleum crude oil. Propane and other LP gases are also commonly transported.
The railroads safely transport hazmat every day. To learn more about all the safety initiatives in the industry, I encourage you to visit the Association of American Railroads website. They talk about a lot of the initiatives going on for safety.
The rail industry, like other modes of transportation, must report all hazmat incidents within 30 days on the D.O.T. 5800 form. This allows the DOT to track statistics, identify trends, and improve safety. All incidents must be reported no matter how small. If it gets out of the package, it is reportable. The accident release rate for railroads is in the ballpark of about one per 100,000 loads. The non-accident release rate (those from valve and fittings and generally shipper or equipment caused), is about one per 10,000 loads.
Let's talk preparedness. The railroads do have a good record of safety shipping hazardous materials. Sometimes incidents do occur, and we need to be prepared to deal with them. One of the significant programs the railroads are involved in is TRANSCAER (Transportation Community Awareness and Emergency Response). I'm sure many of you are already familiar with this program, it's been around for 32 years now. It's a voluntary program and a large part of which is community outreach. Each of the past three years, nearly 50,000 emergency responders have been trained under the TRANSCAER umbrella. Close to 85% of those have been trained by the Class I railroads. At Norfolk Southern, we have a program that we launched in 2018 called Operation Awareness and Response. It helps to strengthen our TRANSCAER program. We have a dedicated safety train that does nothing but move around our system each year, providing hands-on training to local emergency responders. In 2018 we made stops in 22 cities and have visited about 60 different cities over the past three years. Many of the Class I railroads have similar equipment and programs.
As part of the outreach, we also have a website to bridge our connections with the first responders. The OAR website can be found at ww.joinNSOAR.com. It includes all kinds of resources and information on training opportunities. For example, from the site you can download our Railroad Emergency Response Planning Guide. It is designed to assist local community response organizations to plan for and respond to railway related incidents. You can also download a copy of the AAR Field Guide to Tank Cars, which was just updated last year. It is a great resource. And many of the Class I railroads have similar sites. Recently we brought them together on a single site, which we refer to as the Railroad Hazmat Resource Toolkit. Check it out when you get a chance. Go out to the AAR website and you can check out the toolkit.
Some of the other items, in regard to preparedness, include having hazmat traffic flow information. Upon request, railroads will be happy to share this information with a bona fide emergency response agency. While exact train schedules are not provided, as they vary from day-to-day, a list of the most commonly transported commodities will be shared.
Railroads also will participate in your local tabletop drills and on occasion full scale drills. We prefer tabletops, as they are easy to plan, safer, less disruptive to actual operations, and better suited for building relationships with local agencies.
Part of the preparedness also includes having local responders visit our yards. It is important to familiarize them with the buildings, our routes, and the assembly areas. Not only for hazmat, but any incidents that might happen in a railyard. The rail industry has a fantastic training facility in Pueblo, Colorado, known as SERTC (Security and Emergency Response Training Center). Over the years, the railroads have sponsored thousands of emergency responders to attend.
Railroads also send their own personnel to SERTC. We have 300 of our operating department supervisors who have attended the training. All 300 of these supervisors also attend an annual mandatory 8-hour refresher class. This is part of our commitment to being prepared.
I expect many of you have already heard about AskRail. Think about this. How cool would it be if you are an emergency responder, and you can pick up your mobile phone and identify the products of a rail car? We can do that now with AskRail. AskRail is a free app developed by the railroads. Emergency responders are able to download it, free of charge, from the Google Play Store or iTunes, and there are currently over 20,000 users of the app. One really powerful feature of AskRail is it provides single car look-up, but it also will pull the entire train consist for line of road trains. So, if you put in a single car, it can pull the entire train contents back and provide all the information about what is in that train.
The last item under preparedness is response plans. Regardless of whatever regulations come out, railroads all currently having response plans in place. It's just a necessary best practice, and we have several different plans in place now.
