All posts by Roger Straw

Editor, owner, publisher of The Benicia Independent
Bay Area, Oil Industry, Rail industry, Santa Maria Refinery

Southern California refinery plan to affect SF Bay Area

Repost from The Los Angeles Times

Phillips 66 plans to build San Luis Obispo County rail terminal

The terminal would send trains with up to 80 tank cars of crude oil through Southern California and the Bay Area to Phillips’ Santa Maria Refinery.
November 26, 2013 | By Ralph Vartabedian

Phillips 66, which operates refineries across California, is moving forward with a plan to build a rail terminal in San Luis Obispo County that would send trains with up to 80 tank cars of crude oil through Southern California and the Bay Area.

In a draft environmental impact statement filed this week, Phillips said it wants to build five sets of parallel tracks that would accommodate trains as often as 250 times per year at its Santa Maria Refinery.

The project is the latest effort by the refinery industry to increase crude imports to California from oil fields in North Dakota, Colorado and Texas. There are no pipelines that can transport large amounts of oil to the West Coast.

Earlier, Valero Energy Corp. disclosed a plan to build a rail facility at its refinery in the Bay Area, and industry analysts expect that an oil rail facility will be built somewhere in the Central Valley.

While the amount of crude moving by rail throughout North America has been on a sharp rise over the last five years, the trend had not attracted a great of public attention until this summer, when a runaway train with 70 tank cars full of crude derailed in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 42 residents and destroying much of the downtown.

Since then, two other derailments of crude trains have occurred, and the Federal Railroad Administration issued an emergency order to improve safety. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, an agency of the U.S. Transportation Department, has taken initial steps to strengthen tank car safety.

More than 200,000 barrels a month of crude have been imported into California by rail as recently as this summer, a fourfold increase from the prior year.

Until now, California has gotten most of its crude from Alaska or foreign nations via tanker ships, or from the state’s own oil patches via a network of pipelines.

Dean Acosta, a Phillips 66 spokesman, said the project will “enable rail delivery of crude oil from other North American sources because the refinery’s traditional supply of crude oil from California fields is declining.”

The new Philips terminal, located 21/4 miles from the Pacific Ocean near the town of Nipomo, would be connected to Union Pacific’s coastal line that runs from downtown Los Angeles north to the Bay Area.

A Union Pacific spokesman said its transportation of crude would meet federal laws and industry standards.

The environmental impact statement indicates that the mostly likely source of crude for the rail terminal would be North Dakota’s Bakken Field, suggesting that more trains would run southbound from the Bay Area than northbound from Los Angeles.

Phillips is also seeking approval to increase the output of the Santa Maria Refinery by 10%, which is under review by the California Coastal Commission. The plant sends partially refined oil to one of Phillips’ main refineries in the Bay Area by a 200-mile pipeline.

The impact statement acknowledges some safety and environmental issues with the new rail facility.

“The main hazards associated with the Rail Spur Project are potential accidents at the [Santa Maria Refinery] and along the [Union Pacific] mainline that could result in oil spills, fires and explosions,” the report said.

But it added that an analysis of the risks of a fire or explosion along the railroad’s main line found the risk to be “less than significant.”

“Our new crude-by-rail fleet is constructed to meet or exceed the latest Assn. of American Railroads safety standards,” Phillips spokesman Acosta said.

The report also found the crude trains would increase air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides. “Operational pollutant emissions within San Luis Obispo County could be potentially significant and unavoidable,” it said.

Murray Wilson, a San Luis Obispo planning department official, said the project has received both local support and opposition. The extent of public opinion should become clearer during the 60-day public comment period that opened this week.

Bakken Shale, California Regulation, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Oil Industry, Rail accidents, Tar sands crude

Berkeley City Council – No Crude By Rail – Sierra Club support

Repost from KPIX5 CBS San Francisco

Berkeley City Council Votes To Oppose Crude By Rail Plan

March 26, 2014 8:19 AM
A KPIX 5 crew captured this video of Bakken crude oil getting unloaded from a train at a rail yard in Richmond. (CBS)

A KPIX 5 crew captured this video of Bakken crude oil getting unloaded from a train at a rail yard in Richmond. (CBS)

BERKELEY (CBS SF) — The Berkeley City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a resolution that opposes plans by Phillips 66 to transport crude oil through Berkeley and other East Bay cities to a new refinery rail spur in San Luis Obispo County.

