Electric Co-op Today

Representatives of co-ops and other electric utilities urged federal regulators July 29 to block a freight railroad’s bid to hold them responsible for the spread of coal dust on track beds.

Francis Mulvey

During an often contentious, five-and-a-half hour hearing, shippers told the Surface Transportation Board that BNSF Railway Co. wants a go-ahead for the plan so it can shift millions of dollars in maintenance costs from its budget to its rail customers.

“BNSF thought it would get a big bang for our buck,” said Eric Von Salzen, a Washington lawyer representing Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp., Little Rock, which initiated the board proceeding with a complaint against BNSF.

Shippers estimate that the railroad’s proposed tariff, which would apply to cars hauling coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, could cost them $100 million and drive up the price of electricity for ratepayers.

The tariff will take effect Oct. 1 without the board’s intervention.

“You should be very concerned here that the people who are trying to benefit here are not the people who will bear the costs,” said Michael E. McBride, a Washington lawyer who represented NRECA, the American Public Power Association and the Edison Electric Institute.

BNSF wants a penalty estimated at $1 per ton on all of a shipper’s tonnage, even if only a single train violates its proposed coal emission limits. It also is seeking the right to refuse service to shippers whose coal trains fail to meet the rules.

The company said its plans call for the use of electronic dust monitors placed about 60 feet from tracks. Other parts of the program could include treatment of loads with a sticky substance called a surfactant to prevent coal particles from escaping from rail cars.

Gregory C. Fox, vice president of transportation for BNSF, said the railroad believes as much as 2,000 tons of coal residue are emitted daily along tracks in the Powder River Basin. That contaminates ballast, which forms the basis for track beds, and factored in back-to-back derailments in May 2005, he said.

“In my philosophy, doing nothing is not acceptable … There is no other line of business where we allow the product we’re transporting to fall off the car.”

But under questioning from Francis Mulvey, the board vice chairman, Fox could not say whether excessive coal dust caused those derailments, which crippled regional rail traffic for weeks. No derailments have occured since 2005, despite the reported increase in coal dust, Mulvey noted.

Tags: Coal, Railroad Reform, Surface Transportation Board