TTI researchers are leading a commodity-flow study across eight counties in the Eagle Ford Shale region.

In 1849 Sacramento Valley, California, it was gold. In 1901 Spindletop, Texas, it was black gold. And now, thanks to advances in hydraulic fracturing (commonly called “fracking”) of rock formations to enable access to crude oil and — the Eagle Ford Shale region of South Texas is already producing another energy boom for the Lone Star State.

According to the Texas State Historical Association, Spindletop ultimately produced some 153 million barrels of oil. But the overnight boom strained the little town of Beaumont, Texas, from 10,000 to 50,000 residents, with some 500 Texas corporations doing business in Beaumont by 1902. Total expected production for Eagle Ford is at least several times that amount, making it one of the hottest energy resource plays in the world.

While local economies undoubtedly benefit from boom times, a Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) study conducted in 2012 estimated that around $40 billion will be needed over the next 20 years to fix roads overworked and degraded by heavy-truck traffic related to the energy boom. Maintenance for many of those roads is handled by rural towns and counties, placing a greater financial burden on local communities to get the work done. But rapid development can have other consequences beyond increased maintenance costs. In addition to traffic impacts, installing wells and moving the resources produced from them involves materials and chemicals that can be hazardous to health, safety and the environment.

“Our primary goal is to help local communities to plan and prepare for heavy truck traffic and hazmat transportation incidents,” explains TTI Associate Research Scientist David Bierling. He and TTI Research Specialist Debbie Jasek are leading a commodity-flow study across eight counties in the Eagle Ford Shale region. Funding for the project is administered by the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM).

The study identifies the movement of trucks and hazardous materials in and through communities as developers bring wells online and ship recovered resources to refineries. By knowing the types, locations and ways that potentially dangerous materials are transported, local emergency planning committees (LEPCs) and emergency responders can better prepare for incidents like hazardous material spills.

“When something like that happens, first responders have to know what they’re dealing with,” explains Jasek. “For example, if emergency responders roll up on an incident without the right kind of training or equipment, they could be the first casualties. And if they go down, who’ll help the general public?”

In several of the counties, community volunteers are working with their LEPCs to help collect data; industry has also expressed interest in supporting the project.

“We’re excited about the commodity flow study and have several volunteers from across the county who are participating. We plan to use information from this project to specify training needs for our volunteer fire, EMS, and law-enforcement departments, and identify the equipment needed to respond safely. The study will also help us identify high impact routes for future road improvements and support the need for additional roadway funding at local and state levels,” states Wilson County Emergency Management Coordinator LeAnn Hosek.

In addition to hazmat transport information, the project team is collecting information about different types of truck traffic and overall traffic volumes. Researchers are seeing numbers of trucks in the Eagle Ford Shale area that far exceed the design capacities of rural and state roads, resulting in extensive damage to roads and bridges. The growth in traffic may also limit the effectiveness of evacuation routes during a natural disaster like a hurricane, and increased safety hazards for drivers and pedestrians in communities are also being felt.

“We are very concerned about oilfield-related traffic, and higher road speed limits in our county have not made things safer. The Eagle Ford play is welcome in our county, but I wish our new oilfield neighbors would slow down,” says Atascosa County Commissioner Lonnie Gillespie.

The commodity flow study is scheduled for completion in September 2013. Since 2008, TDEM and TTI have worked with local communities to conduct hazmat commodity flow studies in more than two dozen counties across Texas.

Nearly a decade after the deadliest foreign attack on American soil in our nation’s history, that phrase is almost a cliche. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make it any less true.

In medieval times, the main gate, or portcullis, was the most important part of a castle’s security. If the gate was breeched, enemy forces would pour in.

“While our technology has become more sophisticated, the basic strategy for defense hasn’t changed,” explains Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) Assistant Agency Director Dean Alberson, who manages TTI‘s Crashworthy Structures Program. “Keeping an enemy from getting close enough to do harm is still the best way to ensure the safety of U.S. citizens, both at home and abroad.”

Protecting Our National Assets

To that end, in August 2010, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security awarded TTI a contract for up to $7 million over a five-year period to design, analyze and test perimeter security devices. TTI began work with the State Department in 2002, conducting dozens of tests intended to increase security for American embassies and other posts around the globe.

Shallow bollards like the one above help keep U.S. facilities and their personnel safe abroad.

The first project under the new contract involves crashing various vehicles into an instrumented pier designed to measure the impact of the collisions. These tests will help researchers design various future devices that will meet U.S. security standards.

The State Department’s 2003 anti-ram barrier standard, which limited barrier penetration to 3 feet, acknowledged the “tight quarters” reality of embassy placements but didn’t address some of the needs of military bases, which are typically surrounded by wide-open spaces. The more space between buildings, the longer the stopping distance needed to prevent enemy vehicles from getting too close. The safety of building occupants is enhanced with every foot of space between the facility and a terrorist’s bomb. The 2003 standard also assumed a 2.5-ton diesel truck as the method for bomb delivery, whereas recent experiences in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries make it clear that practically any vehicle will do for delivering destruction.

Acknowledging this reality, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers demanded a more flexible standard, so ASTM International created a working group, chaired by Alberson, to develop it. The new ASTM F2656-07 Standard Test Method for Vehicle Crash Testing of Perimeter Barriers adds more penetration ratings, incorporates design flexibility to cover a wider range of vehicles, and specifies different impact velocities for some vehicle categories. The State Department officially adopted this standard in October 2008.

Speaking of security concerns around the world, the United Kingdom’s Center for the Protection of National Infrastructure has contracted with TTI to help translate between U.K. and U.S. standards. The British version of ASTM F2656-07 is called BSI PAS 68, but its requirements don’t match up exactly with its American counterpart.

“TTI‘s job is to help harmonize the testing for these two standards,” says Alberson. “Making them more compatible will improve structural defense by limiting the opportunity for confusion or miscommunication among those trying to use them.”

Securing Our Borders

TTI researchers have completed two projects with the National Center for Border Security and Immigration, funded through the Department of Homeland Security’s Center of Research Excellence Program, to assess and improve security at the U.S.-Mexico border. One project analyzed technology and processes at land ports of entry (POEs), and the second one analyzed how technology can be used to improve security at land POEs. Technology, layout and process need to be coordinated, so the second phase of the project identified improvements that could be implemented to further increase security at POEs.

“It’s a tricky thing to balance security with the need to keep things moving,” explains TTI Research Scientist Juan Villa, currently managing TTI‘s Mexico City office. “There are trade-offs to be evaluated, including safety, efficiency and economic considerations, not to mention right to privacy.”

Hazardous Materials Tracking

Transport of hazardous materials has both security and freight safety concerns. Terrorists, for example, might try to conduct a catastrophic attack using a planned release of hazardous materials. Transportation accidents can also expose people and the environment to these materials.

TTI will soon be working with Texas Southern University to validate new tools for measuring and tracking hazmat movements on Houston’s industrial corridors. The Institute has also worked with the Texas Division of Emergency Management and Texas counties to evaluate hazmat movements. TTI and Texas A&M University’s Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center researchers have co-authored a hazmat commodity flow study guidebook to be published by the Transportation Research Board in 2011.

TTI Research Specialist Debbie Jasek and Associate Research Scientist David Bierling explain that these studies are different from a lot of traditional traffic evaluations. “TTI works with community officials and volunteers to figure out where, when and how hazmat is transported. We can also help evaluate their chemical transport risks,” says Bierling.

This Issue

Working Across Transportation Solutions

Volume 46, Number 4
December 2010
Issue Overview