PHMSA Proposes New Rule to Govern Wetlines on Tankers
This story appears in the Jan. 31 print edition of Transport Topics.
Federal regulators last week proposed a rule to require tank truck carriers who haul flammable liquids to either retrofit their existing tankers to protect their wetlines or install a system to purge product from those lines.
The proposed regulation, announced by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration on Jan. 27, gives tank truck operators 12 years after publication of the final rule to make the changes on existing tanks that carry flammable liquids.
Any trailer manufactured two years after the effective date of the regulation would have to be equipped with redesigned lines, an accident damage protection similar to a rear bumper or a system that would purge wetlines of all but one liter of product in each line, according to the proposal.
The agency acted despite strong protests from the trucking industry, which generally disputes the need for such protections.
PHMSA estimates that there are about 27,000 cargo tanks that would be affected by the new rule. The agency is seeking comments on proposal through March 28.
“Because the external piping used to load and unload cargo tanks in flammable liquid fuel service is located on the underside of a cargo tanks, without protection, the piping remains exposed to a collision,” the proposal said.
But John Conley, president of National Tank Truck Carriers, said, “This is not being done for any safety issue. The number of people who have been injured or killed in wetlines incidents would not register on the most sophisticated computer in the world.”
“What they came up with just doesn’t make safety sense and it doesn’t make economic sense,” Conley added.
Conley said the agency was also was bowing to pressure from Congress and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Some members of Congress have accused the agency of being “cozy” with those businesses it regulates, and NTSB first recommended that PHMSA prohibit the carrying of hazardous materials in external piping of cargo tanks in 1998 after a fatal wetlines mishap in Yonkers, N.Y.
In a letter last week to NTTC’s membership, Conley called on truckers to “fight this new effort with as much intensity as we can muster.”
“We will work at the agency level and also will try to involve friendly members of Congress on our behalf,” Conley wrote. “We well may end up at the courthouse before this is over.”
Richard Moskowitz, vice president and regulatory affairs counsel for American Trucking Associations, said, “This regulation is a waste of government and industry resources.”
Moskowitz said ATA is opposing the rule and plans to formally ask the agency to withdraw it.
Bill Usher, president of Usher Transport, Louisville, Ky., estimates it would cost $600,000 to retrofit more than 250 of his company’s tank trailers.
“And it’s unnecessary,” Usher said. “It will do more harm than good. Anytime you send somebody down into a hazmat tank to do a retrofit it’s a dangerous proposition. There’s several people killed every year going down into these things.”
PHMSA withdrew a similar wetlines proposal in 2006 after an analysis concluded that the cost of installing retrofits was not justified for safety reasons.
Moskowitz said that this time around, the agency’s analysis of its new rule is flawed.
“PHMSA has blown the cost-benefit analysis,” Moskowitz told TT. “They have underestimated the cost associated with complying with the proposal, and they have grossly overestimated the benefits.”
A 2009 agency review of 6,800 commercial vehicle accidents from 1999-2009 documented a total of 172 accidents in which wetlines were either damaged or ruptured, the agency said. Of that total, 18 of those incidents involved fires, resulting in five fatalities, four injuries, and millions of dollars in property damage.
Moskowitz said the new proposal included a “sensitivity analysis” that suggested that increasing gas prices could lead to carpooling and if one of those carpools is involved in a wetlines incident that the historical injuries and fatalities from unprotected wetlines would increase.
“It is only with outrageously unscientific conjecture and assumptions that PHMSA can assert that this rule would pass a cost-benefit analysis,” Moskowitz said.
PHMSA said it was not proposing a specific method reducing risk, but identified several possible technologies that would allow carriers to comply with the new rule.
For example, it said an operator may elect to do engineering redesigns to shorten loading lines or relocate the lines in a manner that would allow the chassis to provide protection from damage, or install some sort of bottom damage protection on each tank.
But the agency said the lowest-cost system currently available is a manual purging system that could be installed without welding at a cost of roughly $2,600 per tank. NTTC has estimated that the cost of purging equipment on a new trailer would be $4,000 to $5,000, and possibly more for a retrofit.
Because they have higher flashpoints, the rule would not apply to the transport of combustible liquids. Straight trucks also would be exempt.
