(The following article by Amy Wold was posted on the Baton Rouge Advocate website on March 15.)
BATON ROUGE, La. — As industry prepares to install more air monitors to look for sources of ozone-causing pollutants called highly reactive hydrocarbons, the state has expanded its search for these pollutants to include railroad cars.
On Monday, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality released results of rail yard inspections in December and January within the five-parish Baton Rouge area. The area is in violation of the federal standard for 1-hour averages of ozone.
DEQ staff inspected six rail yards — operated by three rail companies — and looked at 194 rail cars. Of those, DEQ staff found that 25 of those cars — or 13 percent — were releasing vapors above levels of what’s normally in the air.
The inspections included rail yards in Baton Rouge, Port Allen, Livonia and Geismar. The five-parish Baton Rouge area includes East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Livingston, Ascension and Iberville parishes.
The inspectors primarily looked at rail cars that contained highly reactive hydrocarbons and found leaks involving propylene, butane, butadiene, toluene, isoprene and others. Even small amounts of these compounds can create large levels of ozone during the summer.
During the inspections, DEQ staff didn’t measure the volume of vapors being released, just the concentration. Some of these concentrations — basically how much of the chemical is in the air — were large. One of the largest leaks involved butadiene at a concentration of 20,000 parts per million.
“It pretty much indicated that we have to consider rail as a possible source (of highly reactive hydrocarbons) as well,” DEQ Secretary Mike McDaniel said.
Follow-up inspections at the rail yards will be held this summer when hotter temperatures could likely produce more detectable leaks, McDaniel said.
Most of the problems seemed to involve tank cars that weren’t sealed as well as they should have been after they were unloaded, McDaniel said.
He explained that even after a tank is emptied, some of the material at the bottom of the car continues to form vapors that can escape.
“Clearly the release of the highly reactive hydrocarbons from these cars, sitting basically in the middle of the nonattainment area, needs to be addressed,” McDaniel said.
Because DEQ doesn’t have the authority to regulate rail or barge traffic, McDaniel said, the department’s staff will be talking with company representatives about possible voluntary solutions.
“The railroad companies will tell you real quick to talk with the shipping company,” said Jeffrey Meyers, environmental manager with the surveillance division at DEQ. “Shippers and the clients are going to be sources of solving the problem.”
A statement from Doniele Kane, director of corporate communications and community affairs with Kansas City Southern, agreed that the shipper is ultimately responsible for any release.
However, the statement continues, Kansas City Southern responds to emergencies and fixes releases when they are found.
Meyers said the railroad companies provide the means and the engine to move the material from one place to another. It’s the loading and unloading process that needs to be tightened up, he said.
McDaniel agreed.
“It’s a solvable problem. It’s just a matter of better awareness,” McDaniel said. “I think even this first exercise alerted some of the companies to take a closer look.”
Looking at rail cars, barges and pipelines is the latest step in DEQ’s search for sources of highly reactive hydrocarbons.
Air monitoring during the past two summers has shown that the continuing violations are primarily the result of fast-forming ozone spikes that seem to match with higher than normal levels of highly reactive hydrocarbons in the air.
Although these levels are below what would be allowed in most industrial permits, DEQ administration has made finding and tightening these releases a priority.
A series of DEQ administrative orders in the past two years has resulted in more reporting and monitoring from industrial sources, but McDaniel said staff has always thought other sources were being missed.
This summer, DEQ will get another tool to find these releases. McDaniel said he recently found out that the department will be receiving a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use an infrared monitoring device that can detect hydrocarbon leaks in pipelines, barges, tank farms or from other sources. The device can be used in a helicopter or on the ground.
The infrared monitoring can’t tell what or how much is being released, but it can narrow the search for DEQ staff, he said.