Tag Archives: Benicia CA

Bakken Crude, Benicia Planning Commission, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, Draft EIR, Public Comment, Tar sands crude, Valero Crude By Rail

KPFA: Benicians oppose crude-by-rail ‘bomb trains’

Repost from AnnGarrison.com

Benicians win first victory in opposition to crude-by-rail ‘bomb trains’

KPFA Weekend News, 07.12.2014

On Thursday, Citizens of Benicia, California won a 45-day extension of the public comment period on the Draft Environmental Impact Report regarding Valero’s plan for bringing tar sands and shale oil to its Benicia Refinery. Activists opposing the shipments began calling them “bomb trains” after explosions around the U.S. and in Canada.

Transcript: 
KPFA Evening News Anchor Cameron Jones:This week the Benicia Planning Commission voted, 4 to 2, for the 45 day public comment period extenion on Valero Oil’s crude by oil The town of Lac Mégantic, Quebec, Canada, burned for four days after a crude-by-rail train derailment and explosion. Forty-seven people died and some of their bodies were never even found. plan. KPFA’s Ann Garrison spoke to Andrés Soto, KPFA host, Benicia resident, and organizer with Communities for a Better Environment. 

KPFA/Ann Garrison: Andrés Soto, could you tell us what happened at the Benicia Planning Commission meeting on Thursday evening? 

Andrés Soto: Yeah, two things occurred. One was that the local group Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community held a rally that was designed to commemorate the 47 people who lost their lives at Lac Mégantic a year ago. It was part of a national campaign along with Forest Ethics, as well as a rally before going into the meeting. 

KPFA: Regarding Lac Mégantic, that’s the community in Quebec where 47 people died after a crude by rail car blew up?
Soto: Crude by rail train.
KPFA: Train.Soto: A crude-by-trail train derailed, and a number of cars exploded, and the town burned for four days, and 47 people were essentially incinerated. Some of their bodies were never found.

KPFA: OK, what happened when you got into the Planning Commission meeting, in Benicia.Soto: Once in the meeting, the Planning Commission had to deal with a couple of ideas. One was whether or not to extend the public comment period from the 45 days it is now to 90 days, and that occurred on a 4 to 2 vote, so the public was allowed to have a longer public comment period.

Before the Benicia Planning Commission meeting on July 10, Benicia residents commemorated the 47 lives just over a year ago, when a crude-by-rail train derailed and cars carrying Bakken shale oil exploded in Lac Mégantic, Quebec. And the other action was, they started to take comment from the public on the Draft Environmental Impact Report on Valero’s crude-by-rail project. They only were able to listen to about five or six people by the time they got around to that at 11:30 pm, so the meeting is going to be continued, and the public will be allowed to give more testimony at their next meeting in August. The crowd was overwhelmingly anti crude-by-rail. The Valero forces were able to turn out a few folks, mostly from the building trades unions, but the bulk of the people who were there were opposed to it. There was also an opportunity for people who live uprail, in Roseville and Davis and Vacaville and places like that. They allowed those folks to actually offer their commentary first, before the Benicia residents, because they had come from such a long way.

So we think we’re in a good place right now and looking forward to the next meeting.

KPFA: If you’re opposing crude by rail, then you’re basically opposing the transport of shale oil and tar sands oil from the middle of the country, right?

Soto: Correct. Valero and Union Pacific have teamed up to begin to try to deliver Bakken crude and tar sands crude, Bakken crude from North Dakota, and tar sands crude from Alberta, Canada by rail down here since there is no Keystone pipeline to the West Coast. And in the city of Benicia, Valero wants to shift from getting all of its oil delivered by ships, at their port, and converting to getting it all by rail. And we believe this puts the CIty of Benicia and the surrounding communities and the Suisun Marsh at an unnecessary risk. And our position is that they ought to leave that stuff in the ground, that just because they can get it out doesn’t mean we want it. What we support is a just transition from a fossil fuel based economy to one based on the expansion of renewable energies.

KPFA: And that was Andrés Soto, Benicia resident and organizer with Communities for a Better Environment. In Berkeley, for Pacifica, KPFA Radio, I’m Ann Garrison.

Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Lac-Mégantic

Lac-Mégantic Memorial – Benicia California, Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast

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.

Amen.  So be it.

 Mary Susan Gast

Bakken Crude, Blast zone, Crude By Rail, donner, DOT-111, Hazmat notification, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Rail routing, Take Action

Crude By Rail protest at rail station in Davis, CA

Repost from Fox40 TV Sacramento / Stockton / Modesto
[Editor:  Thank you, Davis!  Thank you, Assemblyman Roger Dickinson!  Thank you Fox40!  – RS]

Crude Oil by Rail Opponents Stage Protests

July 9, 2014, by Lonnie Wong

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.

Bakken Crude, Benicia Planning Commission, Crude By Rail, DEIR, Tar sands crude, Valero Benicia Refinery

Vallejo Times-Herald: Why the rush on crude?

Repost from The Vallejo Times-Herald, Letters

Why the rush on crude?

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.