Several local refinery permits and associated Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs) are currently pending approval. For instance, Westpac in Pittsburg wants to receive, store and distribute explosive Bakken and toxic tar sands crude-by-rail at an old PG&E tank farm right next to homes and schools.
The Valero refinery in Benicia wants to bring to town daily 100 car unit trains of the same. Phillips 66 seeks to increase their volatiles storage and transportation in Rodeo and also enormously expand crude-by-rail traffic through our rail corridor to feed their San Luis Obispo facility. Finally, Shell wants to revamp the Martinez refinery to process lighter, sweeter crudes like Bakken. They will ship crude by rail from North Dakota to Bakersfield then by pipeline to Martinez, or by rail from North Dakota to a Washington State marine terminal that will load tankers bound for Martinez. Other plans are in the works.
So the debates ensue. I’d like to frame the discussions in a different context.
A common way to compare corporate apples to country oranges is by looking at corporate revenues as compared to national gross domestic product (GDP). According to the Fortune 500, the combined parent corporate revenues of the five major refiners in this area – Valero, Chevron, Shell, Phillips 66 and Tesoro – was $1.1 trillion in 2013. That ranked them 16th of 187 countries in the world in GDP according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). If California was a country it would be 8th in the world, at over $2 trillion. You might imagine that the economic power of Contra Costa County and Martinez ranked somewhat lower.
So, Mr. Big Oil, would you say we have a level playing field?
At public hearings, you have Power Point presentations. We have pieces of paper.
You meet in corporate back rooms. We meet in neighborhood back yards.
You have professional political operatives. We operate with volunteer political naiveté.
You sponsor political junkets and infomercials. We do flyers and lawn signs.
You have a PR budget. We pass the hat for printing.
You have PACs. We have potlucks.
According to Citizens United and the Supreme Court, we are equal. I think not.
The EIR process, despite the original best of intentions, is skewed in your favor.
You get to frame the discussion with the help of consultants, lobbyists and lawyers. Fly in whomever you need. Your political relationships are built on bucks, your policies on billions.
Your vast assets steer the political discourse, whether through direct political contributions, lobbying to de-fund government oversight and regulation, or by endowing non-think-tanks and pseudo-public forums that aim to skew legitimate science towards your view.
Our interests are more than what you narrowly consider to be of public concern. We value social, ethical, moral, esthetic, environmental, family, property, public health and safety issues that go beyond your narrow economic focus.
We live here.
So who gets to call the shots?
The trains, or the towns the trains run through? The refiners and oil producers, or the communities in their midst?
Who should pay for oil industry impacts? The locals that bear the brunt, or the producers that reap the billions?
I’m sorry, but if we don’t like your proposals, as local residents/citizens, we have a right to reject them. We have to work hard to overcome your advantage, but … the Supreme Court has spoken, Mr. Citizens United. You get your vote, we get the rest.
(If you want to stay updated on these issues and learn how to get involved, please go to http://mrtenvgrp.com/category/meetings).
Crude-oil trains through Davis: It’s time for action
By Lynne Nittler | June 08, 2014
Tank cars carrying crude oil roll through downtown Davis as paradegoers gather on Picnic Day in April. Richard McAdam/Courtesy photo
I’m proud of our city. The Davis City Council took on crude-by-rail transport through our community, just as I have seen it tackle other difficult issues — with the willingness to look beneath the surface, find out what is important and then figure out what to do.
I’m sure the council members would have preferred shrugging off the crude-by-rail problem, leaving it for the federal government to handle, but we citizens pressed them, and to their credit, they became regional leaders.
The problem: The issue isn’t abstract for Davis. If two proposals are approved down-rail from us, we soon could be seeing 180 tank cars coming right through our town every day, carrying the highly volatile North Dakota Bakken crude oil in the older, unsafe DOT111 cars.
A proposed rail terminal at the Benicia Valero refinery would bring 70,000 barrels a day, which equals a train of 100 cars, and a proposed rail spur at the Phillips 66 Santa Maria refinery in San Luis Obispo County would bring another 80 cars per day through Davis on the Capitol Corridor route.