Let's talk about prevention. This section is certainly not an all-inclusive list, in fact it barely touches the surface. But I'm going to provide you a few examples of initiatives to prevent incidents and derailments. Number one on prevention is the tremendous amount of money the industry spends each year on maintaining and improving infrastructure. Billions of dollars are spent each year. Don't forget, the railroads are privately owned, and the vast majority of America's freight railroads, own, build, maintain, operate, and pay for their infrastructure with little or no governmental assistance.
We can also reduce risk by taking into account routing considerations. In 2008, PHMSA's final rule on HM-232E required railroads to take into consideration 27 risk factors when making routing decisions for certain commodities. Many different factors need to be considered -- things like speed, population density, or venues along the route. The industry routing model is RCRMS. It provides relative scores for alternative routes to help determine the most desirable route from both a safety and security perspective.
We can also reduce risk using certain operating restrictions for our trains. For example, trains that have been designated as key trains have a maximum operating speed of 50 miles per hour, unless further restricted. Regulatory compliance is also a very important part of reducing risk. Our operations are constantly under observation by both regulators and our own supervisors. Remember, compliance is the minimum standard, we often have industry recommendations that go beyond these requirements.
Our industry shortline partners, and there are hundreds of them, can get training assistance from the Short Line Safety Institute, which helps them comply with regulations and train emergency responders along the routes.
Positive train control is coming online quickly. This is designed to help stop a train and will prevent certain types of accidents. This has been a huge initiative, almost like putting a man on the moon. Now when you look at the railroads, some of you see steel wheels on steel rails, that's it, just like 100 years ago. But there have been tremendous technology improvements over the years.
Track inspections equipment, that has changed significantly. And that is why we are seeing those safety improvements I mentioned earlier. Data is power. We now integrate all the detectors, so defects and trends can be easier to identify. It's part of the infrastructure health system. Wheel impact load detectors is another technology improvement, and there are many more.
If we do have an incident, we want the hazmat commodity to stay in the package. So, let's talk tank cars. This is not a D.O.T. 111 tank car. We've come a long way since the first crude oil cars, and we are continuing to see better cars. There are basically three main types of tank cars: general service or non-pressure cars, pressure cars, and cryogenic cars. The general service cars are generally 7/16 inch thick carbon steel tanks, top fittings, bottom outlets, and can have 1/8 inch thick jackets with insulation.
As we increased the volume of flammable liquids, the industry had some derailments involving unit trains of ethanol and petroleum crude oil. In 2011, NS derailed 34 cars and had 32 of them released ethanol. We recognized the need for better cars. And remember, we don't own these cars. In March 2011, the AAR petitioned PHMSA for better cars, and a new standard was adopted, the CPC-1232 Car. This is a picture of a non-jacketed CPC-1232 car. The tank shell's a half-inch, the valves are better, and you can see the half height head shield if you look at the end of the car. This is designed to help prevent it from puncturing an adjacent car in an accident. While the new standard was an improvement, it didn't take long to know that an even better car was needed.
This is a picture of a July 2012 derailment in Columbus, Ohio. In this incident, the tank car in the middle was punctured on the end of the car at about the 10:00 position. Ethanol was immediately released and caught fire. The pool fires subsequently caused the ethanol tank cars on both sides to incur sudden heat induced tears. There is an acronym for that. Basically, the car tears open in the vapor space allowing the car to relieve pressure that is building inside the car. If the car had full height head shields, there probably would never have been a release, and that means no pool fires or other releases.
On this slide, we could spend 20 minutes just talking about this one slide, but the laser version is the Conditional Probability of Release, or CPR, increases as speed increases. And the better the tank car, the lower the Conditional Probability of Release. So if you got all that -- the Blue Line up top, labeled B1, is the legacy D.O.T. 111 car, and the light blue line at the bottom, labeled T11, represents the new car, what is known as the D.O.T. 117 car. The Conditional probability of release is going to be a lot lower with the newer cars. The new D.O.T. 117 cars have thicker tank shells, tight fitting protection, safety release devices, full height head shields, and jacketed thermal protection. Basically, a pressure car with a bottom outlet. Here are the U.S. timelines for transitioning to the new cars, the transition dates address crude oil, then ethanol, then all other flammable liquids. You can see that the legacy D.O.T. 111 cars have already been phased out for petroleum crude oil.