City Councilwoman Linda Maio, who wrote the resolution along with City Councilman Darryl Moore, admitted in a letter to the community that railroads are exempt from local and state laws because they are interstate operators.

But Maio said, “That must not stop us from fiercely opposing their plans and demanding intervention.”

She said that among the actions that Berkeley can take are filing briefs in environmental impact lawsuits opposing Phillips’ plans, coordinating with other cities located along the planned transportation route, working with state legislators and lobbying California’s congresspersons and senators.

In a letter to other councilmembers, Maio and Moore said California refineries are in the process of securing permits to build rail terminals to import Canadian tar sands and Bakken crude oils from North and South Dakota.

Maio and Moore said under current plans, crude oil trains would enter Northern California via the Donner Pass and eventually travel along the San Francisco Bay through Martinez, Richmond, Berkeley, Emeryville and Oakland using Union Pacific tracks.

From Oakland, the trains would use the Coast Line via Hayward, Santa Clara, San Jose and Salinas and continue along the Pacific Coast to the Santa Maria facility in San Luis Obispo County, they said.

Maio and Moore said the Phillips 66 project would transport 2 million gallons per day of crude oil through the Bay Area and that “Roughly 80 tanker cars per day of crude oil assembled in a single train would pass through our cities.”

“A crude oil accident could occur anywhere along the transportation corridor including the densely-populated Bay Area,” they said.

The two councilmembers said transporting crude oil can be dangerous, citing an incident last July in the small Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, where 72 tanker cars loaded with 2 million gallons of crude oil derailed, dumping 1.5 million of crude oil.

The resulting fire and explosions burned down dozens of building, killed 47 people and caused more than $1 billion in damage, they said.

The Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay chapter said in a statement today that it “strongly supports” the resolution by Maio and Moore.

Sierra Club staff attorney Devorah Ancel said, “The tar sands and Bakken crude are more carbon-intensive, more toxic, and more dangerous to transport than conventional crude oil.”

“Transport of tar sands and Bakken crude is growing at a ferocious pace – in 2013 alone more oil spilled from crude oil trains than has spilled from trains in the past four decades,” Ancel said.

She said, “These trains are not safe, they are not adequately regulated and they have no business traveling through Berkeley, the East Bay, or near any community or waterway that would be threatened by a catastrophic spill or explosion.”

Phillips 66 said in a statement that it “is committed to the safety of everyone who works in our facilities, lives in the communities where we operate or uses our products.”

“Preventing incidents and ensuring the safe and reliable transport of petroleum is our top priority while participating in the North American energy renaissance,” the statement read.

The company said it has “one of the most modern crude rail fleets in the industry, consisting of railcars that exceed current regulatory safety requirements and it began modernizing its crude fleet in 2012 “as a proactive precautionary measure to safely capture the opportunities of the rapidly changing energy landscape.”

Phillips said, “Our rail cars are inspected to ensure safe, compliant shipments, and we collect data to ensure compliance with the periodic maintenance plan for our rail car fleet” and its rail car program includes federally-mandated inspection, testing and repair of hazmat tank cars.”

The company said its Santa Maria facility is set up to process the heavier California-produced crude oil and the routes that train cars travel to reach the facility are selected by rail carriers.

Bakken Shale, Bay Area Refineries, Berkeley, Local Regulation, Rail accidents, Richmond

Richmond City Council calls for ban on Bakken crude by rail

Repost from The Contra Costa Times
[Editor’s note: See Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia’s letter to Richmond Mayor/City Council here. – RS]

Richmond calls on Congress to halt crude oil transport through Bay Area

By Robert Rogers Contra Costa Times

Posted:   03/25/2014

RICHMOND — A unanimous Richmond City Council voted Tuesday to call on Congress to halt rail transport of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota pending new regulations and explore what local measures could be enforced to thwart truck transport of the volatile fuel mix on local streets.

