Category Archives: Bay Area Refineries

Stationary Source Committee of the BAAQMD postpones discussion

Repost from The Contra Costa Times

Discussion of Bay Area oil refinery-related projects postponed to May

By Tom Lochner, Contra Costa Times | 04/22/2014

SAN FRANCISCO — A discussion of five Bay Area energy projects and their permit status was moved to next month, after a regional committee hosting it spent most of a morning talking about another matter of public concern, the tracking of emissions from petroleum refining.

The Stationary Source Committee of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District tentatively rescheduled the energy projects discussion to May 1, said committee chairman John Gioia.

The five projects are:

  • Crude oil shipment by rail to the Valero refinery in Benicia;
  • A WesPac Energy crude oil terminal in Pittsburg;
  • A propane and butane recovery project at the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo;
  • A hydrogen and sulfur recovery project at the Chevron refinery in Richmond;
  • Kinder Morgan’s ethanol and crude oil rail-to-truck transloading operation in Richmond.

Monday’s committee meeting focused on developing rules for tracking petroleum refining emissions.

Features under consideration include deploying “fence line” emission air monitoring systems and other community air monitoring systems; developing enhanced tracking methodology; and providing more opportunities for public review and comment. More hearings could follow, and the full board could consider adopting rules in October.

Issues of contention between environmentalists and representatives of refining industries include an emissions baseline, emissions reduction credits and a cap on emissions. Several environmentalists cautioned the board not to let tracking and collecting data become a substitute for action to clean the air.

KQED interview regarding Chevron Richmond expansion project

Repost from KQED Forum, with Michael Krasny
[Editor – Check out Michal Krasny’s interview to hear our own Andrés Soto’s critique of the Chevron project in Richmond.  In addition to his work in Richmond with Communities for a Better Environment, Andrés is a Benicia resident and volunteer with Benicians For A Safe and Healthy Community.  – RS]

Chevron Tries Again to Revamp Richmond Refinery

Wed, Apr 16, 2014  —  9:30 AM

A view of the Chevron refinery from its wharf, where ships deliver crude oil.  – Josh Cassidy/KQED


Chevron wants to begin a billion-dollar construction project at its Richmond refinery after environmentalists sued to stop a similar plan a few years ago. The company points to the environmental impact report and says the new facility will be cleaner and safer, but community advocates worry the plan could increase pollution.

Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:

  • Andrés Soto, Richmond organizer for Communities for a Better Environment
  • Nicole Barber, spokesperson for Chevron in Richmond

SF Chronicle: Green groups sue Bay Area Air Quality Management District

Repost from the San Francisco Chronicle

Oil trains into Richmond spark lawsuit

By David R. Baker, April 5, 2014
A BNSF Railway train, above, hauls crude oil near Wolf Point, Mont. Photo: Matthew Brown, Associated Press
A BNSF Railway train, above, hauls crude oil near Wolf Point, Mont. Photo: Matthew Brown, Associated Press

Little noticed by neighbors, trains carrying crude oil from the Great Plains have been rumbling into a Richmond rail yard.

The cargo is the same kind of crude that fueled a deadly explosion last summer when a train carrying the oil derailed in a small Quebec town, killing 47. Now environmentalists are suing to prevent any more shipments to Richmond.

The suit, filed last week in state Superior Court in San Francisco, would revoke a permit issued by a regional agency in February that allows Kinder Morgan to unload oil trains in Richmond at a facility originally built to unload ethanol.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District granted the permit without studying how the switch from shipping ethanol to oil could affect the environment, said Kristen Boyles, staff attorney with Earthjustice, the group that filed the suit on behalf of four other environmental organizations.

A placard on a tank car in North Dakota, below, warns that it's carrying flammable crude oil. Trains like these are being used more frequently to deliver petroleum to California. Photo: Matthew Brown, Associated Press
A placard on a tank car in North Dakota, below, warns that it’s carrying flammable crude oil. Trains like these are being used more frequently to deliver petroleum to California. Photo: Matthew Brown, Associated Press

“These things are going in without a lot of thought to their safety, their impact on the environment and their possible health effects,” Boyles said. “That’s what’s really frustrating with this situation – how little we know until this is rolling through our backyards.”

Kinder Morgan declined comment.

Ralph Borrmann, an agency spokesman, said the change in fuels handled by Kinder Morgan’s rail-yard facility would not increase air pollution – his agency’s primary concern.