A comparison of the petroleum crude oil in 2013 versus 2017, shows a 65% reduction in risk when measured by the conditional probability of release. Similarly, ethanol risk has been reduced by 22% over these four years, and the other flammable liquids have been reduced by 60% over that time period. The sooner we see the new D.O.T. 117 cars, the better. And if we can phase them out faster like the Canadians are doing, that would be even better.
The status of the flammable tank car fleet is reported four times a year to the AAR tank car committee. This is to ensure that everyone knows the status, and to make sure that we keep everything on the current transition schedule.
Shifting gears, David mentioned LNG. LNG is currently not allowed to be shipped in the U.S. in D.O.T. 113 tank cars; it is allowed in Canada. In January 2017, AAR petitioned PHMSA for rulemaking to authorize LNG in the DOT 113 cars. PHMSA has acknowledged receiving the petition, and they are expected to put out a notice of proposed rulemaking, HM-264, I believe, by the end of 2018. Meanwhile, the AAR Tank Car Committee is reviewing the D.O.T. tank specs for this car. I think we would like to see a thicker outer tank shell, so that we can hold vacuum if it is involved in an accident, and we would like to see the area around the valves and fittings beefed up. They are taking a look at that.
Another tank car issue. AAR recently petitioned PHMSA to prohibit hydrogen chloride refrigerated liquid in tank cars. Only about 100 cars of this product ship each year. But due to the unique properties of this TIH commodity, we feel it is unsuitable for transportation by rail. As this commodity is transported, the pressure rises 8-14 psi per day. It's not a question of if these cars will release, but a question of when they will release. Basically, the railroads race these cars to the destination. We are still waiting to hear back from PHMSA on this one.
The last tank car subject – it has basically been concluded that the new I car for TIH shipment, should be the new standard for TIH cars. The industry organizations, AAR, ACC, the Chlorine Institute, and TFI, have petitioned to allow the current TIH cars to stay in use until December 2027. Although the TIH cars with non-normalized fields will be phased out by July 2019. The new I car standard will substantially improve the puncture resistance for anhydrous ammonia, ethylene oxide, and chlorine. So, you see there are initiatives being done to improve tank car safety.
Last item in risk management is response. If we have an incident we need to effectively respond to protect people, the environment, property, so we can then restore train operations. We are fortunate that we have many outstanding emergency response contractors across the country that have the equipment and people necessary to respond to emergencies. We generally expect local responders to just hold down the fort and protect the public until we can get all resources mobilized to the site. We will bring all kinds of expertise to the scene -- wrecking contractors, air monitoring, remediation consultants -- whatever is needed. We are good at this.
And that is all I have. Sorry if I ran too long or got into the weeds too far at times.
Jennifer Symoun
No, thank you, we appreciate the presentation, I know there are a few questions, we'll get to those after this last presentation. Thank you, David. Our final presentation will be given by Paul Bomgardner, Chief of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Hazardous Materials Division. Paul began his public safety career as a Trooper in the Maryland State Police and during that time he served in the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program, eventually serving as the commander of that unit. After leaving the State Police, Paul served as the Director, Hazardous Materials Transportation at the American Trucking Associations and as the Director of Administration for the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. In March 2010, Paul joined FMCSA as the Hazardous Materials Division Team Lead, and was promoted to Chief in January of 2011. As Chief, Paul is responsible for the development and delivery of the Agency's national hazardous materials enforcement initiatives.
Paul Bomgardner
Thank you, Jennifer, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to talk to everyone today about highway transportation of hazardous materials. David did a really good job of doing the HM 101, so I'm not going to cover a lot of that. What I'm going to do more, and you see the list of topics that I want to cover, I want to focus more on cargo tank transportation, and what we do to oversee cargo tanks and cargo tank facilities. With that, I will talk a little bit about special permits, safety permits and the other things that you see on that list.
