Benicia is being asked to make a huge decision regarding our health and safety by approving Valero’s Crude by Rail project, which would bring 100 carloads of crude oil into Benicia each day.
This crude could be the same that has been involved in explosive derailments all over the United States and Canada, including one incident that caused the death of 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. It could also be from the Canadian tar sands, which has proved impossible to clean up in a spill.
Our planning commission wisely determined that an Environmental Impact Report be done to evaluate this project. It is now our turn to weigh in on this important document. That seems a bit daunting since most of us have never heard of or read an environmental impact report. Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community will be holding a workshop on how the average person can read at comment on this report. The workshop runs on Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Benicia Library.
This project has enormous implications for our city, county and state. You have the opportunity to shape the decision.
Kathy Kerridge Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community
Repost from The Contra Costa Times [Editor: Significant quote for Benicia and others along the Union Pacific rail line: “Union Pacific Railroad Spokeswoman Liisa Lawson Stark said the company is not transporting any Bakken crude into the state, but it is bringing in other types of oil.” – RS]
California trying to catch up to dangers of crude oil shipped on railroads
By Doug Oakley, Oakland Tribune, 06/25/2014
BERKELEY — California agencies have very little authority to regulate a massive increase in crude oil shipments by rail, and only now are they realizing the magnitude of the potentially explosive situation, according to state officials speaking Wednesday at a workshop sponsored by the California Energy Commission.
“It’s a wake up call when you look at the projections,” said commission Chair Robert Weisenmiller. “We have to plan for the worst case.”
Only in the last month, thanks to an order by the U.S. Department of Transportation, have railroads begun to disclose to the state Office of Emergency Services shipments of 1million gallons or more of highly flammable Bakken crude oil. Before that happened May 7, nobody knew anything about the shipments or where they were going, Weisenmiller said.
The Valero Refinery is seen in Benicia, Calif. on Monday, May 6, 2013. The Bay Area’s five refineries have moved toward acquiring controversial Canadian tar sands crude through rail delivery. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)
Crude oil rail shipments have increased 506 percent in 2013 to 6.3 million barrels, according to a report by the state Interagency Rail Safety Working Group released June 10. That number could increase to 150 million barrels of oil in 2016, it said. Petroleum spills on railroads in California increased from 98 in 2010 to 182 in 2013, according to the Office of Emergency Services.
In California, crude goes by rail to the cities of Richmond, Sacramento, Bakersfield, Carson, Long Beach and Vernon, according to the energy commission.
The only thing state and local governments can do to try and prevent a catastrophic disaster is to enforce federal rules and prepare local first responders, officials said. The regulatory effort falls on the California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey.
“I’m not enthusiastic about having tens of thousands of tank cars running around California because accidents are inevitable,” Peevey said at the workshop. “There’s been a huge increase in volume and we have to step up our awareness and activities, in cooperation with the federal government, but the feds have the ultimate responsibility.”
The commission recently added seven rail safety inspectors who look at rail cars, railroad lines, bridges and shipping requirements, bringing the total to 59 inspectors statewide, which Peevey said was adequate for this year.
Peevey dismissed criticism that the PUC has been too easy on industry it is supposed to regulate, and assured the public it is up to the task.
“We’ve been pretty darn tough,” he said.
Weisenmiller said the state first needs to identify the areas most at risk for crashes and make sure the tracks are maintained. He acknowledged there is no way to prevent shipments from coming into the state, but the state can “get its act together and reach out to communities near rail lines and provide first responders with information and technical expertise,” so they can respond to an accident.
As the state tries to catch up and wrap its collective mind around the increased shipments, oil companies are attempting to add projects that would bring in more oil by rail.
Valero Refining Co. is planning on 100 cars per day to its Benicia facility by the first quarter of 2015; West Pac Energy is planning 70 cars per day to a facility in Pittsburg; Phillips 66 is planning a crude-by-rail project in Santa Maria that could bring shipments through the Bay Area; Alon USA is planning 200 cars a day in Bakersfield and Plains All American is planning for 200 cars a day in Bakersfield, according to the Oil by Rail Safety in California report.
Union Pacific Railroad Spokeswoman Liisa Lawson Stark said the company is not transporting any Bakken crude into the state, but it is bringing in other types of oil.
But Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway is bringing in nine full train loads of Bakken per month into California, said spokeswoman LaDonna DiCamillo. She did not know how many tank cars each train has or what the actual volume is.
