This is a PDF adaptation of a Powerpoint presentation prepared for the 2/8/16 Benicia Planning Commission hearing.
By Elizabeth Lasensky, Yolo MoveOn (facebook.com/yolo.moveon) and Yolano Climate Action (yolanoclimateaction.wordpress.com/).
Repost from KCRA News, Sacramento
[Editor: This report suffers from a few errors of fact, but is a welcome bit of coverage. Very few news reports have surfaced following last night’s important hearing. I wasn’t able to embed the video of reporter Tom Miller. Go to KCRA to watch. – RS]
Two 50-car trains would move through cities like Sac, Davis
By Tom Miller, Feb 08, 2016 11:58 PM PST
BENICIA, Calif. (KCRA) —A push to bring crude oil on trains through Northern California to the Bay Area has many residents in the towns and cities it would pass through worried about the environmental and safety risks that go with it.
Valero Energy Corporation is asking the Benicia Planning Commission to approve $55 million in upgrades to its local refinery.
The project would allow two 50-car trains, each carrying 35,000 barrels of crude oil, to unload at the refinery each day.
The crude would come from all over the continent and would be carried through major urban centers like Sacramento, Roseville and Davis.
“We are not confident that the cars that are being used for this transport will safely transport them through our communities, our sensitive habitat, along the rivers and streams in our region,” Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor said.
According to Saylor, 500,000 people live within a half-mile of the tracks in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties.
An environmental impact report found eight “potentially significant impacts” that could be addressed with mitigation measures and 11 “significant and unavoidable impacts.”
Both categories include environmental effects on air quality and biological resources.
However, in the unavoidable impacts section, the report lists greenhouse gas emissions in addition to hazards and hazardous materials.
The report states the project could pose a significant threat to the public or environment in an accident involving a spill.
The report goes on to say, “Although the risk of such an occurrence is extremely low, the potential consequences of such an event could be extremely high.”
In 2013, 47 people were killed in Quebec, Canada, after a crude oil train derailed there.
Saylor is worried a similar incident could happen in Northern California.
“The highly volatile substances included within this transport could be very damaging to our communities, to our businesses (and) to our homeowners,” he said.
Valero insists that’s unlikely in Northern California. The company plans to use upgraded train cars and said its crude oil is less volatile.
“Some of the early concerns about rail safety are based on scenarios that wouldn’t exist in our project,” Valero’s Heath, Safety and Environment Director Chris Howe said.
The company, which contributes 20 percent of the money in Benicia’s general fund, currently employs 500 people within the city.
Howe said the upgrades at the refinery would create 120 temporary jobs during the anticipated five months of construction and 20 new, permanent jobs.
However, Howe said ultimately it is not Valero’s responsibility when it comes to assuring the public a disaster would not occur in Northern California.
“We look to the railroad to safely deliver that material to our refinery, but I point out that marine deliveries in the bay, much larger volumes, will be reduced in risk through the delivery of crude by rail,” he said.
Despite the environmental concerns, Benicia city staff recommended the planning commission approve the Valero project.
On Monday, Benicia City Hall was filled with more than a 100 people, hoping to weigh in on the proposal.
Elizabeth Lasensky carpooled from Davis with nearly a dozen others, hoping her anti crude-by-rail stance would be heard by the commissioners.
“Every time a train goes through, our probability is increased, and that’s just for an explosion,” Lasensky said. “We still have to deal with the air pollutants and the noise pollution.”
Because of the number of residents hoping to voice their concerns, the planning commission has scheduled public comment sessions every day through Thursday, when it’s expected to vote on the project.
Here’s a great new song, lyrics by Nancy Schimmel and Bonnie Lockhart of Occupella. For more movement songs about oil trains, see our Arts Page.
Valero Oil TrainsTune: Yellow Rose of Texas
Words: Nancy Schimmel and Bonnie Lockhart
Download printable version
Valero Oil of Texas
Is not the oil for me,
They want to ship explosive crude
But the people disagree
‘Cause the tank cars are not safe enough
For the North Dakota crude
And if a few tip over,
You know we will be screwed.
They plan to send a hundred cars
Each and every day
To their big refinery
In Benicia by the Bay,
This crude makes more pollution
Than we already get
They think they can roll over us
But they ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Valero Oil of Texas
It’s time to get a clue
That fracked-out oil’s a menace
Besides, there’s CO2,
So in every city on the route
And every farm and town
Let’s all stand up and holler
“Leave the oil in the ground!”
