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New York Attorney General Letitia James
New York Attorney General Letitia James
ALBANY (TNS) — State Attorney General Letitia James has joined with 13 of her counterparts in other states opposing a proposal by a Texas-based company to ship frozen ethane from Marcus Hook in southeastern Pennsylvania to the Gulf of Mexico and Canada.
The opposition to the plan by the attorneys general, which if approved could traverse part of New York, comes amid heightened concerns about rail safety in the wake of the Feb. 3 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. In that accident, a train laden with toxic vinyl chloride derailed, causing a chemical spill that had to be burned off.
The accident has created ongoing fear and worries in that eastern Ohio community and has renewed talk of rail safety.
That disaster “illustrates the inherent danger of transporting hazardous materials by rail,” according to comments from the attorneys general. New York University’s School of Law State Energy & Environmental Impact Center was also involved in the comments.
In Albany, rail safety was a major concern several years ago when activists protested train loads of crude oil coming to the Port of Albany area. Opponents of the shipments believed the trains posed a fire or explosion hazard.
Those shipments have since stopped, although ethanol trains still come into the port.
The current permit application from Gas Innovations LNG Refrigerants Inc. is to transport a less-flammable and explosive cryogenic liquefied ethane. While not as potentially explosive as crude oil or other ethane-based products, it too poses some fire or explosive risk under the right circumstances.
The proposal calls for one of the trains to possibly enter New York at a yet-undetermined spot on its way to Canada.
James and other attorneys general have registered their opposition with the federal Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which needs to give the company a special permit to move the gas.
The Houston-based company that has applied for the permit stressed that cryogenic liquefied ethane is less flammable than its cousin ethylene, which is currently shipped on rail tankers.
“There’s sort of a lack of understanding of what is on the railroads right now,” said T Madray, Gas Innovations director of LNG refrigerants.
While the frozen ethane is derived from gas fracking in Pennsylvania, Madray stressed that it is not the same as the kind of bulk liquefied natural gas, or LNG, that is shipped overseas in giant vessels.
Madray conceded that the recent Ohio derailment has put people on edge regarding chemical rail shipments.
“The East Palestine issue has certainly brought a lot of attention,” said Madray.
In fact, Madray said the permit request is more than a year old and hasn’t been acted upon.
The attorneys general filed their comments on the application earlier this month.
They contend that the plan as currently configured is vague, without details on precisely where it would enter New York’s railway grid.
“The application’s vagueness makes it impossible to determine whether already overburdened communities will be asked to bear the brunt of those safety concerns, and it renders fair and equitable treatment of those communities to an afterthought,” said Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, who with James took the lead in the comments.
“If a shipment were to move from Marcus Hooks to petrochemical or LNG liquefaction facilities in Canada, as the special permit anticipates, it would likely cross the border in New York, Michigan, or one of the New England states, following freight lines that traverse communities with environmental justice concerns along the way.”
Madray stressed that the application was preliminary and he’s not sure where they would ship the substance if they got the go-ahead.
“We didn’t specifically say that we wanted to go to New York. Our intent was to get a permit approved,” said Madray.
Cryogenic liquefied ethane has a number of uses, including as a refrigerant and in chemical production where it serves as feedstock.
It also can be used for heating and cooking.
Madray said the ability to ship it in bulk could open up new markets for the substance.
The ethane is currently shipped by truck, according to Madray and the company’s permit application.
Federal authorities concede that there is scant information on what volatile or hazardous substances are being transported on railways nationwide.
Individual municipalities may ask for data from rail carriers that go through their borders. But there is no one-stop information center, according to Warren Flatau, a spokesman for the Federal Railroad Administration.
“Neither FRA nor any government agency can provide information that lists specific rail lines that hazardous material shipments traverse, as railroads consider such information to be proprietary,” Flatau said in an email.
Railroad operators do, however, make “real time” reports on accidents to emergency responders.
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