UPDATE: (Feb 2nd - 8:00pm) After KXAN first reported on delays facing the City of Austin in implementing an alternate route for hazardous cargo, a newly-released memo shows the Transportation Department wants to take the time it needs to conduct a flow study concluding 'there is no penalty to a municipality for adopting a thoughtful, deliberate and methodical approach for moving toward hazardous materials routing designations.'
Also, the memo suggests while public money will need to come from the coming year's budget for a state-required flow study, there is 'not much' hazardous cargo that comes through Austin. That being the case, the memo recommends US 183 as an option for the alternate route, suggesting SH-130 is too far east.
AUSTIN (KXAN) – Congestion-weary commuters familiar with sharing Interstate 35 with big rigs hauling hazardous materials will have to wait another year before political leaders work out a plan to reroute the big rigs to an alternate route, a KXAN Investigation reveals. And those at the City have been aware of the public health risk from a major spill involving toxic cargo on Austin’s major thoroughfares since mid-2013. That’s according to a City memo to Mayor and Council from the head of Austin’s Transportation Department who recommended the issue needed quick action.
“Our recommendation is to launch the formal process to establish hazardous materials routes in FY14 including a routing analysis and public outreach per the State and Federal defined process,” concluded Transportation Director Robert Spillar in late November 2013. The report was the result of a council resolution asking for staff to assess the public safety risk hazardous materials carriers traveling through the City posed.
Since that time, Austin Transportation Department staff members have been quietly working on completing a state-mandated study to measure the flow of commodities traveling by truck through Austin. Assistant Director Gordon Derr tells KXAN the project was further delayed last summer after his staff learned the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) at Texas A&M University, which typically provides teams to conduct commodity flow studies is unavailable this year. That has forced the City into the more pricey conundrum of a procurement process to hire an outside consultant.
Original estimates put the cost around $150,000 under TTI’s program. It’s now estimated the City will have to spend between $200,000 and one million dollars depending on the study's scope.
Since our highways cross many boundaries, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, or CAMPO, was willing to be involved in the process. In 2013, its Unified Planning Work Program included a task stating that CAMPO will 'participate in coordination of hazardous material cargo route planning as needed.'
However, that statement expired in September 2013 and the route planning idea was not carried forward in 2014 or 2015 plans. In short, the city is on its own.
Asst. Director Derr concedes the delay – now more than 18 months since the initial council resolution calling for the study in June 2013 -- amounts to a gamble with public safety. He is appealing for outside funding help.
“The State (TxDOT) leaves it to the City. One might take the view someone on a bigger scale should be looking at this holistically for the whole state and… funding the studies so they can be done in a timely fashion,” Derr told KXAN.
The timetable for securing that funding is dependent on the new city council, provided members and the city manager decide a hazardous materials roads study is a priority for Austin next budget season. That’s an unknown until the coming spring when the transportation department releases its annual list of ‘critical needs.’ As of 2010, city staff considered it a ‘medium priority’ according to City records – a process that could wait. While there is mention of working with other jurisdictions on regional issues, the FY 2013-14 budget showed the top Transportation Department expenditures:
Traffic Management (incl. road signs and markings) 38.1% of budget
Parking (incl. the managed parking system downtown) 22.1% of budget
The pressure to complete the hazardous materials t study is not merely an item on a wish list. It is centered on the City’s burgeoning population. Under federal requirements, Texas State Code mandates any urban center with a population in excess of 850,000 develop a so-called Non-Radioactive Hazardous Materials (NRHM) route. Today, more than 890,000 people live in the City itself, nearly two million in the metro area. Examples of established routes abound in established larger centers like Houston, Dallas and San Antonio as well as two dozen smaller cities like Temple, which uses a spur route.
Typically a ring road is recommended for use by vehicles carrying hazardous materials through that area. Posted signage tells motorists they’re traveling hazardous materials route while online listings are posted to help trucking and hauling companies plan their routes. Austin hit that population benchmark in early 2013.
Texas laws unenforced
But as the Texas Administrative Code is now written, KXAN found there is no penalty or help for growing cities which do not comply and create an alternative route for trucks carrying hazardous materials. Right now, the Code only shows large Texas cities have 18 months from giving notice of the start of the traffic study to get a route in place. KXAN reached out to various state lawmakers who are knowledgeable about Transportation and Homeland Security issues to see if they are open to amending the code to include a timeline for cities to complete their hazardous Materials commodity flow studies. Alternatively, we’re asking if there is political will to offer subsidies to cities like Austin.
