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[CNJRoss]

onearth.org, 4/24:

Don't Ask, Don't Tell
Oregon officials are doing whatever they can to keep the details of crude-by-rail shipments secret from the public—and that includes not asking railroads about them.

[i] UPDATE: Score one for public shaming! Shortly after our story was published, the Oregonian reported that state officials have backed down on their plan to limit disclosure of oil train shipments.

Rail cars are carrying a lot more crude through Oregon these days thanks to the U.S. fracking boom—250 percent more last year than the year before. The intrepid reporters at the Oregonian newspaper wanted to know if that increase in rail traffic poses a risk. After all, at least one rail car on average slips off the tracks in this country every day, and an oil train derailment in Canada last year killed 47 people and incinerated the center of a small town (see “An Accident Waiting to Happen”).

So the reporters asked the state transportation department for reports detailing crude oil shipments through Oregon, including their location and volume. The reports are required annually by state law and must be shared with first responders, so that local officials can prepare for hazardous materials spills.

Instead of turning over the 2013 reports, as ordered by the state’s Department of Justice, transportation officials decided to simply stop asking for them, in order to protect the railroad’s secrets. . . .

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[CNJRoss]

The Oregonian, 4/23:

ODOT backs down from plan to limit disclosure of oil train shipments

The Oregon Department of Transportation reversed direction Wednesday on a plan to stop asking railroads for annual reports showing where crude oil moves in the state.

The agency had said it would no longer get the reports because The Oregonian successfully sought to have them made public.

A day after The Oregonian reported on the plan, Gov. John Kitzhaber and the agency’s director, Matt Garrett, took swift action.

In a letter to ODOT’s rail division, Garrett said ODOT should immediately tell railroad companies to submit reports for 2013, a year in which oil train shipments increased 250 percent statewide. The forms, which are the public’s only way to know how much oil moves by rail through Portland, Bend, Eugene and other cities, were due March 1.

Garrett acknowledged in an interview that ODOT needed to begin fulfilling its duty as the state’s rail safety regulator to protect Oregonians, not the companies it oversees.

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[CNJRoss]

The Oregonian, 4/23:

ODOT comes to its senses on train transparency: Editorial

The Oregon Department of Transportation isn’t known for doing things quickly, but that doesn’t mean it can’t. All it takes, it seems, is some well-timed attention focused on a terrible decision, and presto! The public appears to be back in the oil-train loop. ODOT should see that it stays there.

The bad decision, as The Oregonian's Rob Davis reported, involves mandatory annual reports in which railroads detail the movement of hazardous materials, including crude oil. The reports have been going to ODOT, which has made information available to emergency personnel who ask. Making the information available to the public upon request has been another matter. Both ODOT and the railroads considered the information protected from public scrutiny.

The public nature of the information has been established, however, thanks to a records request by The Oregonian. ODOT’s initial response? Officials decided to stop asking railroads to submit the reports. You can’t release what you don’t have, right?

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