Air Quality, Air quality violations, Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, Contra Costa County, Flaring, Industrial Safety Ordinance (ISO), Keeping Watch on Earth News, Solano County CA, Valero Benicia Refinery

SF Chronicle editorial: On Benicia Refinery Safety

Repost from the San Francisco Chronicle

Clear the air

Chronicle Editorial Board, March 25, 2019 6:37 p.m.
FILE — In this July 12, 2017 file photo Valero Benicia Refinery in Benicia, Calif. Hundreds of bills await action by California lawmakers as the Legislature begins the last week of business this year. Among the issues include how to divvy up money from the cap-and-trade law, which puts a price on carbon emitted by polluters, including oil refineries like the Valero Benicia Refinery. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, file)

Benicia residents with respiratory ailments were warned to stay indoors for five hours Sunday because the Valero Refinery was filling the air with heavy smoke. The warning was lifted when Valero announced it was temporarily shutting down the refinery process.

Now the mayor has renewed her call to pass a Benicia industrial safety ordinance similar to the one that has guided refinery operations in Contra Costa County for decades. For the sake of clean air for all, the Benicia City Council should do so.

Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson first sought a city safety ordinance after a May 5, 2017, power outage sent flames roaring from the refinery’s stacks and spread pollution into the air, prompting shelter-in-place and evacuation orders for the community of 28,000. Within weeks of that event, Valero was fined by regional regulators, and two state agencies and Solano County adopted regulations modeled on the Contra Costa County ordinance.

The Benicia City Council, however, voted 3-2 to monitor implementation of the county’s new ordinance rather than adopt its own. Now Patterson is trying again.

She has suggested the council seek third-party review of the draft ordinance, which would require refinery reports be shared with Benicia, not just the state and county, and include a way to collect fees to cover the city’s costs of review.

While air quality is an ongoing community concern, the refinery’s latest problem began two weeks ago and so far has netted Valero seven violations from regulators. A third of Benicians have respiratory ailments — three times higher than the state average. For them, emissions are a health concern.

“There’s a saying,” Patterson said. “You either have a seat at the table or you’re on the menu.”

City of Benicia, Local Regulation, Local vigilance

Important Benicia meeting – Goal-setting needs YOUR voice!

March 25, 2019 – Notice from the City of Benicia

Benicia City Council Special Goal-Setting Meeting
has been scheduled for
March 29 & 30, 2019.

You may view the full agenda for Friday,
March 29 HERE.
You may view the full agenda for Saturday,
March 30 HERE.

The City Council Meeting will be held
Friday, March 29, 2019
at 12:00 PM
and Saturday, March 30, 2019
at 9:00 AM
City of Benicia Library, Dona Benicia Room
150 East “L” Street
Benicia, CA 94510

 

Gun control, Gun violence

Parkland mourns 2 student suicides a year after Stoneman Douglas shooting. Now parents are urged to be alert

Repost from CNN

By Kaylee Hartung, Susannah Cullinane and Holly Yan, March 25, 2019 10:37 AM ET

The grief that still envelops Parkland after last year’s school massacre is now compounded by the recent suicides of current or former students.

Community leaders are urging parents everywhere to be vigilant and proactive in talking to their kids about trauma.

Parkland school shooting survivior dies by suicideSydney Aiello, a 2018 graduate of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, died by suicide last week. She survived the attack on Valentine’s Day 2018 that killed 17 people at the Florida school — including 14 students and three staff members.

Aiello, a Florida Atlantic University student, suffered from survivor’s guilt and had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, her mom told CNN affiliate WFOR.
Then on Saturday, more tragedy struck Parkland when a second student died in what police describe as “an apparent suicide.”
The student, who has not been publicly identified, was a student at Stoneman Douglas High. It’s not clear under what circumstances the student died, or whether the apparent suicide was related to last year’s massacre.

Parents: ‘We have to take this seriously’

“Unfortunately, what we’ve learned is that the survivors of a traumatic event like a school shooting carry with them a lot of guilt, anxiety, pressures, depression even,” said Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina Petty was killed in last year’s shooting.