Lawson Stark said that even though railroads are now required to report shipments of the highly flammable Bakken crude oil to the Office of Emergency Services, the information most likely will not be available to the public. A spokesman for the office did not immediately return phone calls.
Repost from The Riverside Press Enterprise [Editor: This Southern California newspaper regrets that rail routing information about its Inland Area has so far not been made available to first responders or the public. Significant quote: “So far the Office of Emergency Services has received two letters from BNSF Railway, dated June 6 and 13, which say that one train carrying plains crude went through Sacramento County and eight other counties during the week of June 5 to 11, and none entered California during the previous week….Union Pacific submitted a letter May 29 to the state office, saying the company was ‘compiling and reviewing the data.’” – RS]
California wants details on crude oil shipments by railroad
It’s unclear whether any oil trains have passed through the Inland area, but officials want to know so they can plan for possible accidents.
By David Danelski, June 26, 2014
A BNSF Railway train hauls crude oil near Wolf Point, Mont. Montana officials intend to release details next week on oil trains passing through the state despite efforts by railroads to keep the information from the public. FILE PHOTO: MATT BROWN , AP
Disclosures from railroad companies about volatile crude oil shipments from the Northern Plains are starting to be made public after the Obama administration last month ordered that such information be shared with states.
But so far only a trickle of details about the dangerous cargo has been shared with California’s emergency response agency. Initial information from one railroad showed that some of the oil has been shipped into Northern California.
“We are working with them to provide more information so our first responders can better prepare for accidents and derailments,” said Kelly Huston, a spokesman for the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
It remains unclear whether any of the shipments of crude oil have passed through the Inland area
So far the Office of Emergency Services has received two letters from BNSF Railway, dated June 6 and 13, which say that one train carrying plains crude went through Sacramento County and eight other counties during the week of June 5 to 11, and none entered California during the previous week.
Union Pacific submitted a letter May 29 to the state office, saying the company was “compiling and reviewing the data.”
BNSF Railway spokeswoman Roxanne Butler said her company is complying with the federal order, which pertains only to crude shipments since May that have come from the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana.
Most of the crude oil coming into California by rail is from Canada, according to 2013 state data.
Butler added that the railroad industry is sponsoring emergency response training in Colorado this summer for firefighters and other professionals who may have to deal with accidents involving trains hauling crude oil. Numerous emergency responders in California have signed up to participate, she said.
Railroad officials in the past have carefully guarded information about about toxic cargo shipments, including times and routes of tank cars loaded with potentially deadly chlorine and ammonia gases, citing security concerns. Such shipments routinely pass by Inland homes, schools and businesses.
In its two letters to the state, BNSF reiterated that crude oil shipment data should kept confidential and released only to “those people with a need to know.”
Huston said state attorneys determined that the BNSF information could be released to the public.
The letters were in response to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx’s order last month requiring the nation’s railroads to provide states with information about crude shipments from the oil fields in the Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana.
Crude oil from shale rock formations below the plains has been involved in most of the major rail accidents as the crude-by-rail industry rapidly expanded in the past several years, The Associated Press reported.
The AP learned this week from public records requests that dozens of the trains are passing weekly through Illinois and the Midwest and up to 19 a week are reaching Washington state.
Repost from Market News Call [Editor: Market News call is “a daily market news monitor providing insight, briefs earnings and market news.” I find it interesting and somewhat encouraging that investors are highly interested in Valero’s Crude By Rail Draft EIR. – RS]
Just In: Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE:VLO)
By Michael Aragon • June 25, 2014
Valero Energy Corporation(NYSE:VLO)’s plan to unload as many as 70,000 barrels of oil a day from trains at its Benicia refinery will increase emissions across California in a “significant and unavoidable” way, a city report shows.
Valero has applied to build a rail-offloading rack at the plant northeast of San Francisco that would take oil from as many as 100 tanker cars a day. The San Antonio-based company delayed the project’s completion by a year to early 2015 as it awaits approval from the city.
“Project-related trains would generate locomotive emissions in the Bay Area Basin, the Sacramento Basin, and other locations in North America,” the city of Benicia said in an environmental assessment posted on its website today. “The city has no jurisdiction to impose any emission controls on the tanker car locomotives; therefore, there is no feasible mitigation available to reduce this significant impact to a less-than-significant level.”
Valero is proposing the rail spur as record volumes of oil are extracted from North American shale formations that the U.S. West Coast has little pipeline access to. California’s refiners are already bringing in the biggest-ever volumes of oil by rail as they seek to displace shrinking supplies of crude within the state and from Alaska.
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