When a group of local citizens approached the Davis Natural Resources Commission in January with our concerns, we found a receptive audience. Those concerns are numerous: unsafe tank cars prone to rupture, uninspected rails, the nature of volatile crude oil and dirty tar sands, oil train exclusion from the right-to-know laws, substantially increased numbers of serious oil train accidents and spills, and skyrocketing projections for the number of oil trains entering California.
The commission elevated the citizen recommendations to the City Council.
City goals: The council listened, and noted that Spokane, Bellingham and Seattle, Washington, and, more recently, Berkeley and Richmond, had all passed resolutions protesting crude-by-rail transport through their cities. They assigned staff to prepare a report and later adopted broad goals including to:
* Actively participate in regional planning activities;
* Assure top-quality fire, police, emergency and other services to promote the health, safety and well-being of all residents and neighborhoods; and
* Create and maintain an environment that promotes safety and well-being.
Based on these goals, on Earth Day, April 22, the Davis City Council took a strong stand and adopted Resolution 14 opposing transportation of crude oil through the city of Davis and adjacent habitat, thus including the Yolo Causeway with its trestle tracks. It is well worth reading the whole document, posted at www.yolanoclimateaction.org or at www.cityofdavis.org under the City Council agenda for April 22. Other cities and counties in our region have requested copies of the Davis resolution as they prepare their own.
Leading the region: Meanwhile, Mike Webb, the staff member assigned to research crude-by-rail, along with City Attorney Harriet Steiner, contacted neighboring jurisdictions of Sacramento, West Sacramento, Dixon and Yolo and Solano counties to alert them also to the dangers. Together, our staff convinced the Sacramento Area Council of Governments to hold a meeting on oil trains on April 17, and that group put the item on the agenda for the next full SACOG meeting.
The jurisdictions divided up the various tasks, mostly focused on public safety, but also on siding storage and getting more information/assistance from Union Pacific, the California Public Utilities Commission and even the refineries. The SACOG representatives who attended the Capital-to-Capital meetings in Washington, D.C., last month took our regional concerns directly to our California elected officials, Reps. Doris Matsui and John Garamendi.
Additionally, our city is pursuing with Union Pacific a high-sensitivity rail situation in Davis where there is a curve and also crossover switches, both requiring an unusual —and dangerous — slower speed of 10 mph.
Comments: The next step is an opportunity for cities and organizations to study the draft environmental impact report for the Valero Project, which will be released Tuesday for public review. Written comments are admitted to the record, and the report authors must respond to each comment, although similar comments may be grouped together. Those who respond have 45 days, probably extended to 60 to 90 days, to submit written comments.
The city of Davis isn’t waiting for the EIR release; it is already planning its comments and inviting neighboring jurisdictions to join them. SACOG members are working together now. We citizens can be grateful that our city is speaking up on behalf of our safety.
The city manager of Lynchburg, Virginia, did not even know that trains of Bakken oil were passing through his town. On April 30, 17 cars derailed and the ensuing flames shot up eight stories high while three cars leaked 25,000 gallons of crude into the James River, a source of drinking water. Fortunately, Davis is taking proactive steps to avert such accidents.
A number of environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Earth Justice, Oil Change International and others will be weighing in on the draft EIR as well, with sharply focused comments on safety, health, water and air contamination, and whatever other weaknesses or unmitigated concerns they find in the EIR.
Time for action! Democracy is, above all, about each of us voicing our concerns. Under the California Environmental Quality Act, the draft EIR provides every individual affected by a decision with a chance to be heard. Every comment letter becomes a part of the EIR document and receives a response in the final EIR.
Therefore, we have serious work to do to become informed about the impact of unit trains of crude oil passing through Davis and to read all or significant parts of the draft EIR document. The time we invest in expressing particular concerns could make a difference in terms of mitigations granted or possibly influence whether the Benicia Planning Commission, and ultimately the Benicia City Council, vote for or against the Valero rail project.
