How is hazardous waste transported?

The shipping manifests we compiled from the EPA include the names of transporters and ports of entry into the US, but do not tell us the exact route the waste traveled. This is important because hazardous waste can affect communities along the routes it travels to be processed. This is why many communities have declared themselves or their streets off-limits to waste. We have represented hazardous waste shipments "as the crow flies" but this is misleading. In this map, we show a likely route for one of the most significant waste shipments we have found in our data: the shipment of vanadium, a byproduct of oilsands extraction. By weight, the trade between the Shell Scottford refinery and AMG (aka Metallurg Vanadium Corporation) in Ohio represents the single largest transaction. Shell sent AMG over 500 shipments between 2007 and 2012.


We examined a few of the shipping manifests (right) and determined that the waste was often transported by two rail companies: Canadian Pacific (CP) and CSX. Using a dataset of all rail lines in Canada and Mexico, we calculated the likeliest path from Shell's facility in Canada to AMG's in Ohio. We know that the waste entered the US at Portal, ND. The path we illustrate above represents the shortest distance between the two sites, through Portal, and assumes that CP and CSX would prefer to ship over tracks they own or have rights to. Indeed, for the vast majority of this route (until Ohio), either CP or CSX own the tracks. Although in this example manifest the second transporter (CSX) did not sign off, we assume the took over somewhere around Chicago, where CP's rail network ends and CSX's begins.
AMG-Shell shipping manifest

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