Just to give you a for instance, here again to remind you what we are talking about, when we talk about hazardous materials, it comes in all shapes and sizes -- transported in cargo tanks, shipped in drums and cylinders, and just about anything else you can think of. We have talked a lot about anhydrous ammonia today. That picture in the top row is what they call a nurse tank. That nurse tank is used on the farms to spread the anhydrous in the fields. And then Dave had also mentioned about placards with ID numbers, and you can see that in the top left-hand corner. Just to give you a for instance of what we are talking about when we talk about hazmat.
Our mission here at Federal Motor Carriers is to prevent this. We want to reduce highway accidents, reduce deaths and injuries, and also cut down on the destruction of property. How do we do that? We have a number of programs in the hazmat division that address hazardous materials. You can see -- here is a list of those -- I'm going to touch on some of those as I go through the program today. But like I said, I will focus mostly on the cargo tanks.
So, special permits. Special permits are actually issued by PHMSA. This here is a fiberglass reinforced plastic cargo tank. If you went to the regulations in title 49 and tried to find this specific cargo tank in there, you won't find it, because it is not allowed by the regulation for the transportation of hazardous materials. But, the company that manufactures these cargo tanks, applied for a special permit from PHMSA years ago. I have circled the D.O.T. SP 11903, that's the special permit number for this FRP tank. They are extensively used out there in place of really what we call the MC 407 cargo tanks, chemical haulers. For this particular tank, in order to get the special permit, they had to prove to PHMSA that there is a similar level of safety as compared to those that are allowed by the regulation. So how does FMCSA get involved in the special permits? Several ways. There are requests for emergency processing, due to national defense, for economic reasons, for number of reasons. But, if it is a highway related special permit, it would have to come to my office first to determine whether or not there should be emergency processing. If emergency processing is approved, that application goes to the top of the pile for PHMSA to take a look at and to issue the special permit, as long as everything looks fine.
We do technical reviews of the special permit application, especially when they apply to cargo tanks, and we also take a look at the motor carrier for their safety profile. So, we take a look at our data that we get from roadside inspections and our investigations, and that type of information, to determine whether or not that carrier is actually fit and able to carry out the terms of the special permit. A lot of times we can do that with a desk audit, but there are times where we will send that special permit application out to the field for them to do a complete compliance review where the carrier is looked at top to bottom. And we will then issue a recommendation to PHMSA, whether to approve or deny the special permit. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the process, but there is a timely filing and an untimely filing, especially for renewals for special permits. Some of these investigations may take a while, because of other priorities in Federal Motor Carrier. So, if you are up for renewal, make sure you get your timely filing into PHMSA so we can take the time we need. With a timely filing, your special permit won't run out until the new one is issued. Untimely filing, that is not the story; the special permit will expire on the date that it says on your special permit, regardless of whether or not we get the investigation done or not.
Hazardous materials safety permits, don't confuse the two. The safety permit is issued by Federal Motor Carrier. And on your screen right now you can see the different hazard classes and types of hazardous materials that need a hazmat special permit. Highway route controlled Class 7 is a high-level radioactive material, over 55 pounds of explosives, high explosives; they could be some of the bigger pyrotechnics. Poison inhalation hazards, you can see the zones, and you can see from zone A through zone C & D, the packages get bigger as you go up the alphabet. Very likely these are all going to kill you if you were exposed to it, it's just that one is going to take a little bit longer than the other, or it may take more volume than the other. The last is the compressed or liquefied methane, so high methane content materials. At least 85% in packages over 3500 gallons need a hazmat safety permit. Some examples of this, if you see them on the highway or on the rails, you have your HRCQ, your PIH, high methane content, such as CNG and LNG.