There is a helpful resources document posted for those who wish to read up on crude-by-rail transport at www.yolanoclimateaction.org
Yolano Climate Action will host a workshop on how to respond to a draft EIR, including an instructional PowerPoint presentation by Mike Webb plus tips and discussion on commentary topics for the Valero project DEIR, on Wednesday, June 18, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Davis Community Church Fellowship Hall, 421 D St.
Looking ahead: The draft EIR for the Santa Maria rail spur project is expected to be released in July, offering a second chance to use newly honed skills!
— Lynne Nittler is a Davis resident and environmental activist.
Repost from The Sacramento Bee [Editor: A MUST READ – excellent background piece. Note multiple references to uprail communities’ concerns about Valero’s Crude By Rail proposal. – RS]
Crude oil rail transports to run through Sacramento region
By Tony Bizjak, June 7, 2014
A crude oil train operated by BNSF travels just outside the Feather River Canyon in the foothills into the Sacramento Valley. Jake Miille / Special to The Bee
Sacramento’s history as a rail town is long and rich. A potential new chapter, however, is creating concern: The city may soon become a crude-oil crossroads.
As part of a national shift in shipping practices, several oil companies are laying plans to haul hundreds of train cars a day of flammable crude through the region on the way to coastal and Valley refineries, passing through neighborhoods and downtowns, and crossing the region’s two major rivers. Saying they’ve been told little about the transport projects, area leaders are scrambling to gather information so they can advocate for local safety interests as several of the rail shipment proposals move forward.
“This is a real issue,” Sacramento Rep. Doris Matsui said this week after holding a recent conference call with fire officials. “Sacramento’s downtown and many neighborhoods sit next to the tracks. The feedback I received on that call is that our locals are not receiving the information they need to be ready for an incident.”
Several of the planned crude-oil trains will share tracks with Capitol Corridor passenger trains. Notably, Capitol Corridor chief David Kutrosky said last week he was not aware of the plans until informed by The Sacramento Bee.
Some of the trains are expected to carry Bakken crude, a North Dakota oil mined with fracking technology. Federal hazardous materials officials recently issued a warning that Bakken crude may be more flammable than traditional oil, citing derailments that resulted in fires, including a catastrophic explosion last year that killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, and leveled half of that city’s downtown.
Subsequent derailments in North Dakota and Virginia, though not fatal, caused fires and evacuations and showed disaster could strike again.
Kirk Trost, an attorney and executive with the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, a coalition of six counties and 22 Sacramento-area cities, said he will ask the SACOG board this month to issue a regional statement of concern about the potential rail projects. Trost and other local officials say they want to push oil and railroad companies to be more open about their plans and to work more closely with local leaders on safety issues.
“We’re not trying to stop the movement of crude through the region,” he said. “But if it comes, we want the safety interests of the region to be addressed.”
Those concerns are being echoed across the country as cities, many with downtown rail lines, react to the oil industry’s rapid evolution toward using trains to haul crude oil. The rail shipments spring from increased pumping of inexpensive crude in North Dakota and from tar sands in Canada, which have limited access to oil pipelines.
Federal officials are exploring the ramifications of having so much oil moving by train. The National Transportation Safety Board held April hearings highlighting the inadequacies of the nation’s current fleet of crude oil tank cars. The U.S. Department of Transportation says it plans to propose tougher standards for safer tank cars. Critics like Andres Soto of the activist Communities for a Better Environment group – who calls current crude tankers “rolling beer cans” – say the government isn’t doing enough.
California, with its coastal refineries and huge gasoline consumption, saw its rail shipments jump from 1 million barrels in 2012 to more than 6 million in 2013, according to the state Energy Commission. Those numbers still represent a small portion of crude oil shipments, but energy officials say they expect them to grow.
‘All flammable’
In response, the Governor’s Office has proposed more funding to deal with rail oil spills, and Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, is pushing legislation to require rail carriers to communicate information about the movement and characteristics of crude oil and other hazardous materials, and maintain a 24-hour, seven-day communications center.