The resolution, proposed by Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, follows revelations in recent days of massive increases in crude-by-rail shipments into Contra Costa County, including at Kinder Morgan in Richmond, the only facility in the Bay Area that receives crude shipped on Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains and transfers it to trucks for transport to Bay Area refineries.

“There are terrible threats in our midst,” McLaughlin said. “Ultimately, we need to ban (Bakken crude) from coming through our community.”

The resolution directs city staff to send a letter to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Division Director Randy Sawyer, Congressmen George Miller and Mike Thompson, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, State Senators Loni Hancock and Mark Desaulnier and Assemblymember Nancy Skinner urging them to work on new regulations, including halting the transport of crude near Bay Area communities. Councilman Tom Butt added an amendment directing staff to explore whether the city could use its own regulatory powers to ban transport of Bakken crude on city streets.

Railroad activity is typically beyond the scope of local laws and is regulated at the federal level.

The vote followed a presentation by oil industry author Antonia Juhasz detailing the nationwide increase in accidents associated with rail transport of Bakken crude, which is fracked in North Dakota and is more volatile and susceptible to explosion than heavier crude blends.

The volume of crude transported by rail into Northern California increased by 57 percent during 2013, according to California Energy Commission statistics.

About 85 percent of the crude by rail delivered to Northern California in 2013 came from North Dakota, followed by 12.5 percent from Colorado, according to the commission. Four of the five Northern California oil refineries listed by the commission are in Contra Costa County, with the other in Benicia.

“A whole lot more oil is being spilled by trains,” Juhasz said. “It’s dramatically worse.”

From 1975-2012. 792,600 gallons of oil were spilled in train accidents, Juhasz said. In 2013, 1.3 million gallons were spilled in accidents, more than the combined total of every year since 1975.

Juhasz said the problem centers on three factors: More oil is being harvested and moved within the continent, it’s being sent to coastal refineries for processing and export due to higher international prices, and regulation has not kept pace with the rapid changes.

“The National Transportation Safety Board said oil spill response planning requirements are practically nonexistent,” Juhasz said. “They recommend that you require rerouting to avoid transportation of such hazardous materials through populated and other sensitive areas.”

In the past month, critics have hosted town hall meetings in Richmond, Martinez and Pittsburg decrying planned increases in crude-by-rail shipments into the Bay Area. On Tuesday night, the Berkeley City Council passed a resolution directing city staff to oppose efforts to transport Bakken crude through the city.

Juhasz drew specific attention to rising accident numbers, with particular emphasis on a train explosion in July in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where 47 people were killed.

“There is a movement toward more federal regulation,” Juhasz said. “This (resolution) would not just be an exercise, it would add to the cacophony of voices making that demand.”

Not all residents were convinced.

“I read about your agenda item to encourage to regulate this, now I am hearing ban it,” said Don Goseny, a Richmond resident. “That is kind of overregulation isn’t it? No one is even asking is there a safe way to transport this crude.”

Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia released a statement Tuesday saying he is concerned that “there was no clear communication” between BAAQMD staff members and Kinder Morgan before a permit was issued to the offloading company last September, when Juhasz said it began offloading Bakken crude. He said the issue will be discussed at the next BAAQMD meeting on April 21.

“The dramatic increase in the volume of Bakken shale crude oil being transported by rail through Northern California should be of great concern to local government,” Gioia wrote.

Bakken Shale, Bay Area Refineries, Berkeley, DOT-111, Environmental Impacts, Kinder Morgan, Local Regulation, Oil Industry, Rail accidents, Rail industry, Richmond, Santa Maria Refinery, Tar sands crude

East Bay Express: Richmond and Berkeley oppose oil by rail

1 Comment

Repost from East Bay Express

Richmond and Berkeley Oppose Fracked Oil and Tar Sands Rail Shipments

Jean Tepperman —  Wed, Mar 26, 2014

The city councils of both Berkeley and Richmond unanimously passed resolutions last night calling for tighter regulation of the shipping of crude oil by rail through the East Bay. The Berkeley resolution went further, committing Berkeley to oppose all shipment of crude oil by rail through the city until tighter regulations are in place.