So far, KXAN has heard back from Sen Kirk Watson, (D) Austin who emailed:
'I understand that the City of Austin is aware of its responsibility to work with TxDOT to develop a hazardous materials route and that the city began this work in 2014. The city has assured me that they will continue this work, which likely will be time-consuming as the city is required to host at least two public meetings and to coordinate with TxDOT and jurisdictions within a 25-mile radius of the proposed route. Given the city's commitment and the complicated nature of this process, I do not plan to file any legislation on this topic at this time. However, I will continue to monitor the situation to ensure that the city meets its responsibility in a timely fashion.'
The latest HazMat traffic study in Austin is 15 years-old
In 1999, when the city's population was 26 percent smaller than it is today and most roads less congested, the Austin Fire Department conducted what was considered a preliminary survey of dangerous cargo traveling city and interstate routes. It found most of the hazardous material commodities at that time included gasoline or other commercial fuels carried to local markets by tanker trucks. The subsequent AFD report released in 2000 found:
Petroleum/flammable gasses: the main hazardous materials flowing through Austin
10: the estimated no. of hours to clean up a wreck on IH-35 involving that kind of cargo
17,000: total vehicle delay hours from such a wreck (total estimated hours of motorists caught in the back-ups)
It concluded: ‘This study was intended only as a preliminary assessment. Additional research is needed before addressing the long-term recommendations. Additional research to allow designation as hazmat route is required in order to obtain TxDOT approval. Items such as comparing potential routes to determine if there are physical constraints or legal constraints. Comparing routes to see if diversion of traffic exceeds 25 miles or if an increase in risk to population occurs must be determined before dedication of a formal hazmat route can be considered.’
In Central Texas, the most up-to-date highway commodity flow data is from neighboring Williamson County – the next section of IH-35 immediately to the north of Texas’ capital city. But that information compiled just last year is not considered public because of federal Homeland Security laws forbidding journalists or other taxpayers from looking at findings that show: the volume of commercial vehicles on that specific stretch of highway, their cargo, origins and destinations. KXAN is waiting on a ruling on a Request for Records for the release of that 2013 study with the Texas Office of Attorney General.
The Texas Transportation Institute oversaw Williamson County’s flow study which cost about $68,000. Most of the cost was covered by matching grants, according to records. The process was decidedly low tech and involved volunteers sitting at the side of the highway, checking off the type and size of cargo of commercial vehicles passing through. Even though most vehicles carrying hazardous materials are required to carry placards indicating the risk their cargo poses (and in the event of a crash to show first responders the kind of material being transported), it’s all but impossible to know exactly what some tractor trailer rigs or tankers are actually hauling.
Travis County Emergency Operations Manager Pete Baldwin tells KXAN: “In those box trucks, you don’t know if they’re hauling ‘dillo dirt’ or ammonium nitrate… But there's a lot of box (truck) cargo that may be making stops at three or four different places that may have fertilizer in one section, may have some kind of oil for vehicles in another - you just don't know when they're going down the road. And then again they may be full of pillows or mattresses,” Baldwin said.
How much dangerous cargo is traveling through Austin?
It’s estimated as many as 40 percent of the transport trucks moving through Central Texas and Travis County are carrying some form of hazardous materials, according to a 2009 report by TxDOT and the Federal Highway Administration. But that’s just a guess based on national trends that break down transported goods by mode: truck, rail, pipeline, water, air.
In 2009, The Texas Transportation Institute looked at federal data dating back to 2002 – a time frame which now seems somewhat dated given the state’s growth. At that time in Texas though, trucks made a third of all hazardous materials deliveries state-wide. The average length of trip per shipment: 86 miles.
Apart from those studies, City police send weekly data from traffic stops, inspections and crashes of commercial carriers to the Texas Department of Public Safety. KXAN is waiting on a response from DPS on how publicly available those records are. KXAN also asked a DPS spokesman if the content and volume of truck cargos is confirmed at weigh stations sprinkled around the state.
In terms of vehicle safety itself, TxDOT defers to The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). It maintains the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS) which contains information on the safety fitness of commercial motor carriers (truck & bus) and hazardous material (HM) shippers. Those transport businesses are subject to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR) and the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR).
Yes, our roads are busy
There's data on truck traffic volume in a study done last year by researchers for TxDOT. While most of the traffic is local, they counted 4,290 trucks of all kinds that could be moved off I-35 -- about 14% of overall traffic. Every normal weekday last year, up to 226,000 vehicles traveled past I-35 and Braker Lane on their way through the Austin region, the study found.