“There were no emissions consequences as a result of the permit, no net increase of emissions, which is what we look at,” Borrmann said.

Just a few years ago, California didn’t import oil by rail. But that’s changing fast.

In 2009, railways carried just 45,000 barrels of oil into the Golden State, according to the California Energy Commission. By last year, that number had soared to 6.2 million barrels. A barrel equals 42 gallons.

Petroleum glut

California’s refineries have turned to rail to access a glut of petroleum in the Great Plains. Oil production in the Bakken Shale formation that lies beneath North Dakota and Montana has surged so much, so quickly, that area’s pipelines lack the capacity to transport the fuel. As a result, the Bakken oil sells at a discount to other kinds of crude.

Oil by rail is “about discounted oil, delivered to your doorstep,” said Gordon Schremp, senior analyst with the Energy Commission.

The amount of oil carried by rail is rising nationwide. While most of those shipments reach their destination without incident, the United States and Canada have recently seen a series of oil-train accidents leading to explosions and fires, including last July’s derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. In January, the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration issued an alert warning that Bakken crude, much lighter than many other grades of oil, may be more flammable as well.

Benicia refinery

The warning spurred opposition to a series of oil-by-rail projects in California. Valero’s refinery in Benicia is seeking approval to build a rail yard that could move 70,000 barrels of oil each day, replacing more than half of the petroleum the refinery now imports from abroad, via ship.

In Pittsburg, another project would bring in oil by ship, pipeline and rail. The $200 million proposal, by WesPac Energy, would refurbish an old Pacific Gas and Electric Co. facility to import, store and supply oil to Bay Area refineries.

Community groups have spent months fighting those proposals. But most Richmond residents knew nothing about Kinder Morgan’s Richmond rail facility until television station KPIX reported on the issue last month.

Kinder Morgan applied to convert its existing ethanol offloading facility last year, and won an operating permit from the air district in February. KPIX filmed trucks carrying oil from the facility to the Tesoro refinery in Martinez.

Tesoro’s comment

A Tesoro spokeswoman on Friday declined to confirm whether the refinery collaborates with Kinder Morgan’s Richmond facility. But she said the refinery uses about 5,000 to 10,000 barrels of oil per day taken from rail shipments, equal to between two and four train shipments per month.

Earthjustice and its partners in the suit – the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Communities for a Better Environment, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club – want Kinder Morgan’s operating permit in Richmond revoked until the company conducts a full environmental impact review.

“The risk of train accidents is huge with this kind of crude oil,” Boyles said.

A tanker truck is filled from railway cars containing crude oil on railroad tracks in McClellan Park in North Highlands on Wednesday, March 19, 2014. North Highlands is a suburb just outside the city limits of Sacramento, CA. (Randall Benton/Sacramento Bee/MCT) Photo: Randall Benton, McClatchy-Tribune News Service
A tanker truck is filled from railway cars containing crude oil on railroad tracks in McClellan Park in North Highlands on Wednesday, March 19, 2014. North Highlands is a suburb just outside the city limits of Sacramento, CA. (Randall Benton/Sacramento Bee/MCT) Photo: Randall Benton, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Community opposition to WesPac Energy in Pittsburg, CA

Repost from The Contra Costa Times

Fight over oil terminal project symbolizes Pittsburg’s competing priorities

By Eve Mitchell
Contra Costa Times 04/04/2014
Two girls walk up the pier at the River View Park in Pittsburg as the WesPac project can be seen to the right in Pittsburg, Calif., on Friday, March 14,
Two girls walk up the pier at the River View Park in Pittsburg as the WesPac project can be seen to the right in Pittsburg, Calif., on Friday, March 14, 2014. (Dan Rosenstrauch/Bay Area News Group)

PITTSBURG — Heavy industry has long been woven into this city’s blue-collar fabric, ranging from chemical to steel to power plants. But so, too, are homes and upscale businesses along Pittsburg’s waterfront, which the city has worked to transform into a thriving bedroom community complete with a downtown cigar lounge and specialty food store that sells caviar.

Those two worlds collided with a developer’s proposal to ship domestic and imported crude oil to a vacant industrial parcel where 16 large storage tanks — now empty — once stored fuel oil used to run a former PG&E power plant more than 25 years ago.