Once a carrier is in the Hazmat Safety Permit Program, they enter into what we call our enhanced oversight. These carriers are constantly monitored on a day-to-day basis. And, it actually mines our system, called the Compliance Safety and Accountability and Safety Measurement System, for that information on a carrier's performance. Within that system, they are called BASICS, and they are different categories of behaviors of the motor carrier; hazardous materials, vehicle maintenance, hours of service compliance, driver performance, things like that. So, you can see the three times that a carrier can possibly get tagged for a complete review under this enhanced oversight program. HM BASIC, over threshold for two consecutive months. The next one is two or more other BASICS other than hazmat for two or more months. And the last one, 48 months of insufficient data, and a safety rating at or over four years old. That is where we get the most activity, because we have a lot of smaller carriers in this program, especially explosives and pyrotechnics carriers, that don't get roadside inspections; they just don't travel the routes that the larger trucks travel. So, they make up the bulk of the ones we need to go see.
Moving ahead for hazmat and tank trucks for your commercial driver's license requirements. There is the definition on the screen for your hazardous materials. This is out of part 383 of title 49. Part 383 of title 49 is where you find all of your commercial driver's license requirements. We write the rules, the states actually implement the programs. But there is the definition of hazardous materials. If you are transporting materials that meet the definition, your driver will need a commercial driver's license and the hazmat endorsement.
For tank vehicles, there's a definition also in section 383.5. It has to be a commercial motor vehicle to transport liquid or gas materials. Tanks having a rated capacity of more than 119 gallons with an aggregate rated capacity of 1000 gallons or more. So, the only time you don't need a tank endorsement for these types of vehicles is if that vehicle, or if the tank, is empty and your shipping paper actually says empty, the driver can present that to the inspector at roadside and they won't need a tank endorsement at that point.
To give you an idea of some tank vehicles. Starting in the top left and moving clockwise; these are intermediate bulk containers, or portable tanks. They're about 250 to 300 gallons in size each, so they meet the 119 gallons. And you have at least seven of them, taking it over an aggregate of 1000 gallons. And even though it is in a regular box type trailer, that driver, as long as they are full, would need a tank endorsement for that load.
The pictures on your right-hand side -- the top and the bottom are of the same type vehicle. This is a CNG transport that runs under special permit, issued by PHMSA, and there are a number of high pressure cylinders inside this box type trailer, and they are manifolded together. And not only do they need the endorsement, but because of the high methane in the product, they will also need the hazmat safety permit. And then your bottom left is your typical tank truck, and of course a driver with that would have to have the tank endorsement.
For entry-level, who are new people coming into the industry -- and believe me I think the tank industry is hurting a bit these days, because they're looking for good drivers -- entry-level driver training is now in our regulations. The final rule came out in March 2017, and the mandatory compliance date is February 7th. Remember, this is entry-level driver training, these are new drivers into the industry. There is a website for this that you can go to, to see all of your questions and answers. And the applicability is for entry-level operators of commercial licenses required to possess a Class A or B CDL.
If you go to 49 CFR part 380, subparts E-G, these are the topics it covers. If you have drivers just coming in and you want to start setting up and getting ready for that mandatory date, you probably ought to take a look at part 380 and see what you need to do for your training curriculum.
For cargo tank resources, again, we do have a website for that. You see it on the screen, www.fmcsa.dot.gov. You can go to the dropdown menu and there is all kinds of information about cargo tank rollover prevention, cargo tank safety, we have safety advisories on there that we issue to the industry and to enforcement on a slew of different topics. And for one of the examples, or a couple of them, you can go there and find out what some of the top violations we have been finding are when you talk about cargo tank manufacturers, cargo tank testers, and cargo take qualifiers and repairers, and roadside inspections.
The one that I have right now is the top five cargo tank manufacturer violations. Remember, these are the people who are building the cargo tanks that are used to transport hazmat. If you take a look at this, it is a bit telling that they are a little bit lax in training. I think four of the five actually have to do with being unqualified or untrained. And that is a bit disturbing, but that is what we keep finding as we go out to these manufacturers, and we probably look at a dozen manufacturers a year.
