Repost from KPIX News [Editor: Thanks to KPIX for local coverage, but we regret that this report did not mention Mr. Soto’s role as spokesperson for Benicians For a Safe and Healthy Community. This report also missed an opportunity to cover the highly successful grassroots efforts here in Benicia to stop a proposed crude by rail development at Valero Refinery. – RS]
West Virginia Train Derailment Is Reminder Of Bay Area Bakken Oil Shipment Vulnerability
Bay Area environmentalists are anxiously watching reports of a train derailment in West Virginia because the same Bakken crude oil is transported through Martinez and Richmond. Christin Ayers, (2/16/15)
ANNOUNCING . . . Community Forum & Update, Sunday, January 18, 1-4pm, Benicia Library
Learn more about Valero’s crude by rail project and how it might affect Benicia residents at a Community Informational Forum on Sunday, January 18, 2015, from 1:00 to 4:00 pm at the Benicia Public Library, 150 East L Street, Doña Benicia Room. The Forum is sponsored by Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community (BSHC), a grassroots organization advocating responsible environmental action and currently working to STOP crude by rail in Benicia.
You’ll hear from guest speakers:
Antonia Juhasz, oil and energy analyst, award-winning author and investigative journalist, and
Diane Bailey, Senior Scientist in the Health and Environment Program for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Members of BSHC will also provide an update on our work.
Marilyn Bardet will discuss the history and status of the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR).
Andrés Soto will discuss the local, regional and cumulative impacts of transporting crude oil by rail. There will be plenty of time for questions, discussion and brainstorming.
For more information about the Community Forum or BSHC, please call (707) 742-3597, or email info@SafeBenicia. For more information about Valero Crude by Rail check out SafeBenicia.org. Of course, you can find lots of info here on BeniciaIndependent.org.
Richmond residents, leaders warn of danger from Bakken crude by rail shipments
By Phil James, November 1, 2014
Kinder Morgan’s Richmond depot takes in dozens of DOT-111 train cars laden with Bakken crude oil from North Dakota every week. (Phil James/Richmond Confidential)
If you go to the website explosive-crude-by-rail.org and zoom in on Richmond, what you’ll find is disconcerting. According to the 1-3 mile buffer zone on the map, the entire city and its 107,000 residents are in danger if trains carrying crude oil explode.
Such is the concern of several Bay Area environmental groups in Richmond who have drawn the City Council into an escalating dispute with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and Kinder Morgan, which operates a local crude by rail transfer station.
“The health and safety of the community is at stake here,” Mayor Gayle McLaughlin said during a City Council meeting. “We are encouraging the air district to review the process.”
Richmond City Council on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution to “review” and “if feasible, revoke” the permit given to Kinder Morgan – the 5th largest energy company in the United States — to take in crude oil by rail. Based in Texas, the company was founded in 1997 by two former Enron executives.
The crude, from the Bakken Shale of North Dakota, ignites and explodes more easily than more traditional crudes. On the heels of a major oil boom, transportation of crude by rail in the North America increased by 423 percent between 2011 and 2012, and more crude shipped by rail was spilled in 2013 than in the four previous decades combined.
In 2012, a train carrying Bakken crude derailed and exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47 people and decimating the small Canadian town. This, among other incidents, has prompted the U.S. Department of Transportation to label Bakken transport by rail as an “imminent hazard”.
Several community groups have rallied to ban the movement of crude shipments through Richmond. Megan Zapanta of The Asian Pacific Environmental Network said she’s worried that a lack of attention could have dire consequences.
“Bakken crude has not been well-documented here,” she said. “If there’s some disaster, how will we get the word out to our immigrant community?”
Evan Reis, a structural engineer for Hinman Consulting Engineers, released a report earlier this year assessing the probability of a crude-laden train derailing in the East Bay.
He estimates there is a six in 10 chance of derailment on the line running from San Jose through Richmond to Martinez within the next 30 years.
“Given the fact that these are highly urbanized places we are going through,” he said by phone, “A 60 percent probability would be of concern to me.”
