All posts by Roger Straw

Editor, owner, publisher of The Benicia Independent

Coke dust, CPC-1232 standard, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, DOT-117, Explosion, Mosier OR, Petroleum Coke (Petcoke), Rail defect, Rail infrastructure, Tank car design, Tank car retrofit, Track geometry, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

BENICIA HERALD: City Council hears public comments on crude by rail

July 7, 2016 Roger Straw

Repost from the Benicia Herald Online
[Editor: For Tuesday’s comments on Valero Crude By Rail by Marilyn Bardet and Planning Commissioner and City Council candidate Steve Young, skip down to the red bullet. – RS]

Council hears about crude by rail, water infrastructure and EMS costs Tuesday

By Elizabeth Warnimont, July 7, 2016

At its regular meeting Tuesday, Benicia City Council had a busy meeting with lots of activity. First, the Council recognized the Parks and Community Services Department with a proclamation declaring July, 2016 as “Parks Make Life Better Month,” in conjunction with the statewide designation. Parks, Recreation and Cemetery Commission member Rich Payne accepted the proclamation from Mayor Elizabeth Patterson and the City Council.

The Council also confirmed Johanna Ely as Benicia’s sixth poet laureate. Ely spoke briefly about the activities and aims of the laureate program and read a selection of poetry including one titled, “Ode to the Library.”

The final item preceding the council’s consent calendar was a presentation by Assistant Public Works Director Christian Di Renzo on advanced metering infrastructure. Di Renzo provided an overview of the systems currently being considered by the city, outlined the benefits of acquiring a new, electronic metering system, and answered questions posed by the council and a member of the public.

• Public comment

During the public comment period, Marilyn Bardet showed the council photos of both the aftermath of the recent Mosier, Ore. train derailment and explosion as well as some of the Union Pacific track and refuse currently visible in Benicia that she felt were of concern. One photo showed piles of black powder that Bardet referred to as coke dust that has spilled from hopper cars on railroad tracks near Bayshore Road in Benicia, and one showed warped track rail near the trestle towers, among other photos of concern. Bardet pointed out that the discarded railroad ties in one photo presented a fire hazard due to their creosote content.

Bardet suggested that these items be considered for remediation.

Benicia Planning Commissioner Steve Young, candidate for Benicia City Council

Benicia Planning Commissioner Steve Young also addressed the Council, as a resident, about the June 23 preliminary findings concerning the recent Oregon crude oil train derailment.

The Federal Railroad Administration report is titled, “Preliminary Factual Findings Report, Derailment of Union Pacific’s Unit Crude Oil Train Transporting Bakken Crude Oil for U.S. Oil, Mosier, Oregon.” Young read from the report’s executive summary. A complete copy of the report is available at the city of Benicia website at ci.benicia.ca.us.

The involved, Dot-111 tank cars, modified to 1232 standards, were equipped with full height head shields and metal jackets with insulation. These cars are commonly referred to as jacketed 1232s. During the derailment, a coupler struck one car, mechanically puncturing it. This puncture allowed crude oil to come in contact with an ignition source, leading to a fire that burned for approximately 14 hours.

The four cars involved in the fire were the punctured car and three additional tank cars, two that had their bottom outlet valves sheared off by the derailment and one car with the gasket melted out from under the manway cover.

The Valero proposal, Young pointed out, calls for the use of non-jacketed 1232 cars. These have no full-height head shields and no jackets with insulation. Another concern is the bottom release valves, a common source of ignition in derailment incidents. These valves shear off, causing a leak and then the subsequent fire. The more advanced tank cars have the valve located on top.

Young reminded the Council that Valero is proposing to buy or lease these tank cars. If safety is truly Valero’s first priority, he suggested, then the added expense of choosing safer cars would certainly seem to be worth any added expense. He asked that the Council consider these issues when it addresses the proposal again in September. He added that an even safer car, the Dot-117, will be required by federal law by the year 2020, and suggested that again, in the interest of safety, Valero might consider opting for that model.

SONET
The Council approved a resolution to accept a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Solano County Sheriff’s Office regarding the Benicia Police Department hiring of a full time Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Enforcement Team (SONET) officer, who would report to the SONET sergeant. The officer’s salary would be provided by the sheriff’s office. A resolution approving the MOU was approved by unanimous vote.

First responder fee overview
Benicia Fire Chief Jim Lydon presented the Council with a report on the option for the fire department to begin assessing fees for services provided by its Emergency Medical Services (EMS) team. The department would collect insurance coverage information from patients at the point of service and hand them a notice stating that they would be contacting their insurance companies on their behalf.

Chief Lydon emphasized that the department would utilize compassionate billing, which means that the insurance portion of any incurred costs would be considered payment in full, and that fees would only be assessed for services and not for transportation, which is currently provided by an outside ambulance company. He also noted that no patients would be billed directly from the fire department, regardless of their insurance coverage status.

Councilmember Tom Campbell expressed concern over the legality of the compassionate billing procedure and Chief Lydon agreed to investigate that topic further, though he noted that Bay Area cities already following that procedure have not yet encountered problems, to his knowledge.

