We remember those who died and those who grieve and those who heal and rebuild in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. On the evening of July 10, 2014, Benicians For a Safe and Healthy Community gathered in remembrance, bearing 47 sunflowers representing the 47 who were killed by a runaway crude oil train just over a year ago on July 6, 2013. Our own Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast offered the following meditation and prayer.
Lac-Mégantic Memorial 10 July 2014
We gather today in remembrance
Of forty-seven people
Whose death came without warning, and with fiery finality,
An hour or so after midnight just over a year ago
In a small town in Quebec.
Death came without malice aforethought, but seemingly with dire whimsy,
To those who slept in their beds,
Or worked the night shift,
Or left the bar early,
In the blast zone of tank cars running off the tracks, laden with explosive crude oil.
We gather today because the strange geography of compassion
brings what has struck far away
close to home.
We turn our hearts and our spirits to the people of Lac-Mégantic, population 5900,
who carry on in a place “where you either know someone who died or know someone who is grieving a death, where you wake up each day to the sound of heavy construction equipment, where your livelihood is at risk and where visitors come only to ask about the disaster.”
where social workers have so far met with 423 residents, from orphaned children to mourning grandparents,
where 800 jobs have been lost,
whose once serene waterfront is now inaccessible behind security barriers and rubble.
We gather today because the troubling perspective of imagination
brings what has struck far away
close to home.
We turn our thoughts and our voices to those who will make decisions about our town’s future.
We ask that they will take the long view,
That they will recall Lac-Mégantic—the town and the people—and remember that there have been 18 other derailments of tank cars carrying crude since last July,
That they will, with insight into human frailty, be aware that despite our good intentions, despite our commitment to safety standards, there are forces too toxic to be contained, standards too inadequate to defend against disaster.
That they will keep their minds and their hearts open to the future of Benicia, the town and the people, and the towns and the people uprail and downwind, the marshlands, the farmlands, the businesses, and the waterfront.
All these things we pray and do in the name of the Great Spirit of Life, Who blesses us with earth, air, and water, who graces us with creativity and community, and strengthens us with compassion and imagination.
SACRAMENTO – Activists concerned about the danger of crude oil train shipments through populated areas took part in a national day of action Wednesday, including events in Sacramento and Davis.
Laurie Litman heads up 350 Sacramento, a group concerned about global warming. She notes that shipments of crude oil in California have increased 1,300 percent over the past four years.
Litman circulated a map at a rally outside a federal building in Sacramento showing neighborhoods and schools that would be affected by a fiery oil spill like the one that killed 47 people in Quebec, Canada a year ago.
“These are not fires that can be put out. They need to burn out, so if that happens when a train comes through the middle of Sacramento, we are in trouble” Litman said.
Sacramento Assembly Member Roger Dickinson addressed the gathering, telling them that emergency agency need to know what volatile oil shipments are being transported and when. He has authored a bill requiring rail companies to provide that information and have access to real time communications gear to get information to local officials.
Several rail spills occurred in areas where emergency responders had no little information of what was spilled.
“To assure that we get the information that we need, and the information that we need in a timely way,” said Dickinson.
Many at the rally were advocating a reduction in the use of crude oil as a long term solution to the threat of oil derailments.
“It’s not if, it’s when because it has happened before,” David Link, of the Sacramento Electrical Vehicle Association, said Wednesday.
Activists in Davis are particularly concerned about a plan to run 100 oil tank cars a day through Downtown Davis to a Valero refinery in Benecia. If approved, the trains would go from Roseville thorough Sacramento past Davis.
They handed out leaflets and circulated petitions at the Davis Rail Station.
By Kathy Kerridge, Vallejo Times-Herald, 07/08/2014
The Benicia Planning commission will take public comments tonight at City Hall on the Draft Environmental Impact Report for Valero’s Crude by Rail project. Written comments are due by Aug. 1. This project would bring 100 rail cars a day over the Donner Pass or through the Feather River Canyon, over rivers, through Truckee, Roseville, Sacramento, Davis, Dixon, Fairfield, the Suisun Marsh and into Benicia.
These trains could be carrying the same Bakken Crude that exploded in Canada, killing 47 people and Canadian Tar Sands, which have proved impossible to clean up when it has spilled in waterways. Some have claimed this is safe. Everyone should be aware that the National Transportation Safety Board in January said that trains carrying crude oil should “where technically feasible require rerouting to avoid transportation of such hazardous materials through populated and other sensitive areas.” At this point in time it is feasible to keep these dangerous materials from going through populated areas by not approving the project. Otherwise it will not be feasible.
The new railcars that Valero says it will use are the same ones that ruptured and spilled April 30, 2014 in Lynchburg, Virginia, threatening Richmond’s water supply. The Department of Transportation is in the process of crafting new rules for rail cars carrying crude, but there is no time line for when they will be issued and it will be some time before any new cars are available. There have been two train derailments in Benicia’s Industrial Park in recent months.