The proposal has generated fierce community opposition, and in January city officials reopened a public review period for sections of a draft environmental impact report in response to safety, air quality and other environmental concerns. The controversy is a reminder of the tension that has long existed along the waterfront in Contra Costa County, which is home to power plants, refineries, manufacturing and other industrial sites that coexist uneasily with suburban housing developments and quaint downtowns.

“There are concerns at multiple levels. You’re bringing in something that is really flammable — material with the potential for explosion — and you are bringing it into a densely populated area,” said Susan Burkitt, who lives near the proposed project and is a founder of the Pittsburg Defense Council, which along with several environmental groups is fighting the plan.

To date, more than 4,000 residents in this city of 66,000 have signed a petition against the project, which would receive 88 million barrels annually of domestic crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota, Colorado, west Texas and New Mexico shipped by rail, as well as imported crude brought in by marine vessels, to a 125-acre parcel next to what is now the NRG power plant.

As part of the joint venture of WesPac Energy and Oiltanking Holding Americas, the oil would be shipped by pipeline from the terminal to local refineries. Pittsburg High School students have held an on-campus protest against the project and spoken out against it at City Council meetings.

Pittsburg, which takes its name from the legendary Pennsylvania steel town, has deep industrial roots. In 2010, steel manufacturer USS-Posco Industries marked 100 years of operations here, and Dow Chemical has been in Pittsburg since 1939.

Previous disputes have erupted over a decision by county supervisors in 1990 to locate the Keller Canyon landfill in Pittsburg and Dow’s plan to build a hazardous waste incinerator in 1992 (Dow later dropped the proposal). In 2009, refiner Tesoro stopped storing petroleum coke dust at its inactive terminal on East Third Street after neighbors complained about soot being spread into downtown.

The latest flap is not surprising, said former City Councilman Bob Lewis, who served from 1989 to 2002. “That’s a situation to be expected in Pittsburg, where residential uses are adjacent to industrial uses. It’s nothing new.”

But Joe Canciamilla, a former state assemblyman who served on the council from 1987 to 1996, said the city bears some responsibility for the conflict that has arisen over the WesPac project.

“The area is transitioning and becoming more residential than industrial. The city to some degree is responsible for engineering this kind of conflict by approving new residences close to a lot of these industrial sites,” said Canciamilla, referring to redevelopment efforts that have revitalized the city’s downtown. “The city spent millions of dollars subsidizing properties and development in the area, and then to turn around (and consider) putting in a massive new industrial development is certainly going to create some level of conflict.”

Critics point out that unlike the buffer zone around Dow’s Pittsburg operations, where the closest homes are about a mile away, there is no such buffer called for in the WesPac proposal. Growing national concerns about the safety of moving crude by rail has also spurred the opposition.

Drewcilla Wyatt’s home is about a quarter-mile from where WesPac wants to build a rail component that would unload 100 railcars of crude a day five days a week at an existing train yard along North Parkside Drive.

“Pittsburg has moved up since I came in. We have a functioning downtown,” she said. “We have enough trains. Trains run here all night and day. What if a train spills, what if it catches fire? This is so close to homes.”

Proponents of the $200 million project say it would help refineries take advantage of a domestic oil boom at a time when California production is falling. WesPac officials say the project would be safe, address environmental concerns raised by opponents, create jobs and provide $800,000 in yearly property tax and tidelands lease revenue to the city.

“I think WesPac is a very good fit for the city of Pittsburg. It is proposed to be developed in an area zoned for heavy industry, so that’s the only thing that can go in there,” said Brad Nail, who retired as the city’s economic director in 2011.

Nail said he understands that redevelopment in the area helped set the stage for conflict over the project. “But Pittsburg historically is an industrial town. … If you buy a home in the marina downtown area, you are very aware there is industry there.”

More than 1,200 housing units have been built since 1980 in the downtown and waterfront area, according to city records.

The desire to maximize the economic potential of Contra Costa’s waterfront has been a goal of Supervisor Federal Glover, who launched the Northern Waterfront Economic Development initiative last year.

Glover, a former Pittsburg councilman, has not taken a formal position on the WesPac project, and a consultant’s report prepared for his initiative concludes that the waterfront could become more competitive by bringing in new industries such as clean technology and green energy. But such changes are not going to happen right away, according to Glover.

“We are not going to run in tomorrow and be able to have all the nice green industries and the high-tech stuff,” he said. “It’s a blend, and how you are able to balance out what you have in the area.”