The presentation was intended to be strictly informational. The fire department desired direction from council as to whether or not to pursue the idea, and council indicated that they should proceed.

PG&E exit fees
Councilmember Alan Schwartzman provided the Council with some information pertaining to a proposal to submit a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) regarding the Power Charge Indifference Adjustment (PCIA) fee, essentially an exit fee, charged by Pacific Gas & Electric to customers who have switched to Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) providers such as Marin Clean Energy (MCE).

Schwartzman, an MCE board member as it happens, began by reading from the staff report accompanying the City Council agenda, a complete copy of which is available by visiting the city of Benicia web site under Agendas and Minutes, or by calling the city at 746-4200. Schwartzman’s reading is paraphrased here:

MCE has requested that the city of Benicia submit a letter to the CPUC regarding the PCIA charge increase. The CPUC has consistently denied adequate public input to discuss the fee. Earlier this year, PG&E increased this fee by 95 percent. The proposed letter asks the CPUC to provide a venue for public input. The charge is assessed by PG&E on a per-kilowatt basis to cover power generation costs acquired prior to a customer’s change in service provider.

Schwartzman explained that PG&E procures energy based on anticipated need, so that when customers switch away from PG&E, the company is left with the cost burden of the energy it has already acquired, without corresponding reimbursement from customers.

The CPUC approved the increases at a public meeting, but without allowing CCAs access to the data they would need in order to effectively predict the amount of the fee, information which they would like to be able to pass along to their customers. All CCAs are currently working with the CPUC and Investor-Owned Utilities (IOUs), in order to inform customers how the PCIA fees are calculated and to remain cost competitive.

MCE is asking the city of Benicia to request that the CPUC allow a workshop for public input in order to fairly deal with the PCIA fee.

A motion to approve the submittal of the letter was approved by unanimous vote.

More information
A complete copy of the meeting agenda is available at the city of Benicia website at ci.benicia.ca.us or by calling the city at 746-4200. Minutes of the meeting are typically available about two weeks after the date of the meeting. The next City Council meeting will take place Tuesday, July 19 at Council Chambers, City Hall, 250 East L St., beginning at 7 p.m.

Bakken Crude, Bomb Trains, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Public protest, Take Action

To Stop ‘Bomb Trains,’ I Honeymooned in Jail

July 7, 2016 Roger Straw

Repost from OtherWords (in the Benicia Herald on 7/7/16)

To Stop ‘Bomb Trains,’ I Honeymooned in Jail

With one tiny loose bolt, oil trains can erupt into an inferno, scorching everything for miles.

By Daphne Wysham, July 6, 2016

It was a few days after my wedding. I was supposed to be honeymooning at a nearby winery with my newly minted husband, celebrating our unlikely marriage at age 55.

Instead, I was sitting on the railroad tracks in the pouring rain. Along with 20 other brave souls, some weeping, some singing, I was facing down a locomotive in a town — Vancouver, Washington — that many fear will be forced to accept the largest oil-by-rail terminal in the country.

Why would anyone do something like that?

Because a few short days before, we’d watched in horror as a mile-long train filled with Bakken crude derailed in Mosier, Oregon and burst into towering flames.

We call these oil trains “bomb trains” because we know, with one tiny loose bolt, they can erupt into an inferno, scorching everything for miles. It happened in Lac-Megantic, Canada in 2013. Forty-seven people were killed in a matter of minutes, the town leveled when a train’s brakes failed.

mosier-train-oil-protest — Mosier oil train protest (Photo: Deva 2016)

In the aftermath of the Mosier derailment, local fire chief Jim Appleton, who was originally unwilling to condemn oil trains, was beginning to sound more and more like one of us: “I think it’s insane” to ship oil by rail, he told a reporter. “Shareholder value doesn’t outweigh the lives and happiness of our community.”

And yet shareholder value is outweighing the lives and happiness of communities all over the world. I live in the “blast zone” less than a mile from tracks that ply this dangerous cargo here in the Pacific Northwest. And millions of people, most of them on the other side of the world, are already feeling the heat.

More bomb trains, after all, mean more climate change. Rising temperatures mean dangerous weather patterns, like the floods that recently killed hundreds in Pakistan and China.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil, whose scientists knew as early as the 1960s that catastrophic climate change would ensue if they didn’t change course, has invested in climate denial in order to maximize their shareholder value, counting on us to not connect the dots.

I grew up in India. I can see the faces of friends and loved ones on Facebook enduring record heat and flooding there. So if the trains wouldn’t stop coming, I figured, I’d put my body on the line in Vancouver. If I went to jail, I hoped my husband would forgive me for skipping out on our first big date as newlyweds.

The riot police were beginning to gather, and the railroad’s private police were issuing their warnings while hundreds chanted nearby. Not wanting to lose valuables in jail, I gave my wallet, cell phone, and wedding ring to a friend.

Then they hauled us off, one by one, in plastic handcuffs like tiny angel’s wings behind each protestor’s back. They put the 13 women — as young as 21 and as old as 85 — in one cell and the eight men in the other.

