Sacramento Area Council of Governments to meet, will consider draft letter critical of Valero Crude By Rail
We learned last week that the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) will meet on August 21 to consider a staff proposal that would level a stinging critique of the City of Benicia’s Draft EIR on Valero Crude By Rail. Valero is proposing twice-daily rail shipments of 70,000 barrels of crude, and the DEIR claims that Valero’s 100 tank cars every day will pose no significant threat to Benicia and other cities along the rails, including Davis, Sacramento and Roseville.
SACOG is a planning agency for the region’s six counties and 22 cities.
A draft of the SACOG letter was made public on August 5. It finds the Benicia report “fundamentally flawed” and calls for a revision and recirculation of the DEIR.
The 12-page letter is in draft form, and needs to be reviewed by the entire SACOG Board on August 21 before it will be finalized and sent to Benicia.
Because the letter is very strong in its position that the DEIR is inadequate in its present form, a number of Valero and Union Pacific representatives showed up at a SACOG committee meeting last week. They tried to dissuade the committee from passing the letter and offered to talk out the problem areas so no letter would be necessary. They were not successful in their attempts.
SACOG Board of Directors
August 21, 2014, 9:30 a.m.
1415 L St #300, Sacramento, CA
Agenda
MORE:
- Sacramento leaders: Risk of oil train explosions needs to be acknowledged, by Tony Bizjak, Sacramento Bee, Aug. 5, 2014
- The draft of the SACOG letter