The other one is the accident damage protection. This probably is the result of people who are not qualified to certify that a tank meets the design. But what we are finding is that the calculations for this accident damage protection is not correct, and these tanks are being recalled and refitted so that they have the proper accident damage.
The other cargo tank facilities -- these are the ones like I said that repair, inspect, and maintain the cargo tanks -- pretty much the same thing. Failing to keep training records, failing to retrain hazmat employees, failing to train HM employees as required. And then, of course, there is the failing to perform the leakage test and failing to perform external visual. And there is one of two reasons they are not doing it. Number one, they just are lazy and they don't do it. Or they are not trained well enough to know what they need to do in these tests. It all falls back onto training.
As far as roadside inspections, this is not specifically cargo tank related. I can tell you, I have been doing this for a long while, and these top 5 have really not changed as far as what they are finding at roadside inspections. Shipping paper problems, placarding problems. And then of course the one not related to cargo tanks, because the cargo tank is the package, but the package not secured in vehicles. That is always something the roadside inspectors are looking at when you have van-type trailers and things like that. Those are the top five violations in those.
We are also driven by recommendations that come out of the National Transportation Safety Board. Recently a crash in Alabama -- this is what remains of a cargo tank that was filled with propane. The driver turned it over, hit a rock, punctured the shell, the head of the cargo tank. It found an ignition source and it took off about 300 yards into a wooded area. On the right-hand side, you can see what is left of the tractor. I do have to tell you, the driver survived, we don't know how, but he did. But then the NTSB got involved in taking a look at everything to do with this crash. And not only with the crash, but they also went a step further and they wanted to take a look at the cargo tank facility that was maintaining the cargo tank. And that is where the problems were found. This particular cargo tank facility, it was a mobile facility. The gentleman finally admitted that he can't go inside cargo tanks because he was too old and frankly too big to fit through the manholes, to inspect -- do the internal visuals that are required. And unfortunately, they found that this one particular mobile facility had inspected about 150 motor carriers, from the Gulf coast to the Canadian border, from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean. So, he had a very wide impact for a very small operation out of Alabama.
We had a couple recommendations that came out of that. Implement a compliance program for cargo tank facilities; that's what we have been focusing on, as I stated earlier in the presentation. And then work with the pipeline and the Hazardous Materials Safety Administration to incorporate new standards for registered inspectors into the hazmat regulations. And we are working with PHMSA on that.
To beef that up, we have also been conducting some research over the past year to two years. One of them is the rollover prevention, the human factors involved in that. We are now into phase 2, we finished phase 1. And this hopefully will be where we are able to come out with a best practices document to help people not do what you see on the screen.
Finally, we did a research project that took a look at cargo tank facilities and how they operate, and the need for updating not only the cargo tank regulations, but also the cargo tank facility regulations. There was a distinguished group, as you can see from the picture. In all seriousness, on the left-hand side, you see all of the organizations who were involved in what we called our cargo tank advisory group, the group that took a look at everything every step of the way, every two years. We have several recommendations that we will be considering as the next phase in the study, and hopefully we can get something to help the cargo tank industry better
Performance of cargo tank facilities, and the maintenance of cargo tanks, actually from cradle to grave, through a system we are naming, or calling for a while anyway, TankFax, similar to Carfax. And with that, I will turn back to Jennifer.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you, Paul. We will now move into the Q&A session, starting with the questions posted online, and then we can open up the phone lines for questions. Paul, since you just finished, I will start with a question for you. What fines can or does FMCSA levy for the violations you summarized?
