Speaker 3: The Report of the Planning, Land Use and Sustainability Committee Agenda Item two Resolution 31604 relating to the transport of crude oil by rail through the city of Seattle, the committee recommends a resolution be adopted as amended.
Speaker 0: Councilmember O'Brien.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. So I'm just going to take a second to walk through what is in this resolution and acknowledge some of the comments we've heard here today and start off by saying that we are at about a one year anniversary of the oil train derailment under the Magnolia Bridge last July. And about the two year anniversary of the tragedy that happened in Canada where the runaway oil trained vaporized the town and killed over 40 people. The resolution before us today is the result of a lot of ongoing work that continues to be ongoing and is merely a point in time where we're coming back to the public and saying, here is where we are at the moment and explicitly stating what our next steps are. I want to be clear that nothing in this resolution prevents us from continuing the ongoing work. And in fact, if you read the resolution, I, I hope you see a sense of frustration that as a city who's directly impacted by these dangerous trains coming through our city, how little control we have in the law to affect this. But let me walk through the nine different sections of this resolution really quickly. The first thing we do in section one is to call for a greater level of transparency. That's asking the railroad to share information about when and where those trains are going, what is actually in them, and beyond that, sharing what kind of insurance they have in place and how their business operations are. So we understand what we're really exposed to. The second the second section calls on specific restrictions to when and where they go. We asked Burlington Northern to voluntarily not bring those by our stadiums when the stadiums are full. A tragedy that were to happen next to a full stadium would really be unimaginable. The third section calls on the state. The state recently passed some legislation. One of the pieces of that was the State Exam Utility and Transportation Commission examining the safety of at grade railroad crossings in a city like Seattle. So Section three is calling on the state to do that work in a timely manner. So we understand that all those safety crossings, all those aggregate crossings are, in fact safe. Sections four and five both relate to federal legislation. Four states are support for the Crude by Rail Safety Act, and Section five states are support for the Federal Hazardous Material Rail Transportation Safety Act. Section six highlights an area. Yes, Section six calls on the state and county to be very thoughtful in their permitting process they're going through. There would potentially add a rail terminus for oil trains and, of course, refineries. The impacts of such an investment would have significant impact not just on Seattle by inducing a lot more rail traffic, oil, rail traffic through our city. But communities up and down the line. Section seven We ask the federal government to require insurance levels on the railroad companies that they have enough insurance for a worst case scenario action accident. We've seen some scenarios that. People have walked through and the cost to communities is in the billions of dollars. And we don't believe the railroad companies have adequate insurance to cover that impact. We also call on the federal government in Section eight to continue their ban on export of crude oil. And finally, in Section nine, we call on Berkshire Hathaway, the parent company of BNSF. And Warren Buffett Buffett specifically to voluntarily do what's right and come forward. And let's change a situation where they are making all the profit and our communities are bearing all the risk. They have the capacity to pay to mitigate that. And we ask them to do that in the absence of our ability to require that, we're asking them to do that voluntarily. I appreciate the email you sent in your comment today. I sense some frustration with you and I share that I want to commit to you that that this is not was saying we are done with this work. We will continue to do the work in the research and find ways that we can impact that and influence the other decision makers who probably have more direct power over this. But this is something that is of critical importance to the people. Stefan, I want to thank you for coming to it. I didn't realize that there was a board member of Berkshire Hathaway in our community, and I would like to join with you in reaching out to that board member to see if we can have some more direct influence. Thank you.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Councilmember Rasmussen.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Thank you for explaining the resolution. The question that I have for you, Councilmember O'Brien, or perhaps Councilmember Harrell, since you're responsible, I think primarily in your committee for emergency planning is the resolution specifically refers to the importance of or of the need for evacuation with one half to a mile from an incident where certain gases are released. So has your committee been briefed, perhaps Councilmember O'Brien or Harrell, on the evacuation plans for those areas that weren't mentioned in this resolution? For example, the trains go through Inter Bay, they pass between Queen out of Magnolia, as well as the shelter filled neighborhood all the way through to the north part of the city. So do we know what evacuation plans that exist now by the city for an incident like this for those areas? Because this resolution primarily focuses, it seems to me, on the area south of Myrtle Edwards, but we have tens of thousands of people living and working in inner bay and on the way north through to the edge of the city, to the north part of the city. Thank you for raising that, Councilman Rasmussen, the the framework in which the city has been looking at this and we've been working closely with the mayor's office and also the fire department. Emergency Management is really breaking it into kind of three different segments. The tunnel through downtown Seattle has a unique set of challenges. The train passes through Sodo and inner bay in industrial areas, which has a separate, unique set of challenges. And then it also runs along the waterfront. Myrtle Edwards is one area, but once it crosses the the Ballard, the drawbridge near the locks, some real challenges where there's a high bluff and no access from land. And the only way to access a disaster would be by water, which is very challenging. I have not been briefed explicitly on different emergency evacuation strategies, but at a high level we've had conversations and had discussions with the fire department and the emergency management folks. My understanding is that they have evacuation procedures in place generally for areas throughout the city and that if there was an evacuation necessary because of an oil train derailment or explosion, that they would deploy those evacuation policies already in place.