Why the rush? Is Valero running out of crude oil? No. The reason Valero wants to bring in this dangerous crude, in rail cars that split and rupture in a derailment, is that this crude oil is on sale right now. The oil isn’t going anywhere. It isn’t safe to transport through populated areas and all of the communities that this crude goes through will be at risk.
Repost from The Sacramento Bee [Editor: Check this out – Benicia’s uprail friends are getting out on the tracks, and they are getting the media’s attention. Thanks to everyone who is following this story. Benicia is in the “crosshairs” of a nationwide – worldwide – focus on this dangerous and dirty money grab by the oil and rail industries. More and more, thoughtful people are saying, “No, not here.” – RS]
Crude oil train protests planned in Sacramento, Davis
By Tony Bizjak, Jul. 8, 2014
Jake Miille / Special to The Bee | A crude oil train operated by BNSF snakes its way west through James, Calif., just outside the Feather River Canyon in the foothills into the Sacramento Valley.
Laurie Litman, who lives a block from the rail tracks in midtown Sacramento, says oil and rail companies are about to put her neighborhood and plenty of others in danger, and she wants to stop it.
Litman is among a group of environmental activists in Sacramento and Davis who will gather this week at the Federal Railroad Administration office in Sacramento and at the Davis train station to protest plans by oil companies to run hundreds of rail cars carrying crude through local downtowns every day. The protests, on the anniversary of an oil train crash and explosion that killed 47 people in the Canadian city of Lac-Megantic, will spotlight a plan by Valero Refining Co. of Benicia to launch twice-daily crude oil train shipments through downtown Roseville, Sacramento and Davis early next year.
“Our goal is to stop the oil trains,” said Litman of 350 Sacramento, a new local environmental group. “We are talking about 900-foot fireballs. There is nothing a first responder (fire agency) can do with a 900-foot fireball.”
Sacramento Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, an advocate for increased crude oil rail safety, will speak at noon Wednesday during the Sacramento event at 8th and I streets. The Yolano Climate Action group will distribute leaflets at the Davis train station Tuesday and Wednesday evening about the Valero proposal. The Davis City Council recently passed a resolution saying it opposes running the trains on the existing downtown Davis rail line.
The protests are among the first in the Sacramento area in response to a recent surge in crude oil rail transports nationally, prompted mainly by new oil drilling of cheaper oils in North Dakota, Montana and Canada. In California, where rail shipments have begun to replace marine deliveries from Alaskan oil fields and overseas sources, state safety leaders recently issued a report saying California is not yet prepared to deal with the risks from increased rail shipments of crude.
Oil and railroad industry officials point out that 99.9 percent of crude oil shipments nationally arrive at their destinations without incident, and that the industry is reducing train speeds through cities, helping train local fire and hazardous material spill crews, and working with the federal government on plans for a new generation of safer rail tanker cars. Valero officials as well say their crude oil trains can move safely through Sacramento, and a recent report sponsored by the city of Benicia concluded that an oil spill along the rail line to Benicia is highly unlikely.
In a letter last week, however, four Northern California members of Congress called on the federal government to require oil and rail companies take more steps to make rail crude shipments safer. The letter was signed by Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, George Miller, D-Martinez, Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, and John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove.
“We are especially concerned with the high risks involved with transporting .. more flammable crude in densely populated areas,” the group wrote to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “Should spills or explosions occur, as we have seen over the last year, the consequences could be disastrous.”
The four lawmakers said oil companies should be required to remove more volatile gases from Bakken crude oil before it is shipped nationally from North Dakota. The federal government issued a warning earlier this year about Bakken crude after several Bakken trains exploded during derailments. The California Congress members also encouraged federal representatives to move quickly to require railroads to install advanced train control and braking systems. Industry officials have said those systems, called Positive Train Control, are expensive and will take extended time to put into place.
Representatives from a handful of Sacramento area cities and counties are scheduled to meet this week to review Valero’s crude oil train plans, and to issue a formal response to the environmental document published two weeks ago by Benicia that concluded derailments and spills are highly unlikely. City of Davis official Mike Webb said one spill and explosion could be catastrophic, and that as more oil companies follow Valero’s lead by bringing crude oil trains of their own through Sacramento, the chances of crashes increase.
The Sacramento group has indicated it wants a detailed advanced notification system about what shipments are coming to town. Those notifications will help fire agencies who must respond if a leak or fire occurs. Local officials say they also will ask Union Pacific to keep crude-oil tank cars moving through town without stopping and parking them here. The region’s leaders also want financial support to train firefighters and other emergency responders on how to deal with crude oil spills, and possibly funds to buy more advanced firefighting equipment. Sacramento leaders say they will press the railroad to employ the best inspection protocols on the rail line.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/07/08/6541363/crude-oil-train-protests-planned.html#storylink=cp
