Tag Archives: Benicia CA

California State Water Project, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Environmental review, Feather River, Feather River Canyon, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Letter from the Mayor of Oroville opposes Valero-Benicia oil trains

By Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent, December 18, 2015

City of Oroville, California – and others – oppose Valero Crude By Rail

Late this afternoon, the City of Benicia posted yet another batch of letters opposing Valero Crude By Rail.

The first letter in this document is significant: it comes from the mayor of the City of Oroville, CA, which is located near the Feather River Canyon and at the head of the California State Water Project.  The letter concludes with

The Oroville City Council and the citizens of the City of Oroville ask Valero to reconsider their proposal to deliver North American crude oil by railcar “uprail” from the Nevada border and down through Roseville to the Benicia refinery due to the potential devastation of California wildlife, water resources, and air quality.

The remaining 12 letters are CREDO Action letters from individuals all over California, also opposing Valero CBR. (These 12 can be added to the previous 2,062 similar letters sent by CREDO supporters.)  I don’t have an exact count, but there were also a LOT of letters generated by the Center for Biological Diversity and by ForestEthics.  We aren’t alone here in Benicia!

For these letters and many others, see our Project Review page.

Bakken Crude, Benicia City Council, Benicia Planning Commission, Carbon emissions, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Environmental Impacts, Explosion, Fire, Greenhouse gas emissions, Take Action, Tar sands crude, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

CREDO Action generates over 1,800 letters opposing Valero Crude by Rail

Repost from CREDO Action
[Editor:  The following call to action arrived in thousands of email inboxes on October 27, 2015.  The response was huge – so far over 1800 CREDO-generated letters have been sent to the City of Benicia (in the first 24 hours).   The link here will take you to the CREDO Action page.  Letters deadline is 5pm on Friday, October 30, 2015.  – RS]

Tell the Benicia City Council: Block Valero’s dangerous oil trains terminal

Tell the Benicia City Council: Block Valero's dangerous oil trains terminal.

Oil giant Valero is trying to build a massive oil trains terminal at its refinery in Benicia.

Two 50-car oil trains per day would carry toxic fracked oil and tar sands across California to the refinery, passing through Roseville, Sacramento, Davis, Fairfield and other cities before reaching their destination in Benicia.¹

If approved by the Benicia City Council, the terminal would exacerbate local air pollution in Benicia and in communities along the rail route, expose those communities to the catastrophic danger of an oil train derailment and explosion, and fuel the climate crisis by encouraging fracking and tar sands extraction.

The Benicia City Council is accepting public comments on the project until 5pm on Friday, October 30, 2015. Local opposition has already delayed the project once – we need to speak out right now and demand that the city council block Valero’s dangerous oil terminal.²

Tell the Benicia City Council: Block Valero’s dangerous oil trains terminal. Submit a public comment directly to the city council.

The number of crude by rail accidents in recent years has skyrocketed. In addition to the deadly oil train explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Québec in July 2013, which killed 47 people, there have been nine major oil train explosions in the United States since the start of 2013.

In addition to the threat of deadly train derailments and explosions, Valero’s plan would worsen air quality for communities all along the rail line. In Benicia, shipping more fracked oil and tar sands to Valero’s refinery would only increase toxic refinery pollution. Further, oil trains leak dangerous chemicals, creating a toxic plume around rail lines up and down the rail route.³

With no end in sight to the record drought threatening California, there is simply no excuse for green-lighting any fossil fuel infrastructure project that will encourage the extraction of more dirty fracked oil and tar sands and exacerbating climate change.

Valero will get its way if we remain silent. Submit a public comment urging the Benicia City Council to reject Valero’s crude by rail project.

¹ Jaxon Van Derbeken, “Benicia sees cash in crude oil; neighbors see catastrophe,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 24, 2014
² Tony Bizjak, “Benicia plans more study of crude-oil train impacts,” Sacramento Bee, February 3, 2015
³ Diane Bailey, “Valero’s Promise to Benicia: We’ll only have an environmental disaster once every 111 years,” NRDC Switchboard, September 17, 2014

Send an email.