Union Pacific railroad officials insist they’re taking action. They say the company has agreed to reduce crude oil train speeds in large cities such as Sacramento, and have spent millions of dollars on safety efforts, including expanded inspections and technology use, such as lasers and ultrasound, and real-time train tracking via track-side sensors.
“We take this very seriously,” UP spokesman Aaron Hunt said. Representatives of Union Pacific and BNSF, another major freight carrier in California, say they conduct ongoing training with local first responders on dealing with hazardous materials.
The railroads, however, are fighting to keep some train movement data from becoming public.
The Federal Department of Transportation issued an emergency order last month requiring railroads currently running trains with large amounts of Bakken oil to notify state emergency responders about train movements. That deadline is this weekend.
Railroads have said they want states to sign a nondisclosure agreement to keep the information confidential, shared only with emergency personnel. California state officials say they will not sign that agreement, but said Friday they do not know what level of information they may receive from the railroads, and are not sure how much information they would make public.
“We want to keep as much information as public as possible. Anything of concern to the public we want to be available to the public,” said Brad Alexander of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. “Since we haven’t received information yet, we don’t know if there is certain national infrastructure risks to (some of the information) being public.”
BNSF officials said on Friday they will submit information to the state. Union Pacific said it does not currently ship Bakken in the state.
Some information about potential future crude-oil rail movements is becoming public. Valero Refining Co. of Benicia in the East Bay plans to run 100 train cars a day carrying crude oil through Sacramento on the Union Pacific rail line starting early next year, according to Benicia city documents. Company officials have been silent on how much of it will be Bakken, simply saying it will be North American crude. Two 50-car crude oil trains will be assembled daily in the Roseville railyard, then run through Sacramento, West Sacramento and Davis to the refinery.
Valero spokesman Chris Howe said his company is focused on safety, and that derailments causing crude oil spills are rare. “We think some of the concerns voiced about transport of particular crudes by rail are a little exaggerated,” Howe said. “There is nothing inherently more dangerous about one crude than another. They are all flammable, and need to be handled carefully.”
He pointed out that the rail transport of less expensive oil from North America will save money and reduce the chance of ocean spills by allowing Valero to cut back dramatically on imports from Africa, the Middle East and South America.
Farther south in California, the Phillips 66 oil company plans to run up to 80 train cars of crude oil daily to its Santa Maria refinery, mainly through Sacramento and the Bay Area. Phillips spokesman Dennis Nuss said rail shipments will keep its refinery competitive as California oil sources diminish. He said the crude will come from a variety of locales, but is not expected to be Bakken. He estimated the trains likely will start running in 2016.
Roseville to Benicia
Two facilities in Kern County – one run by Alon USA, the other by Plains All American Pipeline LP – also plan rail upgrades to allow deliveries of more than 100 tank crude cars a day. Alon did not respond to Bee requests for information, but, according to Kern County environmental documents, trains to the Alon facility will share tracks with the San Joaquin passenger rail service, which runs from Sacramento to Bakersfield. Plains All American Pipeline spokesman Brad Leone confirmed that his company is building a station to handle 104 crude cars daily, with plans to start shipping later this year, but said he did not know what rail lines would be used.
Sacramento already is home to one crude-by-rail transfer station. Sacramento-based InterState Oil has been transferring crude-oil shipments from train cars to trucks headed to Bay Area refineries at the former McClellan Air Force Base in north Sacramento since last September. The company started crude transfers before getting the necessary air-quality permit, local air quality officials said, and Sacramento-area fire officials said they were not initially told about the crude transfer operations.
Local leaders in Sacramento, West Sacramento and Davis say their front-burner concern is Valero’s plan to run two crude oil trains a day through the area. The city of Benicia, the permitting authority for Valero’s plan to build a rail spur to handle more trains, is scheduled to release a draft environmental impact report on the project Tuesday. Trost of SACOG and Davis official Mike Webb said Sacramento area representatives will dig through that report to see how definitively it addresses potential impacts, including derailment and spill risks, on the “up-rail” cities and counties between Benicia and Roseville.