Study: More US school-age children die from guns than on-duty US police or global military deaths

Petty, who has another child who survived the attack, established the WalkUp Foundation after the shooting with a focus on preventing suicide.
“We just have to assume as a parent that your child is not immune for that. Your child is at risk, and you need to take that seriously,” he said.
Petty said the school district, community leaders, law enforcement and concerned parents met Sunday to discuss how to address the trauma survivors are facing.
“Even if everything appears to be OK, you need to take that seriously,” he said. “You need to ask them the questions. Have you thought about killing yourself? Have you thought about ways you might do that?”
How to get help for someone who might be suicidal
Petty said students had been offered resources after the shooting, including counseling options. But he said sometimes there are stigmas associated with getting help, or that students just pretended that they were OK.
“So unfortunately some students are not availing themselves of those opportunities, and some parents are not understanding that the risks of anxiety and depression in a post-traumatic environment like a school shooting,” Petty said.
“So our message is parents we have to take this seriously. We have to take this into our own hands. … Regardless of your proximity to the building and whether or not you saw the horrific events of that day that took 17 lives and injured 17 others, you’re part of a school community and that community is suffering.”

The power of peer-to-peer communication

Cindy Arenberg Seltzer, the president of Children’s Services Council of Broward County, also attended Sunday’s meeting.
1 year after Parkland, parents and teachers are still grieving. These are their stories
“One of the things that I have heard parents and children say is that nobody cares, and they just want us to get on with our lives. And I really want them to know that that’s not true,” she said.
“I just left a room full of 60 people who came on a moment’s notice on a Sunday afternoon to show how much they care.”
She said that peer-to-peer communication could be a powerful tool, as teenagers might not turn to their parents as a first resource.
“We want to harness the power of the young people to speak to each other,” she said. That may include using Instagram, Snapchat or any other method that could “yield huge benefits.”

MSD students use their experience to help others

In an example of such networking, MSD students have themselves been reaching out beyond their own community to help other people experiencing trauma.
Parkland students comfort families in Nwe Zealand
Survivors began a letter-writing campaign last week to help heal families and communities affected by the March 15 shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The Parkland students grew connected to the Christchurch community when they visited New Zealand last July on a learning and healing trip.
“We got letters after our tragedy. That was something that really surprised us,” said Kai Koerber, a Stoneman Douglas senior who went on last year’s trip.
“It’s something that really warmed the hearts of people in my community. I think it will warm the hearts of people in Christchurch as well.”
If you or someone you know might be at risk of suicide, here’s how to get help: In the US, call theNational Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide also can provide contact information for crisis centers around the world.

CNN’s Dakin Andone and Kevin Conlon contibuted to this report.

Big Oil, Keeping Watch on Earth News, Oil and gas industry

After Paris agreement, big oil and gas companies invested $110 billion in fossil fuels

Repost from CBS NEWS Moneywatch

By Irina Ivanova, March 25, 2019 / 6:00 AM

In the three years since most of the world’s nations signed on to the Paris climate agreement, major oil and gas companies have poured more than $100 billion into their fossil-fuel infrastructure. That’s more than 10 times the amount the same companies have spent on low-carbon investments, despite lip service toward that area, according to a new report.

InfluenceMap analyzed public disclosures of major oil and gas companies. The five biggest—ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BP and Total—will collectively spend $115 billion on capital investments this year, according to the report. Just 3 percent of that spending will go to low-carbon investments, like hydrogen batteries or electric-car charging stations.

InfluenceMap contrasts this with the money the companies spent on “branding and lobbying” related to climate, which cost the oil and gas giants $1 billion since the end of 2015, per the report. That includes money spent directly as well as through trade groups that oppose carbon restrictions, including the American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers.

“The aim is to maintain public support on the issue while holding back binding policy,” the report says. The spending shows “the increasing disconnect between the oil majors’ efforts towards positive climate branding and their lobbying and actual business decisions,” it reads.

BP last year put $13 million toward defeating a carbon pricing proposal in Washington State. Exxon stated it would support a carbon tax, provided that the tax wouldn’t raise any government money and would offer immunity in climate-change lawsuits, of which there are many. At the same time, Exxon ran extensive social media ads promoting oil and gas development and opposing restrictions on fossil fuels.

That’s significant because scientists have given the world a roughly 10-year window to rapidly move off fossil fuels if it is to avoid catastrophic levels of warming, according to the United Nations’ climate change panel and the U.S. federal government. Recognizing this, oil and gas companies have devoted more attention to low-carbon rhetoric, though InfluenceMap notes there’s a lack of money backing the investment in alternatives.

The U.S. dramatically ramped up its oil and gas production last year, becoming the world’s top producer of oil for the first time in four decades. The extraction industry is projected to expand by more than 6 percent this year, analysts say.