Compared to larger centers in Texas like Houston and its fuel transportation-based economy, truck accidents involving hazardous materials are relatively rare along Austin’s piece of IH-35 and surrounding commuter corridors. But they do happen. Federal Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (FHMSA) data show since 2008, 91 spills involving some kind of dangerous truck cargo in Central Texas, most during loading or unloading. The most dramatic happened during transit and include:
Oct 30th, 2010 – US183 and MoPac. 9500 gallons of gasoline burned when a tanker rolled off an overpass. The intense heat threatened the structure’s stability.
March 28th, 2012 – Toll 130 and Maha Loop. 9500 gallons of gasoline burned when a car slammed into a tanker truck, killing the car’s driver.
Sep 27th, 2012 – I-35 NB at Slaughter Lane. 2900 gallons of a gasoline mix spilled when a tanker rolled into the grassy median. The driver said he veered to avoid an animal in the roadway. No one else was injured.
The solution: SH 130
City and County emergency operations experts have long agreed – Toll road SH 130 is the most obvious solution, given direct routes on the west side of the city are virtually non-existent because of the Hill County terrain and extensive water features and environmentally-sensitive aquifers west of Interstate 35.
When the first phase of SH 130 from US 290 to US 79 was completed in 2006 -- including a junction to I-35, it offered the region’s first high speed ring road from Buda to Georgetown. It’s since extended south to Seguin for 91-mile long drive-around. For Truck transport academics like Rob Harrison, the Deputy Director of the Center for Transportation Research at UT Austin, suggest it’s a ‘no brainer’ to use such a route to redirect dangerous cargo away from Austin’s more densely-populated and heavily-traveled core.
“As the risk of accidents increases on I-35, the insurers themselves will be telling operators, 'Use (toll) 130, use (route) 45.' So 45, 130 all the way down to Seguin that's the solution, that is absolutely available right now, Harrison told KXAN. “And it's ludicrous it doesn't have to be studied in any great detail. The question is... how do you negotiate with the users?”
Other challenges with designating SH 130 the region’s de facto hazardous materials route:
portions of the roadway are subject to an on-going revenue-sharing deal with a private consortium
federal commerce laws dictate commercial vehicle owners cannot be forced to pay toll fees in the normal course of transport.
However, TxDOT elsewhere has designated a toll road as a hazardous materials route in Texas. The Camino Columbia Toll Road in Webb County (SH 255) is an example:
Another hurdle? A toll road can only be designated as a Non-Radioactive Hazardous Materials route only after an engineering study is performed by an independent entity.
Those issues will have to be hammered out in the 18 months federal regulations give the City has to establish the hazardous materials route once it gives formal notice. If no solution can be found, state transportation planners would likely take over and make a final decision that could include the publicly-maintained IH-35 itself.
The 1999 Austin flow study concluded: Additional research is needed in order to provide the items listed as short-term recommendations... City and county fire departments may need to determine the strategy, tactics, and equipment necessary for responding to specific hazardous materials. Obtaining and training with liquid containment, petroleum firefighting foams, and chlorine gas leak kits may require further study. If the equipment or resource requirements are beyond their present capabilities, local fire departments may need to ensure response training includes knowing where to find outside assistance. Fire departments may also need to determine site specific items such as staging areas, downstream access points for deploying containment equipment, drainage mapping, and population areas requiring evacuation. It is hoped that this study will serve as a basis for prioritizing where to start.’
Those conclusions have been taken to heart by AFD planners who now say they team up with fire agencies in both Hays and Williamson Counties for a regional approach to managing hat mat spills and fires. The City of Austin’s Fire Department as well as Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services staff continually train in hazardous materials scenarios. The County contracts with AFD to respond to any incident on our roads or businesses: from a small gas spill at a service station, to a spill of aircraft fuel at ABIA, to a major chemical spill at one of the area manufacturers or shippers.
“You want to respect what you're doing at a hazardous materials spill scene. It's no different going into a house fire. You understand that it might dangerous, but you're trained to do it, you want to do it, says Battalion Chief Palmer Buck with Austin Fire Department’s Special Operations Division.
“We're always most concerned with not knowing (what a truck’s cargo might be at an accident location). What you don't know is what's going to get you. And so we want to make sure we're making the right choices.”
This year, City Council members will be presented with choices, too as commuters travel up and down the interstate fully aware they’re having to sharing the road for now with commercial vehicle drivers who have a notoriously under-used alternate route just a few miles to the east.