Friday, October 25, 2024

The "Tanker Mafia"? Yes, we have our own version in the USA...

 

I recently came across an article titled "Tanker mafia causing chaos in South Africa".  Here's an excerpt.


South Africa’s water infrastructure has been steadily deteriorating over the past decade as municipalities have neglected maintenance and have not expanded their supply systems to cope with a growing population. 

This has resulted in a situation where the country has enough water but cannot get it to the end user, as much of it is lost to leakages on the way. 

. . .

While this is mainly due to the lack of maintenance, other factors contribute to this problem. 

Chief among these is vandalism and theft of infrastructure. In particular, electrical cables and equipment are often stolen, resulting in pumping stations being unable to pump water to the end user. 

These are deliberate acts to disrupt the supply of water and increase the need for water tankers in affected areas. 

. . .

“There is a thriving tanker mafia ... that actively sabotages the water infrastructure. They do this to continue and prolong their contracts with the municipalities to provide water tankers across communities that need water,” Turton said.

He added that these tanker suppliers do not source their water from safe, potable sources. Instead, they take unsafe water from dams or rivers as they are paid per tanker.


There's more at the link.

It occurs to me that we have an active "tanker mafia" in the USA as well.  Ours is involved, not with water, but with oil.  You see, railways such as BNSF (controlled by Warren Buffet's investment firm) make billions of dollars by transporting crude oil from fields in Canada and the USA to refineries.  They actively fight any proposal to build pipelines to convey that oil more cheaply and/or efficiently, to the extent of funding lobbyists to block legislation, and paying for activists (e.g. local tribes that refuse to allow pipelines to cross their land) to come together and work to stop such proposals.  There have been unconfirmed rumors that subsidies have even been paid to environmental activists who actively sabotage (i.e. commit crimes against) such construction efforts.  The railway companies are trying to protect their profits.  They don't really give a damn about the needs of the country or its residents.

I'm reminded of that every time I see a train thundering through our town, with dozens of black-painted oil tankers rattling and rocking as they bump their way over our level crossings.  I note, too, that we never know what's in all those tankers.  It's not just fuel - some cargoes can be far more dangerous.  Sometimes, when derailments or collisions have occurred, locals have found that out the hard way (most recently in East Palestine, Ohio, last year, resulting in mass evacuations and massive environmental damage).  Pipelines could eliminate or greatly reduce the tanker transport of such substances . . . but that would cut into the profits of the railroad companies, so they continue their opposition.

It's all about the money, as always.  People and society are secondary, and can be ignored.



Peter


7 comments:

  1. In the United States, 70% of crude oil and petroleum products are shipped by pipeline. (23% are by ship, 4% by truck, and 3% by rail) Source API As I recall shipping in a pipe line adds $0.01 cost to the product, shipping by truck added the same amount per gallon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The coming crash will be a great equalizer.

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  3. Anything hazardous will be placarded.

    https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/sites/fmcsa.dot.gov/files/2021-06/usdot-chart-16-10-24-2017.pdf

    See the US DOT Emergency Response Guidebook

    https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/training/hazmat/erg/emergency-response-guidebook-erg

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  4. Incident rates for pipelines are a vanishingly small percentage of all transport categories. Most incidents are caused when a contractor doesn't call 811 beforehand and follow the directions of the facility owner. My company (interstate natural gas) will have an employee onsite at no charge during any work below grade to protect the workers and our pipe. Let us do our job and the incident rate will go even lower.

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  5. I'm old enough to remember the 1978 propane-car explosion in Waverly, TN. My grandmother drove us down from Henry County to look at the damage. Made an impression on my 13-year-old mind.
    --Tennessee Budd

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  6. A few years back the feds mandated double wall oil tanker cars for trains to reduce the risk in a crash. That adds significant cost to the cost of a rail car. Just days before the law was announced vy the EPA one company ordered thousands of single wall cars. The law had a provision to keep using single wall cars that were already in service or ordered prior to EPA announcement. That huge order was x number per year for 20 years. Dont tell me someone wasn't tipped off.

    Exile1981

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    Replies
    1. Could be, or could be someone was diligently watching Federal Register notices (or hiring a service to do it) and others weren't.

      There is very little the federal government does that it doesn't provide notice of, IF you know where to look and do it regularly.
      Jonathan

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