By Glynn Wilson –
The Sierra Club filed a petition Friday with the U.S. Department of Transportation requesting an emergency order prohibiting the use of DOT-111 rail tank cars for transporting flammable Bakken and other volatile fracked crudes.
The National Transportation Safety Board has repeatedly found that DOT-111 tank cars are prone to puncture on impact, spilling oil and often triggering destructive fires and explosions.
The U.S. Department of Transportation itself has found that rail transport of Bakken crude poses an “imminent hazard” to public health and safety, z’yet it has failed to take meaningful action that requires the industry to eliminate those risks,” the filing says. “An immediate ban on the use of DOT-111 tank cars to ship Bakken crude, as the petition requests, would reduce the risk of punctures and oil spills by over 75 percent, according to rail industry estimates.”