Bakken Crude, Civil disobedience

Three arrested blockading train tracks in Pacific Northwest, protesting oil-by-rail expansion

Repost from Climate-Connections.org (Global Justice Ecology Project)

Three arrested blockading train tracks in Pacific Northwest, protesting oil-by-rail expansion

by Sara Sullivan | July 29, 2014
Three Seattle area resident blockade train tracks at the Tesoro’s Anacortes Refinery. Photo credit: @SeattleActivist
Three Seattle area resident blockade train tracks at the Tesoro’s Anacortes Refinery. Photo credit: @SeattleActivist

On Monday, July 28th, three locals locked themselves onto train tracks in Anacortes, Washington to protest oil-by-rail shipments.

The protesters blocked the tracks at an oil refinery owned by Tesoro, which is planning to expand.

They were particularly inspired to act after an train full of Bakken field crude oil headed to the Anacortes refinery derailed in Seattle last week, another in a series of such accidents that have been devastating throughout the US and Canada.

According to EcoWatch:

The protestors were demanding an immediate end to the shipment of Bakken oil through Northwest communities, all new oil-by-rail terminals proposed for the Northwest and Clean Air Act violations by oil refineries.

The protest lasted four hours and stopped one train. They were later arrested.

Two of the protesters are part of Rising Tide Seattle, including Ahmed Gaya.  At a recent protest, Gaya described the current expansion of fossil fuels and coastal refineries in the Pacific Northwest: “Our region is under attack from thousands of tank cars carrying bombs rolling through our communities.”

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, DOT-111, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), State regulation

Video documentary: Bomb Trains: The Crude Gamble of Oil by Rail

Repost from Vice News
 [Editor: The best-yet video on oil by rail – an excellent 23-minute documentary on the North American crisis in oil production and transport.  Primary coverage of dangers in the Pacific Northwest, but also giving an overview of the massive increase in Bakkan production, DOT-111 rail cars and industry lobbying against federal and local attempts to regulate.  Highly recommended.  To embed this video elsewhere go to its Youtube location.  – RS]

Bomb Trains: The Crude Gamble of Oil by Rail

It’s estimated that 9 million barrels of crude oil are moving over the rail lines of North America at any given moment. Oil trains charging through Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, and Canada’s Quebec, New Brunswick, and Alberta provinces have derailed and exploded, resulting in severe environmental damage and, in the case of Quebec, considerable human casualties.

A continental oil boom and lack of pipeline infrastructure have forced unprecedented amounts of oil onto US and Canadian railroads. With 43 times more oil being hauled along US rail lines in 2013 than in 2005, communities across North America are bracing for another catastrophe.

VICE News traveled to the Pacific Northwest to investigate the rapid expansion of oil-by-rail transport and speak with residents on the frontline of the battle over bomb trains.

Find out if you live in a “bomb train” blast zone here.

Blast zone, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Rail routing

Do You Live In A “Bomb Train” Blast Zone?

Repost from Vice News
[Editor: This excellent ForestEthics interactive map shows oil train routes throughout the U.S. & Canada.  Just click on the map – be sure to zoom in close enough to see your own street’s name!  Note that the map seems to have been updated to more accurately show the blast zone in and around the Valero Benicia refinery and the Benicia Bridge.  – RS]

Do You Live In A “Bomb Train” Blast Zone?

By Spencer Chumbley, July 28, 2014

It’s estimated that 9 million barrels of crude oil are moving over the rail lines of North America at any given moment. Oil trains charging through Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, and Canada’s Quebec, New Brunswick, and Alberta provinces have derailed and exploded, resulting in severe environmental damage and, in the case of Quebec, considerable human casualties.

The map below provides a striking visualization of where crude oil is traveling by rail throughout the United States and Canada. ForestEthics, the environmental group that created it, used industry data and reports from citizens who live near oil train routes to provide one of the first comprehensive visualizations of how many people are at risk from oil trains, and where.

The group estimates that some 25 million Americans live within the one-mile evacuation zone that the US Department of Transportation recommends in the event of an oil fire. Do you live in the blast zone of a bomb train?

Bomb Trains: The Crude Gamble of Oil by Rail. Watch our documentary here.

California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Crude By Rail, DEIR, Valero Benicia Refinery

Yolo County Board of Supervisors critical of Valero Draft EIR

[Editor: The Yolo County Board of Supervisors submitted an incredibly important letter to the City of Benicia critical of the Draft EIR for Valero Crude by Rail.  In their letter, the Board lays out the importance under California law of taking into account indirect impacts beyond those of the immediate project, including “upstream” communities along the rails in Placer, Sacramento, Yolo, Solano, and Contra Costa counties.  Benicia organizers offer profound thanks to our “uprail” neighbors whose health and safety concerns are also ours.  Below is a brief excerpt.  For the full document in PDF format, click here.  – RS]

Yolo County Board of Supervisors

July 15, 2014

VIA CERTIFIED MAIL AND E-MAIL

Amy Million, Principal Planner
Community Development Department
250 East L Street
Benicia, CA 94510

RE: Valero Benicia Crude by Rail

Dear Ms. Million:

Yolo County has reviewed the City of Benicia’s Draft Environmental Impact Report (“DEIR”) related to the project at the Valero Oil Refinery that would result in the daily delivery of 70,000 barrels of oil by rail to the Refinery (the “Valero Project”). The Valero Project would move approximately 80% of Valero’s crude deliveries from ocean tankers to railways that traverse through our local communities and sensitive environmental resources.  Notwithstanding the change in where the oil is traveling, the DEIR pays little attention to the potential upstream effects of increased oil by rail shipments through Placer, Sacramento, Yolo, Solano, and Contra Costa counties.

As discussed below, the DEIR provides only a brief review of the environmental, safety, and noise effects on upstream communities. This DEIR justifies this cursory analysis because the effects are “indirect” and not in the Project’s immediate vicinity.  […continued…]