Paul Bomgardner
Since these are hazardous materials violations, in the hazardous materials law, any violations of the hazmat regulations, we can fine up to $78,000 per violation per day. We follow what is in the hazmat law and in the hazmat regulations, in part 106, of 49 CFR. We treat the cargo tank facilities just a little bit differently than we do motor carriers because the cargo tank facilities actually impact multiple motor carriers when they do something wrong, so we have to take into consideration a number of factors when we are looking at the fine, and we call the inhouse system the Uniform Fine Assessment Tool. We use that to get the basic assessment, and then figure out how many violations for that. So, for these cargo tank facilities, we've had anywhere from maybe $10,000 when we close out a case, to up to $12 million.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you. Another question for you. I'm glad to hear FMCSA is working on best practices to avoid tanker rollovers. Has the truck driver shortage seemed to increase the frequency of rollovers?
Paul Bomgardner
I don't know if it is the shortage, but it's the inexperienced drivers coming into the business. So, I would imagine you could call it part of a shortage. We have a lot of more experienced drivers retiring, getting out of the business. On the other hand, what we have found, a lot of companies are using a lot of technology to really cut down on their rollovers. With that said, there are a lot of small companies out there who are just operating day to day, trying to do the business of what their business is. The larger carriers have an advantage, where they have some money and some resources that they can utilize. They are doing the inward and outward facing cameras, stability controls, the lane departure controls, all of these other things they are finding are a big help in the prevention of rollovers. There are a lot of factors to consider and as we move on with this. With this research, we are actually looking for some smaller carrier groups to talk to, to see what that tier of carrier is doing to help prevent rollovers. So, if anybody is interested in that, you have my email address. Let me know and we will absolutely get back in touch with you.
Jennifer Symoun
Another question that was part of the same question, is do you worry that trucking companies will have a hard time attracting and compensating drivers who can comply with the new standards, worsening the scarcity of drivers?
Paul Bomgardner
Do I worry about it? There are a lot of things to worry about with tank trucks and cargo tank facilities. But you know, I think we are in an age where truck driving in general is becoming an industry that is finding it harder and harder to attract new people into it, especially the younger generation. So, it is a problem that we are going to have to tackle, and the industry is going to have to tackle it.
Jennifer Symoun
Let's see here, we'll go to the top, I believe this is for David Willauer. One place where juxtaposition of hazmat shipping and populations seems particularly dicey is at/near marine ports. In designated port areas, terminals and other water and non-water -dependent uses may change over time toward handling more hazmat, as existing populations (originally waterfront workers) stay and expand. Local and state government may be helpless to regulate land use changes adequately. So, it's hard to say "just don't put people too close to hazmat freight facilities"—the responsibility goes both ways.
That's not really a question but I wanted to give you a chance to comment on that and open it up to the other speakers as well.
David Willauer
Thank you, Jennifer and Abby. The issue is a complicated one, you're right. There are situations where you can't really change the zoning in an urban area. We try to promote awareness more than anything. So that if you live in a sensitive population, for example, next to a chemical facility or a fuel facility, it's just important to know what you would need to do if something happened. So, it is really more like an education issue more than anything, because your two choices are either shelter in place or evacuate. And depending on what is released, those choices are ones that you can only make if you have done some homework. So, this is part of what we try to do, to encourage people who are responsible for sensitive populations like schools, nursing homes, or correctional facilities, to have an idea of what is going through their backyard so they can plan accordingly. So, there is one response.
Jennifer Symoun
All right, David Willauer, another question for you. Are there particular hazmat products or geographic locations where the hazmat development proximity issues are particularly acute?