Seven hours later, as we were released from our windowless cage into the beautiful summer evening, I felt an unspeakable gratitude to my cellmates and those who awaited us outside.

Should we go to trial, many of us will be arguing we did this out of necessity, in order to prevent a far greater looming evil — of being incinerated in our sleep, of doing nothing to stop this deadly fossil fuel cargo while hundreds of thousands of people die each year from floods, disease, malnutrition, and heat stress due to climate change.

Call me crazy, but we might just win this one. And in so doing, we’ll send a very strong message to the oil companies that threaten us all that they must end this madness.

Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Oil trains, Stop Oil Trains Week of Action #StopOilTrains, Take Action, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Protesters Rally in Sacramento Against Crude Oil Trains

July 7, 2016 Roger Straw

Repost from Fox 40, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto

Protesters Rally in Sacramento Against Crude Oil Trains

By DOUG JOHNSON, JULY 6, 2016 UPDATED AT 11:06PM

SACRAMENTO — Three years ago Wednesday, 47 people were killed when a train carrying crude oil derailed in a small town in Quebec, Canada. On this tragic anniversary, dozens in Sacramento rallied to protest against oil trains traveling through Northern California.

A group of activists, the Sacramento Oil Trains Coalition, is concerned about the new type of oil that is now traveling the lines.

“We’re talking about bringing in this Bakken crude or the Canadian tar sands, it’s very volatile explosive crude oil, we don’t need that here in Sacramento,” said Chris Brown, the organizer of Wednesday’s event.

It’s the same type of oil that exploded during a derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people July 6, 2013. Members of the Sacramento Oil Trains Coalition read the names of the victims at Wednesday’s protest.

“I was very surprised that this was happening in my own backyard,” said protester Valerie Williams who lives in South Sacramento.

The last several years, Union Pacific said crude oil has been passing by Sacramento, heading south to a transfer station outside Bakersfield and also heading west to refineries in Richmond. And the Valero Refining company has applied to run two trains daily through Sacramento to its plant in Benicia. There the city planning commission voted down Valero’s request in February, but the refinery has appealed the decision.

“We don’t need this particular kind of crude with all of its hazards added to what we already have, we need to be figuring out how to get rid of what we have, not add more to it,” Brown said.

Despite its recent derailment in Oregon, Union Pacific said its record speaks for itself.

“Our safety and statistics specifically with crude oil has a 99.9% of the time making it from its origination to its destination without incident,” said Justin Jacobs, a spokesperson for Union Pacific.

Jacobs said his company cannot release the exact amount of crude oil it transports through Sacramento.

“As far as train schedules, and what’s on it, and those type of things, yeah, for security reasons, we don’t release specific information,” Jacobs said.

Valero has said in the past that their carbon footprint is actually larger now transporting that crude oil by tanker over sea than it would be by train over land.

Crude By Rail, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Surface Transportation Board, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

CSX letter supports federal pre-emption of local regulation, including authority over non-rail-related permits

July 5, 2016 Roger Straw

By Roger Straw, July 5, 2016

CSX Railroad files letter with STB in support of Valero Crude by Rail

On July 1, the City of Benicia received a copy of a letter from CSX` Railroad to the DOT’s Surface Transportation Board (STB). The letter, released to the public today, supports Valero Refinery’s request for an STB declaratory order which would address the permitting authority of local and state governments over projects on non-railroad properties when a project involves transport of goods by rail.

CSX is the 3rd largest railroad in North America, after Union Pacific and BNSF. The CSX letter exposes their vested interest in the matter:

The ICC Termination Act (“ICCTA”) was passed to “prevent a patchwork of local regulation from interfering with interstate commerce.”…But state and local governments are now testing the scope of ICCTA preemption with rules, permitting conditions, or other actions that indirectly affect railroads. While indirect, this practice still has the effect of creating a patchwork of inconsistent and disruptive regulation.

Note CSX’ clear reference to indirect regulation. As Benicia Planning Commissioner Steve Young, environmental attorneys and others have pointed out, federal preemption of indirect regulation is an untested point of law.

Valero is not a railroad, and its proposed crude oil offloading rack is on Valero property within the City of Benicia. Valero, Union Pacific, CSX, Tesoro, along with other rail and oil industry activists and their allies want to extend their power to limit local and state authority. This is unprecedented. The City of Benicia has every right – and responsibility – under its police and permitting powers to regulate land use on behalf of its citizens’ health and safety.

Note that in petitioning the STB, CSX, like Valero and the others, makes absolutely no reference to, nor shows any interest in the health and safety of California’s wildlands or communities. This is all about the freedom of big business to do as it likes in pursuit of profit.

By petitioning the STB, Valero has thrust the City of Benicia squarely into what will surely become a litigated test case, perhaps rising all the way to the US Supreme Court. Benicia’s staff and tax-supported finances will suffer years of time, effort and expense.

Benicia’s City Council can steer clear of this mess by denying the permit for Valero’s proposed project based on the many non-rail-related, local environmental impacts that have been brought to light in the last 3 years’ review.