Benicia City Council, Crude By Rail, Local Regulation, Valero Benicia Appeal, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Quick update on City Council meetings of April 18 and 19

By Roger Straw, April 19, 2016

Quick update on City Council meetings of Monday Apr 18 and Tuesday Apr 19

Council will meet tonightSeveral subscribers have asked what happened at last night’s City Council hearing on Valero Crude By Rail.

No vote was taken by Council. Members of the public were heard, followed by a 5-minute final comment by Valero attorney John Flynn and Valero Plant Manager Don Wilson.

Council followed this with questions for Valero and City staff. During this lengthy portion of the meeting, Council offered contract attorney Brad Hogin lengthy opportunities to defend against the recent letter of California Attorney General Kamala Harris, and to take issue with City staff’s recommendation to deny Valero’s request for a delay. (Seems when City staff agrees with Valero, Mr. Hogin does as well; but when City staff disagrees with Valero, Mr. Hogin will take up Valero’s cause.)

Council concluded the evening with questions for and answers by the traffic consultants, and their after-11pm powerpoint presentation.

Before it all started, Valero packed the hall with employees. There was a deliberate effort to position sign-bearing employees and their families in all the front and aisle seats. Valero supporters claim to have arrived at 4pm to crowd the door, and massed to deliberately keep STOP Crude By Rail people out.  Council chambers and overflow rooms were full of folks from both sides.

When Council opened to public comment, 28 (!) of the 30 who spoke were OPPOSED to the oil train proposal. Speaker after speaker came to the mike and offered knowledgeable and carefully reasoned analyses and passionate personal testimonies asking Council to deny Valero’s request for a delay and to uphold our Benicia Planning Commission’s unanimous denial of the EIR and the project.

UPDATE: The City HAS NOW POSTED video of all the speakers on April 18 at http://www.ci.benicia.ca.us/index.asp?SEC=0CB04C5F-05FE-4492-9173-DE064A31707D&Type=B_BASIC.

If I can find time, I will excerpt some of the comments by video and/or in writing.

Tonight, Tues. Apr 19, Council will continue deliberations, asking questions and possibly arriving at formal votes on Valero’s request for delay, whether to certify the environmental report, and whether to approve or deny issuance of a land use permit.

Your presence is important.  This is surely one of City Council’s most important decisions of our times.

Benicia City Council, Crude By Rail, Environmental review, Public Comment, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

ANOTHER FLURRY OF LETTERS OPPOSING VALERO CBR

By Roger Straw, April 18, 2016

ANOTHER FLURRY OF LETTERS OPPOSING VALERO CBR

Today the City of Benicia released Public Comments received April 15-18, 2016.

The PDF document is 34 pages, 2.4 MB.  It includes

Download the complete document here.

Air Quality, Benicia City Council, Benicia Planning Commission, Berkeley, Berkeley City Council, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Crude By Rail, Federal pre-emption, Interstate Commerce Commission Termination ACT (ICCTA), Local Regulation, Oil spill, Toxic pollutants, Valero Benicia Appeal, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

BERKELEY MAYOR TOM BATES: Letter opposing Valero Crude By Rail

By Roger Straw, April 18, 2016

BERKELEY MAYOR TOM BATES: Letter opposing Valero Crude By Rail

The Benicia Independent is in receipt of a letter sent today to the City of Benicia by Berkeley, CA Mayor Tom Bates.  Mayor Bates writes in opposition to certification and permitting of Valero’s proposal.

Here is the complete text of Mayor Bates’ one-page letter:

Berkeley_logo
Office of the Mayor

April 18, 2016

Mayor Elizabeth Patterson City Council Members Tom Campbell, Mark Hughes, Alan Schwartzman, Christina Strawbridge Principal Planner Amy Million City of Benicia Benicia, California

Dear Mayor Patterson; Council Members Campbell, Hughes, Schwartzman, Strawbridge; and Ms. Million:

I ask you to uphold the Benicia Planning Commission’s decision to withhold certification from the Valero Refining Company’s Crude-by-Rail project. I believe the risks of this dangerous rail spur far outweigh possible benefits.

I agree with Attorney General Kamala Harris and environmental and community groups and that the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act does not prevent the City from assessing the transportation and public-safety risks when considering the project under its land-use authority.[1] The issue is one of local land use not pre-empted by federal regulation.

Another chief reason for not approving the project is that the CEQA analysis did not assess all of the project’s potential environmental impacts, including its impacts on other cities.[3] Allowing up to two 50-car trains of crude oil a day to come into the Valero refinery exposes Benicia and other communities to major safety risks, especially given the history of train derailment in recent times, both nationally and internationally.[2] An oil spill could be catastrophic to the local environment and waterways. Moreover, the transport of crude oil will emit toxic pollutants not adequately assessed in the environmental review, thus contaminating the air breathed by your residents and those of other communities as well.

The Berkeley City Council has reviewed the issue of transporting crude oil on the freight lines in the East Bay and has gone on record in unanimous opposition to such transport because of the unacceptable level of hazardous risk, including to Berkeley. The Union Pacific tracks are embedded in our West Berkeley community where people live, work and go to school.

I ask that you not approve this rail spur until the volatile organics are removed from these crude oil shipments and the railroads are upgraded to modern standards to handle such shipments.

Sincerely,
Tom Bates, Mayor

[1] https://beniciaindependent.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/AttyGenl_Kamala_Harris_Comments_Received_April_13-14_2016.pdf
[3] https://beniciaindependent.com/topics/final-draft-environmental-impact-report-feir/
[2] http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/07/11/benicia-extends-public-comment-period-on-bay-area-crude-by-rail/

Crude By Rail, Dr. Phyllis Fox, Environmental review, Final Draft Environmental Impact Report (FEIR), Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Expert Dr. Phyllis Fox blasts letters submitted last week by Benicia consultants

By Roger Straw, April 18, 2016

DR. PHYLLIS FOX: Expert blasts letters submitted by Benicia consultants

The Benicia Independent is in receipt of a late-breaking letter from well-known environmental expert Dr. Phyllis Fox, in which Fox rebuts letters submitted by the City of Benicia’s consultants last week.  Consultants MRS and ESA  submitted letters on April 11 and April 12 attacking Dr. Fox’s previous comments.

The Fox letter was submitted less than an hour ago today and is not yet posted on the City’s website.

Fox writes, “I have reviewed the letters by MRS and ESA that respond to my 4/4/16 Comments on Valero’s Appeal of Planning Commission’s Denial of the Valero Crude-by-Rail Project. The MRS and ESA responses are notable for their lack of support for numerous assertions. With few exceptions, they present no supporting calculations nor citations to specific pages in the EIR, reports, or web links. Thus, they present no new evidence and fail to respond to my comments.”

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