King County Executive Dow Constantine
Aug. 6, 2014
Executive Conference Room

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The surge in crude oil coming into Washington state on trains is staggering – from nearly zero in 2011 to tens of millions of gallons today. That oil is arriving on corridors that cross King County from the north to the south; and from the east to the west.

These rail lines travel through – and under – major population centers. Alongside CenturyLink and Safeco Fields, and underneath downtown Seattle. Under the Magnolia Bridge, as we saw just a few weeks ago. These rail lines are frequently blocked by landslides.

At present, up to 13 times a week, these trains carry upwards of one-million gallons of a volatile substance through our communities. Bakken oil from North Dakota is particularly flammable.

This is a new and significant risk to our people, our economy, and our environment. Oil train derailments, spills, and fires have already resulted in evacuations, devastating pollution, and losses of life across the United States and Canada. 

In Alabama, 30,000 barrels of crude oil spilled into a marshland. In downtown Lynchburg, Virg., three train cars tumbled into the James River, one catching fire. In rural Alberta, a pair of tanker explosions forced two waves of evacuations in the middle of the night. And in a town in Quebec, a runaway oil train triggered explosions that killed 47 people and leveled half its downtown. 

We must be prepared here, in King County, for the immediate risk of highly flammable crude oil in aging oil tank cars. That’s why I had our Office of Emergency Management conduct the region’s first-ever tabletop exercise specifically designed for oil train disasters.

I spent some time at the exercise to personally thank our local responders and emergency managers from local, state, and federal agencies. To check their readiness and communications, they practiced on paper this scenario: an oil train derailed and exploded near I-5 and Martin Luther King Way, near Boeing Field, in the middle of the day. Every disaster scenario generates a series of cascading actions: 

If an oil tanker exploded, the first fire trucks on the scene would have to assess the situation: Will their flame-retardant foam be enough to extinguish the flames? Is the fire too hot to approach? Do they have to pull back and let the oil burn itself out, as happened in Alberta?

If the oil had to burn, it would burn for several hours. And that would present another set of questions:

In public health: would the toxic cloud from burning oil float over downtown Seattle or some other nearby community? Are there nearby homes, restaurants, schools, or senior centers that need to be evacuated

In transportation: if people are evacuated, do we have enough buses and bus drivers to help get people out? Can we get more buses and drivers from Sound Transit, from school districts, or other counties? Are access roads open?

In communications: how do we get the evacuation order out to the public, not just through traditional media like you folks, but through social media, or even knocking on doors.

These are the kinds of things that were drilled yesterday. Afterwards, I think it’s fair to say our first responders saw that an oil tanker fire would not be just another big fire – that it would require a massive response.


So what's the bottom line? Are we ready? 

As a result of this exercise, our emergency managers say we’re as ready as any county in the nation can be for the threat of an oil tanker explosion and fire. But it shouldn’t have to come to that. As an elected leader, my job is to try to protect the public from these kinds of risks in the first place. 

That’s why last month I brought together more than 50 elected leaders from across the Northwest and British Columbia to form what will henceforth be known as the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance.

Our shared mission is to better understand the potential safety and economic impacts from coal and oil trains, and to speak with a unified voice. We will be more successful at addressing these issues, and better at preventing them, if we work together as a region.

If all the newly proposed oil-by-rail projects across Washington are built, nearly as much crude oil would be transported through Washington and Oregon as there would be through the proposed Keystone pipeline. This increase in oil trains will impact our local economy, by crowding out rail capacity for moving Washington-grown crops and Washington-built goods to lucrative markets overseas.

Wheat farmers in our state are already having a harder time transporting their crop, which impacts both our economy and food supply. Increased rail traffic will mean longer waits for commuters at hundreds of crossings.

And that's not to mention the burning of crude oil has on our environment and on climate change, which threatens our planet. The transition to cleaner, safer energy is happening – and I’m committed to making King County a leader in that transition.