Tell the Benicia City Council:

Valero’s outrageous proposal to build an oil trains terminal at its refinery in Benicia threatens the health and safety of people all along the rail route.

If approved by the Benicia City Council, the terminal would exacerbate local air pollution in Benicia and in communities along the rail route, expose those communities to the catastrophic danger of an oil train derailment and explosion, and fuel the climate crisis by encouraging fracking and tar sands extraction.

I urge the Planning Commission and the City Council to reject Valero’s dangerous plan.

Click here to send this email.

Tell the Benicia City Council: Block Valero's dangerous oil trains terminal.

Oil giant Valero is trying to build a massive oil trains terminal at its refinery in Benicia.

Two 50-car oil trains per day would carry toxic fracked oil and tar sands across California to the refinery, passing through Roseville, Sacramento, Davis, Fairfield and other cities before reaching their destination in Benicia.¹

If approved by the Benicia City Council, the terminal would exacerbate local air pollution in Benicia and in communities along the rail route, expose those communities to the catastrophic danger of an oil train derailment and explosion, and fuel the climate crisis by encouraging fracking and tar sands extraction.

The Benicia City Council is accepting public comments on the project until Friday. Local opposition has already delayed the project once – we need to speak out right now and demand that the city council block Valero’s dangerous oil terminal.²

Tell the Benicia City Council: Block Valero’s dangerous oil trains terminal. Submit a public comment directly to the city council.

The number of crude by rail accidents in recent years has skyrocketed. In addition to the deadly oil train explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Québec in July 2013, which killed 47 people, there have been nine major oil train explosions in the United States since the start of 2013.

In addition to the threat of deadly train derailments and explosions, Valero’s plan would worsen air quality for communities all along the rail line. In Benicia, shipping more fracked oil and tar sands to Valero’s refinery would only increase toxic refinery pollution. Further, oil trains leak dangerous chemicals, creating a toxic plume around rail lines up and down the rail route.³

With no end in sight to the record drought threatening California, there is simply no excuse for green-lighting any fossil fuel infrastructure project that will encourage the extraction of more dirty fracked oil and tar sands and exacerbating climate change.

Valero will get its way if we remain silent. Submit a public comment urging the Benicia City Council to reject Valero’s crude by rail project.

¹ Jaxon Van Derbeken, “Benicia sees cash in crude oil; neighbors see catastrophe,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 24, 2014
² Tony Bizjak, “Benicia plans more study of crude-oil train impacts,” Sacramento Bee, February 3, 2015
³ Diane Bailey, “Valero’s Promise to Benicia: We’ll only have an environmental disaster once every 111 years,” NRDC Switchboard, September 17, 2014

 

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, Benicia CA, Climate Change, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Tar sands crude, Uprail communities, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

BENICIA HERALD LETTER: Too many ‘hitches’ to crude by rail

Repost from the Benicia Herald
[Editor:  No link is provided for this letter because the Benicia Herald does not publish Letters in its online edition. – RS]

Too many ‘hitches’ to crude by rail

By Jan Cox-Golovich, September 9, 2015, Benicia Herald

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” – John Muir

And so it is with the Valero Crude-by-Rail Project.  When it was first presented to the community two years ago, we were told that is would be a simple railway expansion without any environmental impacts at all; that was simply untrue. We quickly discovered that this project would have profound effects locally, regionally, nationally and world-wide.

Our local economy has been “hitched” to the refinery for 50 years;  this 19th century industry is becoming obsolete in a state moving towards reducing greenhouse gases by 80% in 2050, while government and market forces transition to clean energy.  California is suffering from the most devastating drought in its history and the refinery uses almost half of our water.  The drought has been exacerbated by the hottest year on record, which in turn has been exacerbated by climate change, which in turn is caused by the burning of fossil fuels.   This “hitches” back to the refinery where 600 “other” businesses in the Industrial Park will, on a good day, experience transportation woes and worsening air quality because of the daily oil deliveries and — on a bad day — will be risking everything by virtue of being in the oil blast zone.