McLaughlin pledged to support Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) as they consider appealing the air district decision to grant Kinder Morgan a permit to funnel crude through Richmond by rail cars. The city does not have the jurisdiction to revoke any licenses or permits from the company. The permit must go through the air district, where it can be reviewed with respect to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
In March, CBE filed a lawsuit against BAAQMD for failing to publicly disclose the permit to the residents of Richmond. The group only noticed the arrival of crude by rail because a local television station, KPIX, discovered that Kinder Morgan was bringing Bakken crude to its Richmond depot.
The Tesoro refinery in Martinez receives the Bakken shipments by truck after they are transferred from the rail depot in Richmond. Richmond’s Chevron refinery does not take in any of the Bakken crude.
In September, the lawsuit was dismissed on technical grounds because the complaint by the CBE was not filed within 180 days of the permit’s issuance.
The permit, which was filed by BAAQMD staff in 2013, drew ire from environmental groups because it was not subject to an environmental impact report, and was granted without review from the district’s board.
Andres Soto, a representative of Communities for a Better Environment in Richmond, appealed to Richmond leaders to counter the decision.
“Kinder Morgan issued an illegal permit to bring Bakken crude into Richmond without public notice or review,” Soto said.
Ralph Borrmann, public information officer for the BAAQMD, declined to comment until the end of the appeal period. The CBE has considered a challenge of the ruling.
The Kinder Morgan depot has been taking in ethanol by rail since 2010, but they have since diversified their intake to include Bakken crude. Kinder Morgan officials, though, say the concerns are overstated.
“We didn’t feel that the profile of the crude oil arriving was materially different,” Melissa Ruiz, a spokesperson for the Texas-based company, wrote in an email.
Charlie Davidson, a member of the Sunflower Alliance speaking on behalf of CBE, disagrees.
“They’re basically running tin cans on 100 cars,” he told Richmond City Council. “The flash point [of Bakken Crude] is so volatile that it could burn in Antarctica.”
Randy Sawyer, Chief Environmental Health and Hazardous Materials Officer in Contra Costa County, acknowledged the dangers but also downplayed the risk of a major disaster.
“It’s a hazardous material and there’s concern of derailment and fire,” he said in an interview by phone. “But if you put it in relation to other materials, it isn’t as hazardous as chlorine or ammonia. It’s equivalent to ethanol or gasoline.”
“The biggest concern with crude by rail is not so much than the hazard being worse, it’s just the huge amount of quantity that’s being shipped by rail,” Sawyer said.
Since the dismissal of the lawsuit, other municipalities in the North Bay have rallied against crude by rail. In Sacramento, a lawsuit by Earth Justice prompted the local air board to revoke a permit from Inter-State Oil Company on the grounds that they did not disclose the potential public health and safety concerns to local residents.
Suma Peesapati, a member of Earth Justice, drew similarities between Sacramento and Richmond.
“Kinder Morgan’s project in Richmond is virtually identical to the air district issued permits for unloading crude in Sacramento,” she said. “The [Bay Area] Air District made it clear they issued a permit in error, rather than engage in this formal process.”
Despite the resolution passing, Richmond Councilmember Jael Myrick expressed just as much weariness as concern for the issue.
“The frustration that we had the last time we talked about this is it just seems there is so little we can do to combat it.”
Repost from The Benicia Herald [Editor: After a new list was compiled, the number of signatures as of October 29 was found to be approaching 1,300. To add your name, go to SafeBenicia.org. – RS]
Petitioners seek more support at final farmer’s market
Opponents of the Valero Crude-by-Rail Project say they have gathered more than 1,000 signatures on a petition against the refinery’s application and plan to return Thursday to the Benicia Certified Farmers Market in hopes of gathering more names.
Pat Toth-Smith, a member of Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, said the organization has been staffing a table at the market since it opened in spring, and members will be doing the same thing Thursday that they have all season long.
“More people are finding out about this issue, and people want more information,” she said.
