BENICIA HERALD LETTER: Hoping RDEIR isn’t a model

Repost from the Benicia Herald
[Editor:  No link is provided for this letter because the Benicia Herald does not publish Letters in its online edition. – RS]

Hoping RDEIR isn’t a model

By Nancy Rieser, September 10, 2015, Benicia Herald
As a resident of Crockett, I can only hope Benicia’s Revised Draft Environmental Impact Report on Valero’s Crude-by-Rail Project does not set a tone for future refinery EIRs elsewhere in Northern California.  Granted, the RDEIR’s matter-of-fact admission that dangers of oil spills can’t be mitigated is enough to turn one’s hair gray.  However the rather dismissive statement, “A larger spill of 30,000 gallons is listed as a once-every-38-to-80-years event, but could cause injuries and deaths,” is even more disturbing.

Could it be that Valero management and city of Benicia staff both feel that “injuries and death” to their grandchildren and great grandchildren would be OK?  Do oil executives and city staff believe that any severe devastation occurring after they (the decision makers) die of old age would be acceptable because … the decision makers would already be dead?

Corpses?  Feh.  Why should they care?