The Sacramento group already has compiled a list of steps it wants taken, and says it hopes to use the moment to make the case that railroads and oil companies must work more closely with cities as the stakes rise.
Trost said the local group will call for a detailed advanced notification system about what shipments are coming to town. Those notifications will help fire agencies who must respond if a leak or fire occurs. Local officials say they also will ask Union Pacific to keep crude-oil tank cars moving through town without stopping and parking them here. The region’s leaders also want financial support to train firefighters and other emergency responders on how to deal with crude oil spills, and possibly funds to buy more advanced firefighting equipment. Sacramento leaders say they will press the railroad to employ the best inspection protocols on the rail line.
So far, the Davis City Council is the only entity in Sacramento that has formally spoken out about the shipments. It recently passed a resolution saying the city “opposes using existing Union Pacific rail lines to transport hazardous crude oil through the city and adjacent habitat areas.”
Davis officials point out that the existing Union Pacific line comes through downtown on a curve that must be taken at reduced speeds. Mike Webb, Davis director of community development and sustainability, said the city of Davis wants to push UP to employ computerized control of train speeds through town, rather than rely on a conductor to reduce speeds manually.
“The city is not opposed to using domestic oil, and the job creation that goes with that,” he said. “We want to be reasonable. Our primary concern is to ensure the highest degree of safety for our community. If trains carrying Bakken crude oil are coming through our community, we want it to be done in the safest way possible.”
Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/2014/06/07/3378435/crude-oil-rail-transports-to-run.html#storylink=cpy
First, 47 people were killed and a town flattened last summer when a crude oil-filled freight train exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Then, as residents mourned the death and destruction, the railroad at fault declared bankruptcy, leaving the Canadian government holding a nearly $3 billion bill.
The Canadian tragedy has helped fuel a national cry on this side of the border for greater scrutiny of what has become a boom in crude oil rail transport. Capital Region residents need look no farther than the continual ring of tanker cars around downtown Albany for reason to worry that a disaster could happen here, and to wonder: If it does, who will be held responsible?
As we wait for the White House’s release of new federal rules regarding the railroads themselves, state Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, an Albany Democrat, has proposed that terminal operators also be required to have some responsibility in controlling this surge.
Since the Quebec disaster, at least eight significant accidents have occurred in North America, involving trains carrying either tar sands crude oil or Bakken crude oil, which is the source for the tankers bound for the Port of Albany. Ms. Fahy, pointing to the bankruptcy of the railroad company involved in the Lac-Megantic accident and the failure of its insurance to cover the billions in damage, suggests “terminal operators should put up enough financial security to cover expenses after something happens.”
That makes sense. In the same way General Electric is being held responsible to clean up PCBs from the Hudson River, the railroads and terminal operators profiting from crude oil transport should be required to invest in upgrades to safeguard against accidents, as well as surety for when an accident happens. This is a cost of doing dangerous business.
With Global Companies and Buckeye Partners seeing twofold increases in just a couple of years to 3 billion gallons of crude flowing through their terminals annually, and with railroad profits surging nearly 20 percent since 2009, these modern-day rail magnates can handle the expense.
Ms. Fahy’s bill would apply to all bulk storage facilities in the state that handle crude oil, and require financial security to meet all the responsibilities for cleanup and decontamination associated with any release of the oil.
She notes that, as freight railroads went from just 9,500 carloads of crude in 2008 to more than 434,000 carloads in 2013, the storage needs have increased accordingly.
According to the Times Union’s Brian Nearing, Lac-Megantic officials have estimated it will cost $2.7 billion to rebuild the shattered town, where more than 30 buildings were destroyed, and another $200 million to clean up oil-contaminated land, the sewer system and nearby bodies of water like the Chaudiere River.
We can’t let that happen here. Ms. Fahy’s bill is a step in the right direction.
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