Information has recently come to light about crude-by-rail activity in both cities. In September, with no public announcement, the Kinder Morgan rail yard in Richmond quietly switched from handling ethanol to crude oil. And a new proposal calls for shipping crude oil to the Phillips 66 refinery in Santa Maria on train tracks that run through the East Bay.

Fracked oil from Bakken shale is highly explosive.
USGS – Fracked oil from Bakken shale is highly explosive.

At the Richmond City Council meeting, oil-industry expert Antonia Juhasz presented evidence from both the BNSF railroad and Kinder Morgan websites showing that the crude oil coming into the Richmond rail yard is fracked from the Bakken shale fields in North Dakota. This Bakken crude has been responsible for several recent disastrous explosions when trains carrying it have derailed, with the worst accident in Lac Megantic, Quebec, where 47 people were killed and the downtown destroyed.

Juhasz added that there were more derailments and accidents involving crude by rail in 2013 than in the previous thirty years combined. More crude is being shipped by rail because of the huge increase in production of crude from North Dakota Bakken shale and Canadian tar sands, both far inland, and the need to get the fossil fuel to the coasts to refine and export.

Juhasz also reported that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has said that emergency response planning along the rail routes is “practically nonexistent” and that current regulations are “no longer sufficient” — and that it’s not safe to carry crude oil in the type of car currently being used. Because of all this, the NTSB has recommended that trains carrying crude oil be rerouted “away from populated and other sensitive areas.”

Several Richmond council members and community speakers expressed surprise that the switch to crude oil happened with no public notice. Andres Soto of Communities for a Better Environment said the “real culprit” was the staff of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which approved Kinder Morgan’s application to make this change without notifying the public or even the air district board members.

City councilmembers wrestled with the fact that the city has no jurisdiction over railroads — only the federal government can regulate them. But Juhasz and McLaughlin said a resolution by the city was important as part of a demand from many cities and organizations for more regulation of crude by rail.

The resolution called on federal legislators to move quickly to regulate the transportation of the new types of crude oil from Bakken shale and Canadian tar sands. Many speakers argued in favor of a moratorium on shipping crude by rail until adequate regulations were in place.

Meanwhile in Berkeley, another oil-industry expert, environmental engineer Phyllis Fox, described the plan to ship crude oil through the East Bay to Santa Maria — probably through Richmond, Berkeley, and Oakland — since these tracks are built to carry heavy trains. She projected a map showing that rail lines in California parallel rivers and go through the most populated areas, so accidents would be “disastrous.”

Information released about the plan doesn’t reveal the source of the crude oil, but Fox said the two main kinds of crude oil being shipped by rail are from Bakken shale — oil that is highly volatile and prone to explosion — and Canadian tar sands — very heavy oil that is especially toxic and difficult to clean up. “One catastrophic event,” Fox said, “could cause irreversible harm.”

Other sources have pointed out that the Phillips 66 refinery in San Luis Obispo County is geared to refining heavy crude oil, so it’s most likely that the crude headed to that plant would come from the Canadian tar sands.

Many speakers in the public comment period supported the resolution, including residents of Crockett/Rodeo and Martinez, who are waging similar battles in their communities. Speakers pointed out a wide range of problems with shipping crude by rail in addition to the immediate danger. In a pre-meeting rally in support of the resolution, Mayor Tom Bates said the issues “go beyond the danger to our community to our whole carbon future. If we don’t get off fossil fuel we’re all doomed.”

The resolution commits Berkeley to file comments opposing crude-by-rail projects in any draft permit-approval process, starting with the Santa Maria project; to file comments opposing new projects in the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo and the Valero refinery in Benicia; and to support the federal Department of Transportation in creating strict regulation of rail shipments of crude oil. In presenting the resolution, Maio also said Berkeley should form a coalition with other cities fighting crude-by-rail projects.