Toth-Smith said the organization’s petition “is basic.”
She said it asks that the undersigned be counted as opposing the shipment either of sweet Bakken shale crude or sour Canadian tar sands oil by train into Benicia, the Bay Area or communities along rail lines both before and after Benicia.
She said the petition also cites as concerns derailments, fires and explosions associated with increased crude oil rail traffic.
Project supporters have been collecting signatures of their own, too, and have delivered them, 100 or more at a time, during city public meetings. Requests to contribute to this story weren’t answered by press time.
Valero Benicia Refinery applied early in 2013 to extend existing Union Pacific Railroad tracks into its property, in addition to other infrastructure changes, so the refinery could substitute delivery of crude oil by train for the equivalent of oil currently brought in by transoceanic tanker ship.
The refinery has said in statements supported by a Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) that bringing the oil by rail would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Bay Area because any emissions released by trains would be more than compensated by reduction in emissions from those ships.
But opponents worry that gases emitted uprail of Benicia wouldn’t have the offsetting benefits, and have cited explosions and fires associated with derailments as more crude is delivered from North American sources by rail.
The city agreed last year with those who said a mitigated negative declaration would be an insufficient environmental document under the California Environmental Quality Act, and ordered the more extensive analysis, the Environmental Impact Report. A draft of that report was issued in June and has been circulated for public evaluation.
The city Planning Commission had three lengthy hearings during which more public comment was accepted, and after the panel extended the deadline for comments California Attorney General Kamala Harris also weighed in, criticizing the DEIR.
Responses to public comments are being written before the city releases the final environmental report for a vote on its certification as well as the refinery’s use permit request.
Despite coverage of several Bay Area marches against crude-by-rail projects, public meetings by proponents and opponents and Benicia’s own hearings on the project, Toth-Smith said at each farmers market day someone has approached members of Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community to say they hadn’t heard of the proposal.
However, she said, more residents are noticing both pro and con yard signs.
“People in Benicia are very smart and well-educated, and they know what they want to do,” she said. “Some people are cautious. They peruse everything they can. People take the process seriously, and I’m thrilled. It’s important people explore everything. People love Benicia and want it to stay like it is. That’s the main worry.”
She insisted that objections to the project didn’t mean opponents don’t like Valero.
“It’s about the transportation,” she said. “Valero is a good neighbor.”
Andres Soto, another member of the local organization, agreed that transport by rail is the main concern. But he also said there are problems with the DEIR.
“Some are demanding recirculation (of the document),” he said. “They must see their ship is on the rocks.”
He said the group’s table at the farmers market has been important for reaching out to Benicians, who make up the bulk of the signatures the petition has gathered. He said he sees the petition “as a barometer of sentiment of the Benicia community.”
Soto said his organization is distributing yard signs and keeping a tally of those he said were stolen by project supporters — more than 35 so far.
He noted that the Planning Commission hearings on the DEIR drew so many people that the Council Chamber at City Hall was full, and overflow seating had to be arranged in the building’s outdoor patio, Commission Room and conference rooms.
If 300 show up at one of those meetings, “that’s a lot of people,” he said. But 300 is a tenth of a percent of the city’s nearly 30,000 residents.
Soto said there are some residents “who don’t know; they’re not really plugged in.” That’s one of the reasons his organization will keep up its petition campaign after the farmers market concludes its season. Thursday’s market is the last until spring.
“What’s important to Benicia people is if there is a catastrophic event, who is on the hook for the toxic cleanup?” he said. They also want to know who would be responsible for the economic impact of an explosive derailment, or how it would affect the value of their homes.
High school students also have signed the petition, telling him they’re concerned about global warming and the environmental impact of production of both Bakken and tar sands crude.
He said he objects to those who are trying to use “scare tactics” such as suggesting the refinery might leave if the project isn’t approved, “especially after Attorney General Kamala Harris’s letter” in which she pointed out what she considers deficiencies in the document.
“People who wrote the draft EIR did a shabby, shabby job,” Soto said.
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