Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Legal action, Rail industry, Spill prevention and response, Worst case scenario

Judge: Train Companies Must Prepare for Oil Spills

Repost from Public News Service
[Editor:  See the Earthjustice News Release for more details.  Earthjustice represented San Francisco Baykeeper, Communities for a Better Environment, the Sierra Club, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Association of Irritated Residents and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network in the lawsuit.  – RS]

Judge: Train Companies Must Prepare for Oil Spills

By Suzanne Potter, June 26, 2015
PHOTO: Companies running oil trains in California will be required to have a spill-response plan. Photo credit: vladyslav-danilin/shutterstock
PHOTO: Companies running oil trains in California will be required to have a spill-response plan. Photo credit: vladyslav-danilin/shutterstock

Railroad companies soon won’t be able to carry oil in California unless they have a safety plan – and put aside lots of money to cover any future spills. That’s because a federal judge in San Francisco dismissed an industry lawsuit last week against California’s new railroad safety law.

Patti Goldman, managing attorney for Earthjustice, said the precautions required are common sense.

“All other industries, like the tankers that carry the oil, the refiners, the pipelines, all of them prepare these oil-spill response plans,” she aaid. “It’s time for the railroads to do the same.”

Railroad companies had argued that federal law pre-empts states’ regulation of the railroads.

Goldman said the companies now will have more incentive to get the training, equipment and communications systems in place to prevent the worst-case scenario.

“They improve their practices. They can’t get financial assurances if they’re being really risky,” she said. “And they figure out how to handle the oil better so that they won’t have a spill.”

California’s railroad safety law will go into effect once regulations are finalized.

Air Quality, Alberta Canada, Bitumen, Tar sands crude

Canada oil sands: dirtier than conventional domestic crude

Repost from the Daily Democrat, Davis CA
[Editor: Original materials: see the Abstract of the study or the 19 pages of Supporting Information.   – RS]

Canada oil sands have more emissions than those in US

By Kat Kerlin, UC Davis News Service, 06/25/15, 3:20 PM PDT
A photo of the Valero refinery taken at night in Benicia. Benicia’s Valero refinery is one of the Bay Area’s five refineries that have moved toward acquiring Canadian tar sands crude by rail. A new study by UC Davis has found oil from Canada causes more emissions than oil from the United States.

Gasoline and diesel fuel extracted and refined from Canadian oil sands will release about 20 percent more carbon into the atmosphere over its lifetime than fuel from conventional domestic crude sources, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, UC Davis and Stanford University.

The research was funded by the Bioenergy Technologies Office and Vehicle Technologies Office within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

The researchers used a life-cycle, or “well-to-wheels,” approach, gathering publicly available data on 27 large Canadian oil sands production facilities. The study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, found the additional carbon impact of Canadian oil sands was largely related to the energy required for extraction and refining.

“The level of detail provided in this study is unprecedented,” said co-author Sonia Yeh, a research scientist at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCD, who helped lead research on emissions related to land disturbance. “It provides a strong scientific basis for understanding the total carbon emissions associated with using this resource, which allows us to move forward with informed discussions on technologies or policy options to reduce carbon emissions.”

Canadian oil sands are extracted using two processes, both of which are energy intensive. Oil close to the surface can be mined, but still must be heated to separate the oil from the sand. Deeper sources of oil are extracted on site, also called in situ extraction, requiring even more energy when steam is injected underground, heating the oil to the point it can be pumped to the surface. The extracted oil product, known as bitumen, can be moved to refineries in the United States or refined on site to upgraded synthetic crude.

On-site extraction tends to be more carbon intensive than surface mining, and producing refined synthetic crude generally requires more carbon emissions than producing bitumen. Depending on which methods are used, the carbon intensity of finished gasoline can vary from 8 percent to 24 percent higher than that from conventional U.S. crudes.

“This is important information about the greenhouse gas impact of this oil source,” said lead author and Argonne researcher Hao Cai. “Canadian oil sands accounted for about 9 percent of the total crude processed in U.S. refineries in 2013, but that percentage is projected to rise to 14 percent in 2020.”

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Environmental review, Pacific Northwest, State regulation, Tar sands crude, West Coast refineries

Final decision on Tesoro’s Washington railport pushed to 2016

Repost from Reuters  

Final decision on Tesoro’s Washington railport pushed to 2016

By Kristen Hays, June 26, 2015

HOUSTON – The latest delay in a detailed government review of Tesoro Corp’s proposed $210 million railport project in Washington state means a final decision will not happen until 2016, according to a state council’s published schedule.

The 360,000 barrels-per-day project would be the biggest in the United States, moving domestic and Canadian crude via rail to Washington’s Port of Vancouver, where it would be loaded onto vessels to supply West Coast refineries – mainly in California.

The company had hoped to start it up by late 2014, and then pushed it to this year as the project undergoes a lengthy state review.

Several other oil-by-rail projects, largely in California, are stalled amid opposition after multiple crude train crashes and derailments since mid-2013.

Tesoro said the company was disappointed in “yet another delay” and remains committed to the project.

Chief Executive Greg Goff told analysts last month that the delay to 2016 was likely as the project undergoes what he called a “painfully slow” review process.

The projected cost also has more than doubled to $210 million from its original $100 million as Tesoro upgraded the design, including seismic dock improvements.

Washington’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC)’s schedule, made public this week, says a draft environmental impact statement will be published in late November. The council had previously expected to release the draft report in late July.

State law then requires a month-long public comment period which can be lengthened.

EFSEC then will submit the final report to Gov. Jay Inslee, who has final say on whether it will be built. The new schedule, and the public comment session, pushes that submission to early 2016. Inslee will have up to two months to decide once he receives the report.

Most Washington refineries, including Tesoro’s 120,000 bpd plant in Anacortes, receive oil by rail. No major pipelines move oil west across the Rocky Mountains or the Cascades, so West Coast refineries turn to rail to tap North American crudes that cost less than imports.

(Reporting by Kristen Hays; Editing by Christian Plumb)
Air Quality, Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), Local Regulation, San Francisco Bay Area, Valero Benicia Refinery

Valero refinery in Benicia fined $122,500 for past air pollution violations

Repost from the Contra Costa Times
[Editor:  It takes the Air District over 3 years to “settle” with Valero for polluting our air?  In the past City officials have asked that these kinds of fines be redirected to the communities where the violations occur.  My understanding is that BAAQMD Executive Officer Jack Broadbent indicated he would consider it, but never took any action.  Seems the Air District wants to continue to use the fines for their own operations: “The penalty money will be used to fund air district inspections and enforcement actions.” – RS]

Valero refinery in Benicia to pay $122,500 in air pollution penalties

By Denis Cuff, 06/25/2015 12:49:50 PM PDT
Valero Refinery, Benicia, California

BENICIA — The Valero oil refinery has agreed to pay $122,500 in civil penalties for air pollution violations during 2011, clean air regulators announced Thursday.

The settlement between Valero and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District covers 25 notices of violations, including one over odors at the refinery wastewater treatment plant.

Another 14 violations concerned excessive pollution detected by monitors at the Benicia plant, officials said.

“Violations of air quality regulations, no mater how minor, must be addressed and refineries held accountable,” Jack Broadbent, the air pollution district chief, said.

The penalty money will be used to fund air district inspections and enforcement actions.

The air district regulates stationary air pollution sources in the nine Bay Area counties.

For safe and healthy communities…