The Crude By Rail project is “hitched” to 1,700 miles of antiquated, dilapidated rail line, moving hazardous cargo from Canadian tar sands and North Dakota Bakken fracked oil fields to the Valero refinery, exposing millions to the dangers of explosions, fires, derailments, spills and permanent environmental damage to their land, water and air.  Many up-rail folks have made the trek down to City Hall to beg us not to do this to them.  This is an ethical “hitch” that we cannot deny or justify.

On a global scale, this project is “hitched” to the utter destruction of the boreal forest in Alberta and the fracking process ravaging North Dakota, where foul-smelling wastewater ponds are threatening agricultural land, animals, the water supply and human health, and where toxic methane gas flares light up the night sky as bright as any American city on the Google night map.  Scientists say the continued extraction of these extreme fuels is “game over” for the planet and human life upon it.   The Pope’s recent encyclical has “hitched” climate change to a moral imperative:  trade in our short-sighted greed for an alternative path to save our children and life on earth.

John Muir, naturalist, visionary and Martinez neighbor, spoke words that resonate with us today.  Benicia is “hitched” to the rest of the world.  We don’t live in a bubble where a town of 28,000 people can make decisions based on short-term financial gain at the expense of endangering human lives or contributing to the destruction of forests, waterways and the atmosphere, just because they are out of our sight.  Our provincial days are over; time for Benicia to reject crude by rail.

Jan Cox Golovich
Former City Councilmember
Air Quality, Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), Bay Area Refineries, Benicia CA, Crude By Rail, Revised Draft EIR (RDEIR), Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

League of Women Voters to host Benicia forum on refinery rules

Repost from the Benicia Herald

Benicia forum on refinery rules set

September 8, 2015 by Nick Sestanovich

Air District to have 2-hour ‘open house’ at Robert Semple Elementary on Sept. 17

Debate over the Valero Crude-by-Rail Project — now well into its third year — intensified last week after the release of the revised Draft Environmental Impact Report. But even as residents, businesses and others in the city continue to pore over that massive document, they will have the opportunity to learn more about newly drafted state rules for refineries at a forum here next week.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District will host a series of open houses at elementary schools in the refinery-heavy nexus of Benicia, Martinez and Richmond this month to present the agency’s four new and amended rules to reduce refinery emissions.

“This is part of an effort to reduce emissions from Bay Area refineries by 20 percent or as much as feasible by 2020,” Air District spokesperson Ralph Borrmann said Friday.

The four rules deal with limiting ammonia from fluid catalytic cracking units; broadening equipment leak standards to include all equipment that handles heavy liquids; reducing sulfur dioxide from coke calcining processes; and regulating cooling towers to reduce emissions of organic compounds, toxics and methane by being able to detect and fix leaks.

“The Air District passed a resolution almost a year ago to develop a strategy to reduce refinery emissions,” Borrmann said. “Bay Area refineries are among the most regulated in the country, if not the world, but these meetings are presenting the public with an ambitious approach to reduce emissions that are part of an aggressive approach to regulate refineries in our area.”

The open houses, Borrmann said, will not be lectures but rather forums for people to discuss and gather information. Tables will be set up with in-house experts so attendees can ask questions about the new rules, he said.

“We hope the communities and other stakeholders will have an opportunity to learn about air quality and have a role in the rule-making process,” he said.

The BAAQMD’s Benicia open house will be from 6-8 p.m. Sept. 17 at Robert Semple Elementary, 2015 East Third St.

The two other open houses will be Sept. 15 from 6-8 p.m. at Las Juntas Elementary School, 4105 Pacheco Blvd., in Martinez; and Sept. 28 from 6-8 p.m. at Lincoln Elementary School, 29 Sixth St., in Richmond.