Speaker 7: I would simply add that we are actually scheduling in light of the New Yorker article that we've referred to several times in recent weeks. We're in the process of scheduling an emergency preparedness meeting to go over. Both the liquefaction issues in the city has to do with our bridge work as well and our evacuation plans. We do have the plans in place, but we're going to have a public hearing, no doubt within 4 to 6 weeks for scheduling now.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilman, for.
Speaker 5: Clarification. Well, thank you both for your concern about this. Evacuation plans would require monumental logistics, with many, many busses moving people very quickly out of a dangerous area. So I think that we need to know why we have a general impression that there are evacuation plans scheduled for these rallies, including through the entire Bay Area. I think we need to know exactly what those plans are, how many busses are available, where they get them from, how would people be notified? You don't have a lot of time or when there is a imminent possibility of an explosion or a gas leak. So who? Take the lead on something like that.
Speaker 0: I think Councilmember Harrell's committee emergency management team is coming to brief grace and I think in 4 to 6 weeks, I believe. Yeah. So we'll make sure that's covered. Councilmember Bagshaw.
Speaker 4: You.
Speaker 6: One of the things I mentioned this morning was for us to get in this system has an automated identification system like what we have with vessels coming through. I would like us to know what trains are coming through, but not just for the emergency piece, which I think is critical, but also for those of us who are trying to get around the city to know when is a train coming so we can make some decisions and I'll be working with our staff on this. I know people have said that the trains don't want to have those automatic identification systems for whatever reasons, but the fact that we've got them on vessels strikes me that we could very easily have them on a land based train system, so I'll be working on that. Hopefully I can reach out and work with you on that, Mike.
Speaker 0: Thank you. Any other comments or questions, Councilmember Okamoto?
Speaker 7: Just want to express my appreciation to Councilmember O'Brien and others who worked so hard to put this together. It is frustrating that that other systems aren't as responsive to the safety needs as we are about our residents here. I would just note that the teachers of my lives would not let me go without noting that there is a typo in the whereas section two there's a there's two commas. One should be struck.
Speaker 0: We'll take that as a friendly administrative cleanup, which doesn't require a formal motion. Any other comments? You want to close, Councilmember O'Brien?
Speaker 5: Yeah. I want to thank the mayor's office for ongoing work on this. The law department has been very engaged in this. Jasmine Ramada in my office has been very engaged in this. And we will continue to be diligent. Moving forward, the reality is that there have been five explosions of oil trains in the North America this year alone. The federal government has estimated that there will be ten derailments a year of oil trains as this capacity goes away. I'm apparently on track for that, unfortunately. I just hope that we can get the safety measures in place before another tragedy occurs in a dense area like Seattle.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Councilmember O'Brien, and thank you for your leadership on this. We'll now vote on Resolution 3160 for all of those in favor of adopting the resolution vote. I oppose vote no. The resolution is unanimously adopted and the chair will sign it. Please read item three.
A RESOLUTION relating to the transport of crude oil by rail through the City of Seattle.