http://www.timesunion.com/business/article/State-moves-to-evict-oil-tankers-from-Adirondack-12442219.php
State moves to evict oil tankers from Adirondack storage
Updated 5:13 pm, Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Albany
New York is asking the federal government to order removal of old railroad oil tankers now being stored on tracks in the Adirondacks, as well as to evict the owner of the tracks.
On Tuesday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the state Department of Environmental Conservation is asking the Federal Surface Transportation Board to rule that Chicago-based Iowa Pacific Holdings, which owns the Saratoga & North Creek Railway, has legally abandoned the line for the allowed purpose of freight hauling.
Such a ruling could allow the state to retake possession of the 30-mile line, which runs from Tahawus in the Adirondacks High Peaks to North Creek in Warren County, where rail cars could be stored.
This fall, the company started accepting obsolete DOT-111 oil tanker cars for storage as part of plans to lease enough track space to store 2,000 cars or more. That many cars could stretch for 20 miles if stored end-to-end.
"We will not stand by and allow it to be used as a commercial dumping ground," said Gov. Cuomo. "New York is prepared to exhaust all legal options to end this practice once and for all, and to help ensure the natural resources of the North Country are protected from blight and from harm."
Cuomo also said the state has written to billionaire investor Warren Buffet, whose sprawling Berkshire Hathaway investment company owns some of the cars, urging that they be removed from the line.
Ellis had no comment. DEC General Counsel Robert Berkman wrote to Ellis that the state, which during 2010 to 2012 supported the company's plans to haul rock from the former Tahawus mine, never "intended or ... agreed" that Iowa Pacific could use the tracks as a "commercial disposal site."
DEC's petition to the federal board called Ellis' plan a "20-mile long visual blight and environmental and ecological hazard in the heart of New York's most valued parkland."
After announcing plans this fall to accept the tankers, Ellis told officials in Warren and Essex counties, as well as the state, which all oppose such storage, that his company needs rental payments for the tanker cars in order to maintain the rail line. He also has said he might not have to accept the tankers if public funds could be found to cover such expenses.
Environmental groups in the Adirondacks also want the tankers removed and applauded the state's action.
"We congratulate the Governor and the DEC on making this application to stop the trashing of the Adirondacks," said Peter Bauer, executive director of Protect the Adirondacks. If federal officials grant the state's request, "it will open the door for long-term discussion on the ultimate use for this entire line," he said.
John Sheehan, a spokesman for the Adirondack Council, said the state is on "firm legal footing" in its challenge.
The tankers already stored are DOT-111 models, which have been pulled almost entirely from the national rail fleet that hauls crude oil because of safety concerns and stricter federal laws. That is leaving owners of the tankers looking for storage space.
The nationwide demise of the DOT-111, a workhorse for decades, has been driven by a glut of oil that has reduced overall shipments of more expensive Bakken fields crude from North Dakota, and new federal safety laws adopted in late 2015 that require newer tanker designs for shipment of crude oil, ethanol and other explosive liquids.
Shaped like a long black cylinder and able to carry 30,000 gallons or more of crude oil, the DOT-111 became infamous in the summer of 2013 when several of the tankers derailed and exploded in the small Canadian city of Lac-Megantic in Quebec, causing a firestorm that killed 47 people.
That year, the model made up more than half of the U.S. rail fleet hauling crude oil, according to figures from the Association of American Railroads. A spate of other derailments and explosions involving DOT-111s followed the Lac-Megantic disaster, causing critics to call out the relative fragility of the DOT-111.
Its presence in the crude fleet began to decline, falling to 32 percent in 2014. By the time Congress passed new laws in 2015 requiring the DOT-111 to be phased out for crude oil shipments by January 2018, the older tankers accounted for just 15 percent of the fleet hauling crude. That fell to 4 percent in 2016, according to the Association of American Railroads.
