Repost from the Minneapolis Star Tribune [Editor: On October 8, 2015, the Star Tribune published Barbara Draper’s incredible, wonderful, beautiful, moving – and frightful – poem, “Oil Trains.” The Star Tribune gave it their own title, “Slithering into Minneapolis.” Published here with permission from the author (and reformatted to her specifications). – RS]
More tank cars like these seen near Gladstone, N.D., are traveling through downtown Minneapolis. JIM GEHRZ • Star Tribune
OIL TRAINS
A slithering line of obsidian tank-cars
from craven North Dakota
quakes the freshwater lakes of Minnesota,
then stuns the Mississippi.
Now on a neighborhood street in Minneapolis
it rumbles overhead —
over a bridge whose stanchions are stamped 1920.
Concrete crumbled off.
Ninety year-old steel shoulders the load.
I hold my breath against the ghost
like I did as a kid riding my bike past the cemetery.
Crows of unacknowledged intelligence …..Caw …………. ….and dive
as though raptors were invading their nests.
By Rep. Lois Capps, October 13, 2015
Lois Capps in her office in Washington, D.C.
The Central Coast was thrust into the national spotlight in May as news broke of an oil pipeline rupture that allowed tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil to spill into the Pacific Ocean.
The ensuing damage devastated wildlife and our sensitive coastline, cost our local economy millions of dollars and put the health of Central Coast residents at risk. Sadly, this is just the most recent reminder of the hazards of drilling for and transporting fossil fuels.
In the months since the spill, I’ve redoubled my efforts to ensure federal agencies update and strengthen pipeline safety standards, prevent new offshore drilling and guarantee that our communities are properly compensated for their losses. And yet, just as the final traces of tar are cleaned from the rocks at Refugio Beach, another serious oil hazard looms on the Central Coast.
As many know, Phillips 66 has applied for a permit through San Luis Obispo County to construct a 1.3-mile rail spur to the Nipomo Mesa refinery. Construction of the new spur would allow the refinery to receive up to five deliveries of crude oil per week, with 2 million gallons aboard each mile-long freight train.
This rail spur proposal comes amidst booming North American oil production and a dramatic expansion across the country in the use of railroads to transport crude oil. Not surprisingly, the increased use of rail to transport oil over the last five years has correlated with a sharp increase in the number of derailments by oil-hauling trains. The increase in oil rail derailments is even more troubling considering the large investments made in recent years to improve rail safety.
The most devastating of these recent accidents occurred in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, when a 74-car freight train carrying crude oil derailed in a downtown area and several cars exploded, killing 47 people and leveling half of the downtown area with a blast zone radius of more than half a mile.
Approving the Phillips 66 rail spur project would put communities throughout California at risk for a similar tragedy. If approved, communities within 1 mile of the rails would be within the potential blast radius of these crude oil freight trains as they make their way to their final destination in San Luis Obispo County. This is one of the many reasons why I am joining other community leaders, cities and counties throughout the state in opposing this project.
The Plains oil spill near Santa Barbara in May and the Phillips 66 rail spur project debate are both stark reminders of the dangers posed by our continued reliance upon oil and other fossil fuels to meet our energy needs.
We know that this dependence puts our environment, public health and economy at risk due to spills, derailments and the growing impacts of climate change.
With each extreme storm, severe wildfire and persistent drought, we’re reminded of the very real consequences of our continued dependence on fossil fuels.
The truth is that an economy that continues to rely upon fossil fuels is not prepared to succeed in the 21st century.
That is why I have spent my career in Congress advocating for efforts to transition to clean, renewable energy sources that produce the energy we need while also minimizing the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change.
I am proud to say that the Central Coast is leading this transition. With our cuttingedge research universities, two of the largest solar fields in the world and some of the most innovative entrepreneurs and energy companies in the country, I am excited to see what the future holds.
Now, more than ever, we are presented with a wonderful opportunity to pivot away from our reliance on dirty fossil fuels and toward a more sustainable energy future.
That is why I am convening a panel of industry leaders and academic experts for a public forum at Cal Poly’s Performing Arts Center on Friday to discuss how we can continue to expand our clean-energy economy on the Central Coast and across the country.
During the forum, I look forward to discussing the multitude of threats posed by our continued fossil fuel dependence, the progress made toward developing renewable energy sources, and how we can overcome the remaining barriers to fully transition to a cleanenergy future. Please join us this Friday at 1 p.m. as we come together to build a safer, cleaner energy economy suitable to meet the demands of the 21st century.
Below are just a few of the reasons you can cite in your letter to the City. These points came from a handout by Benicians For a Safe and Healthy Community. Here are two other letter guides: Center for Biological Diversity and ForestEthics. Send your email to : amillion@ci.benicia.ca.us or send to Amy Million, Principal Planner, City of Benicia, 250 East L Street, Benicia, CA 94510.
• Tank car design is inadequate, with extremely poor safety records – BOTH DOT-111 AND the “safer” CPC-1232 cars are not safe and have derailed and exploded in other communities. The federal government can’t agree on a safe car and its years away from being implemented.
• New Federal Department of Transportation Rules (May, 2015) are inadequate and do not move quickly enough.