Repost from KQED News – The California Report
A statewide conflict over whether to allow more trains carrying crude oil into California is coming to a head in communities hundreds of miles apart.
The Central Coast town of San Luis Obispo and the Bay Area city of Benicia are poised to make decisions in the coming days that would have broad implications for the future of this type of import.
Longtime San Luis Obispo resident Heidi Harmon hopes to stop trains from hauling crude through her town, citing what she calls an “elevated risk of derailment.”
Oil trains would likely have to cross a 19th century bridge just a mile from the city’s thriving downtown.
“You can see the antiquated style with which this was put together” says Harmon, gesturing to rail tracks perched on top of the trestle’s steel rods.
She describes Stenner Creek Trestle as “stunning to look at but terrifying to consider a mile-and-a-half-long oil train coming over.”
Trains hauling up to 80 tanker cars could cross the trestle bridge multiple times a week if Phillips 66 gets wins approval for a plan to build a rail spur at its nearby refinery.
The company has applied for a permit to connect its Santa Maria refinery to the nearby Union Pacific line.
A steady decline in California oil production has compelled Phillips 66 to look for ways to bring in crude from other states. The company’s landlocked refinery in Santa Maria has no pipeline connection to do that — and no nearby port terminal.
The San Luis Obispo Planning Commission held hearings that began Thursday on whether to allow the rail spur project. County staff has advised against it, saying it poses too great a risk to public health and safety.
Harmon and hundreds of other opponents packed the meeting.
“We have an opportunity in San Luis Obispo to say we do not want this train” said Harmon. “We do not want the dangers — the air pollution hazards and the increased cancer risks — we do not want this in our community.”
A series of accidents, including the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster that killed 47 people in Quebec, have fueled fears and community opposition.
Phillips 66 officials declined an interview for this story but said in an email the company uses “one of the most modern railcar fleets in the industry.”
Over 100 government agencies and school boards, including many from the San Francisco Bay Area, also oppose the rail spur in San Luis Obispo.
A similar project at the Valero refinery in Benicia also faces strong opposition.
Valero also wants to connect its operations to Union Pacific.
Benicia’s planning commission has set a public hearing on that crude-by-rail project Monday. Staff there is recommending approval.
Political leadership is divided, but many residents are opposed. Some of those municipal governments of nearby cities want more safeguards included in the project. To get to Benicia, the crude would first pass through communities far north, including Auburn, Sacramento and the university town of Davis.
“The rail line passes through the heart of our downtown and has a few geographic elements to it that raise concerns when oil trains are going through it,” said Mike Webb, city planner for Davis.
“We are not trying to stop the project,” Webb emphasized. “Our primary mission is to ensure that, to the extent that these trains and these materials are going through our communities, let’s make it as safe as it can possibly be.”
Davis officials and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) are pushing for a commitment from Valero and UP to use technology that automatically slows trains in densely populated areas.
“Public safety and first responder advance notification is of paramount concern,” said Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor, a former council chair.
Officials also want a commitment to provide more training and funding for first responders in communities along the route and for emergency crews to get warned before an oil train comes down the line.
Chris Howe, a manager for Valero, testified at a public hearing last year on the Benicia oil-by-rail project that the company is committed to strong safety standards and modern technology.
“We have from the start planned to utilize in our project upgraded railcars.” Howe said.
Valero is also working with an experienced railroad.
“We expect UP railroad — which is the prime railroad that we’ll be utilizing to move those trains — to do so safely,” Howe said. “Many of the incidents that have happened have occurred on much smaller, less well maintained railroads.”
Union Pacific says it has made changes to reduce the risk of hauling crude: implementing slower speeds in high-population areas and creating analytical tools to find the safest routes.
The two projects under consideration are among a handful of crude-by-rail projects proposed in recent years to take advantage of inexpensive crude from North Dakota, Canada and Texas.
But the recent plunge in oil prices has made hauling it by train more expensive, causing some of those plans to unravel.
“The rail economics have changed the calculus for some companies” said Gordon Schremp, a senior fuel analyst with the California Energy Commission.
Last year WesPac abandoned a plan to build a rail terminal in the Bay Area town of Pittsburg, citing a lack of investors for the project. Alon USA has yet to act on a permit the company acquired in 2012 to build a crude-by-rail terminal at an idle refinery in Bakersfield.
According to Schremp, even at the peak of industry interest rail imports comprised just 1 percent of California’s oil imports. By the end of 2015, those imports plummeted to one-tenth of 1 percent.
“Crude-by-rail was never a very important source supply,” said Schremp, “because we did not have the facilities constructed.”
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