David Willauer
Yes, I would say when people ask, "What is the biggest volume of hazardous materials on the roadways?", it is really refined petroleum products, gasoline or diesel. And so those are transported everywhere in the U.S., as you know, as all of you know. Although some states have more diesel than gas, we've learned, such as Nevada, because of their mining operations. But the percentages are quite high for refined petroleum, like 85%. And the percentages for the smaller concentrations of hazardous chemicals, like anhydrous ammonia or explosives, is small. These are considered low probability, high consequence events. Which means they are not likely to happen very often, but when they do, they have significant repercussions. When the volumes increase, that poses some challenges. So, the recent crude oil derailments that David Schoendorfer referenced from his experience with Norfolk Southern, was true for other Class 1 railroads transporting that crude oil from the fields to East and West Coast ports in unit trains. And ethanol is transported sometimes in large blocks of cars as well. And so, the federal government has stepped up and really done some important work in developing the new HM 252 legislation, leading to the DOT 117 rail tank car, which is a much more robust car. In a recent derailment in Iowa, there was no release of product using the new cars, so there has been progress made. I would say urban areas are the biggest challenge, because that is where most of the industries are located, where most of the populations are located. And you would be surprised to see how many sensitive populations are less than a quarter of a mile from a major railroad or a major hazmat facility. So, it is a question of awareness and education so that folks can be prepared.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you. There was a question about information about the AskRail app, Jennifer Macdonald thank you for including the website address for that where you can obtain it. David Schoendorfer, one of your slides showed the various factors NS and other freight railroads consider when routing hazmat shipments. Some of these may "contradict" one another at times; some locations may rank favorable on some factors but unfavorable on others. Are there certain risk factors that are given greater weight, or are routing decisions made on a case-by-case basis?
David Schoendorfer
Yes, all 27 factors are not rated equally. The algorithm on how everything factors in, I am not aware of the details on that, but there is a lot that goes into it. And the Rail Corridor Risk Management System, that model was developed with the railroads and alongside of the regulators. And usually it is used by all of the Class I railroads, but it shoots out relative risk scores. So, when you get the different routes at the end, you generally have to go with the lowest route, unless if they're close and you can make a choice and pick one over the other.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you. Here's a question for all speakers, particularly David Schoendorfer and Paul Bomgardner, do rail and truck carriers only use operators/drivers who are experienced in transporting non-hazmat shipments, or will "new" train operators and/or truck drivers regularly transport hazmat shipments as part of the overall product mix they transport?
David Schoendorfer
I can go. It's not like a guy shows up one day at work and the next day he is running a train. Anybody who operates trains goes through an extensive training program first just for working on the railroad. And then of course there are regulatory requirements for dealing with hazardous materials. The old HM 126F regs that came in way back in 1993. So, you have the general awareness, safety and emergency response, function requirements, and security requirements, So, all employees go through that. They have to have that training within the first 90 days of their employment. But we don't have conductors that just go out on non-haz trains and then others that go on haz trains. Everyone gets mixed into the pool once they are qualified.
Paul Bomgardner
Pretty much the same in truck transportation. Drivers mostly start up maybe in some local routes (non-hazmat), work their way up into hazmat. And then, especially our tank truck drivers, they are not going to be given the keys to a tank truck hauling hazardous materials, that is not going to be taken lightly. A lot of the carriers who belong to the National Tank Truck Carriers put it, they said, "Look, our name is on the side of the truck", and they are more concerned about the liability aspect of what they are doing than they are the regulatory side. Not saying that they don't comply with the regulations, but what they are saying is, you know, they have much more civil liability than they do regulatory liability. Once they get into tank trucks, they are pretty experienced and well-trained.
David Willauer
Jennifer, this is David Willauer, again. I just had another thought about the geographic question, which was that there are some states that do have higher concentrations of either fuel facilities or chemical facilities than others. And those would be Texas and Louisiana, and then California and New Jersey would be in the top four; then North Carolina and Illinois. Those are examples of states that have reasonably higher chemical or fuel production, and therefore tend to have more hazmat transported to those states.
Jennifer Symoun
Thank you, all right, let's see, I don't see any additional questions typed in, but we have a few minutes left, let's see if anybody wants to ask a question over the phone. To ask a question, press star 5. I don't see any questions over the phone either, and I don't see any other questions coming in, so I think we will go ahead and close out for today. Thank you all for attending today's seminar. The recorded version of this event will be available within the next few weeks on the Talking Freight website. Registration is not yet available for the December webinar but once it is information will be sent through the Freight Planning LISTSERV. The Freight Planning LISTSERV is the primary means of sharing information about upcoming seminars. I encourage you to join the LISTSERV if you have not already done so. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your day.