• Derailed oil trains that explode cannot be extinguished and so are left to burn themselves out which takes several days. Emergency response plans are non-existent for a catastrophic derailment and explosion.
• The RDEIR proposes three dangerous routes: a) through the Sierras, the Feather River route – note the recent corn car derailment with resulting spill in the Feather River, b) the Dunsmuir route with the historic spill into the River and c) the Truckee / Donner Lake route with its treacherous mountain grades and beautiful resort areas. All 3 routes go through areas described by the state as high hazard areas for derailments. What are the risks of fires in our mountains and spills into all of the waterways the trains pass over?
• We question the statistics on the possible rates of derailments and train explosions.
• High hazard flammable trains will be going through highly populated areas like Davis and Sacramento when the National Transportation Safety Board says they should be rerouted whenever possible away from populated areas.
• Union Pacific can run trains any time they want to and even send in two train shipments in one day. Neither the City of Benicia nor Valero have control over routes, cars, and shipment times. Note statements about “federal pre-emption” in the appendices.
• What are the economic risks if there was a derailment and explosion and the refinery was to catch on fire? Valero’s tank farm is in the blast zone.
• The Draft Revised EIR says there are significant hazards to the public through a reasonably foreseeable accident. Why would we tolerate this?
• What are the environmental impacts when such extreme methods to get the oil, such as fracking and basically strip mining for tar sands are used to get the oil that is coming by rail?
• There’s lots more – add your own concerns – speak from the heart and with conviction!
Opposed to Crude by Rail and/or critical of the EIR
• Over 1300 who signed the petition (mostly Benicians)
• Benicians For a Safe and Healthy Community (SafeBenicia.org and on Facebook at StopCrudeByRail)
• Hundreds of Benicians and others who wrote letters calling into question the claims of the Environmental Impact Report
• California’s Attorney General
• The Sacramento Area Council of Governments
• The City of Davis, California
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Sierra Club
• ForestEthics
• Center for Biological Diversity
• EarthJustice
• Sunflower Alliance
• Communities for a Better Environment
• Bay Area Refinery Corridor Coalition (BARCC)
• Crocket Rodeo United to Defend the Environment (C.R.U.D.E.)
• Idle No More – Bay Area
• Martinez Environmental Group
• 350 Bay Area
• Global Community Monitor
• … and many more
State shuts 33 wells injecting oil wastewater into aquifers
By David R. Baker, October 16, 2015
A person walks past pump jacks operating at the Kern River Oil Field in Bakersfield, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
California regulators on Thursday closed 33 oil company wells that had injected wastewater into potentially drinkable aquifers protected by federal law.
The new closures bring to 56 the number of oil-field wastewater injection wells shut down by the state after officials realized they were pumping oil-tainted water into aquifers that potentially could be used for drinking or irrigation.
All but two of the latest closures are in Kern County, in California’s drought-stricken Central Valley. One lies in Ventura County, another in northern Los Angeles County. Officials with California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources spent Friday verifying that they had, in fact, closed. Of the 33, only 21 had been actively injecting wastewater before Thursday.
“This is part of our ongoing effort to ensure that California’s groundwater resources are protected as oil and gas production take place,” said Steven Bohlen, the division’s supervisor.
California’s oil fields contain large amounts of salty water that comes to the surface mixed with the oil. It must be separated from the petroleum and disposed of, often by injecting it back underground. Much of the water is pumped back into the same geologic formation it came from. But enough left-over water remains that companies must find other places to put it.
Fears of contamination
The division, part of California’s Department of Conservation, for years issued oil companies permits to inject their left-over water into aquifers that were supposed to be off-limits, protected by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
The problem, detailed in a Chronicle investigation earlier this year, raised fears of water contamination in a state struggling through a historic, four-year drought.
So far, however, no drinking water supplies have been found to be tainted by the injections.
Still, some environmentalists expressed outrage that so few wells had been closed.
The division has identified 178 wells that were injecting into legally protected aquifers with relatively high water quality, defined as those with a maximum of 3,000 parts per million of total dissolved solids. More than 2,000 other wells inject into aquifers that would be harder to use for drinking water, either because they are too salty or because they also contain oil.
“This is too little, too late to protect our water,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity. “With each passing day the oil industry is polluting more and more of our precious water.”
The division reported Friday, however, that not all 178 wells required closure. Some had already been shut down by their operators, while others had been converted into wells for extracting oil — not dumping wastewater.
An oil industry trade group noted that all of the wells closed Thursday had received state permits, even if the state now acknowledges that those permits should never have been issued.
“Both regulators and producers are committed to protecting underground water supplies, and today’s announcement reinforces the seriousness of that commitment,” said Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association.
Safeguarding water supplies
“California’s oil and natural gas producers are committed to operating their wells in a manner that continues to safeguard public water supplies,” she said.
Revelations that the division allowed injections into relatively fresh groundwater supplies touched off a political firestorm, triggered lawsuits, and led Bohlen to launch a reorganization of his staff.
More well closures will likely follow. Under regulations adopted this year, wells injecting into aquifers with water quality between 3,000 and 10,000 total dissolved solids must cease injections by Feb. 15, 2017, unless granted an exemption from the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
