Tag Archives: Carquinez Strait

Tell Benicia City Council – ‘no more gunfire near our homes and waterfront!’

Benicia City Council to vote on boosting citizens’ petition to halt early-morning gunfire barrage during hunting season 

By Nathalie Christian, May 22, 2023

On Tuesday, May 23, 2023, Benicia City Council will vote on whether or not to adopt a resolution in support of a citizens’ petition to California’s Fish & Game Commission (FGC) to prohibit duck hunting near Benicia’s residential shoreline.

According to the petition brought by Benicia resident Cathy Bennett and several community members, for the past two seasons duck hunters have been discharging their weapons within 150 yards of residential homes and parks. The barrage of gunfire has reportedly traumatized both residents and animals – including young children, pets, wildlife and adults – and potentially lowered the value of homes in the area.

However, the FGC has yet to place the matter on an upcoming agenda for consideration, effectively stalling the effort in its tracks.

To support the safety of residents as well as business interests in the area (considered prime waterfront real estate), Benicia City Council is seeking public input on whether adopt a resolution “to reinvigorate the urgency of the matter to the FGC with the goal of having the merits of the petition discussed at the August 2023 meeting.”

Show your support

Benicia residents are strongly encouraged to show support for our neighbors living on the shoreline who, for two hunting seasons now, have been awoken by loud gunfire early in the morning. The impact on human, wildlife and business interests in the area has been severe.

Take a stand with your Benicia neighbors by making a public comment telling our City Council that enough is enough – we have a right to safety, peace and quiet in our own homes.

Showing your support can be as easy as writing an email, but commenting in person is a great way to be heard.

How to write and email a public comment

Members of the public may provide public comment via email to the City Clerk by email at lwolfe@ci.benicia.ca.us. Any comment submitted to the City Clerk should indicate to which item of the agenda the comment relates (DUCK HUNTING IS ITEM 21.B).

– Comments received by 2:00 pm on the day of the meeting will be electronically forwarded to the City Council and posted on the City’s website.

– Comments received after 2:00 pm, but before the start time of the meeting will be electronically forwarded to the City Council but will not be posted on the City’s website.

In your email, put the item number in your subject line (e.g., “Public comment re. Item 21.B”).

In your email body, share why you support the resolution. You don’t have to write much. You can simply say, “I support a resolution to prohibit duck hunting near Benicia homes.”

The important thing is to send the email on time, ideally before 2 pm on Tuesday, May 23.

How to view the meeting and/or make a live public comment

You can participate in the meeting in one of four ways: 

1) Attend in person at Council Chambers
2) Cable T.V. Broadcast – Check with your cable provider for your local government broadcast channel.
3) Livestream online at www.ci.benicia.ca.us/agendas.
4) Zoom Meeting (link below)

The public may view and participate (via computer or phone) link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88508047557?pwd=cHRsZlBrYlphU3pkODcycytmcFR2UT09
  • If prompted for a password, enter 449303.
  • Use participant option to “raise hand” during the public comment period for the item you wish to speak on. Please note, your electronic device must have microphone capability. Once unmuted, you will have up to 5 minutes to speak.
  • Dial in with phone:
    Before the start of the item you wish to comment on, call any of the numbers below. If one is busy, try the next one.

        • 1 669 900 9128
        • 1 346 248 7799
        • 1 253 215 8782
        • 1 646 558 8656
        • 1 301 715 8592
        • 1 312 626 6799

•  Enter the meeting ID number: 885 0804 7557 (*please note this is an updated ID number*.)

Say the item you wish to speak on. (DUCK HUNTING IS ITEM 21. B)

Once unmuted, you will have up to 5 minutes to speak.

Enter password: 449303

When prompted for a Participant ID, press #.

Press *9 on your phone to “raise your hand” when the Mayor calls for public comment during the

Any member of the public who needs accommodations should email City Clerk Lisa Wolfe at lwolfe@ci.benicia.ca.us, who will use her best efforts to provide as much accessibility as possible while also maintaining public safety.

Oppose gunfire in the Carquinez Strait near our Benicia homes and recreation!

Is Duck hunting off the Benicia residential shoreline really a good idea?

By C Bennett, by email

For those of you who haven’t yet been woken at dawn by the sound of gunshots, for the second season in a row a group of local resident duck hunters have been hunting off the Benicia shoreline & State Park waters. Our beautiful straits that used to be filled with peaceful water recreation, have recently been overshadowed by duck hunters from late October to late January.  Our usual mixture of kayakers, paddleboarders, windsurfers & hang gliders have receded.  Who can blame them?  Sharing the waterways with men shooting guns is a kill joy, not to mention unsafe.

It turns out it is technically legal.  For the past 40+ years duck hunters have known that hunting was inappropriate so close to a residential community, so they hunted in nearby appropriate venues including Grizzly Island, Suisun Marsh, Mare Island & along the shores of San Pablo Bay & non-residential sections of the Napa River (all quite close by).  Hunters respected the residential shoreline of Benicia & the State Park waters as off-limits to hunting. But a new generation of local hunters think differently, despite the polite request of their neighbors to hunt elsewhere.  Their response is, “It’s legal. We can hunt here if we want to.”  So they persist- 2-3 days a week, starting usually at sunrise, sometimes staying out on the water til noon, (or all day) returning at sunset.

Dozens of calls to the Fish & Wildlife Dept have failed to impart any change. Benicia police say, “It’s out of our jurisdiction.”  Residents have consulted the mayor, the city attorney, the police chief, and the city manager.  Apparently, as long as it is technically legal, there is nothing the city of Benicia, or its residents can do to stop it.  Casual hikers along the SF Bay Trail, families & children playing or picnicking in the waterfront parks, bicyclists on the State Park pathways, & people whose houses look out upon the straits are unwittingly exposed to the jolting harshness of gunfire, & a visual of ducks being shot from the skies.  On the west side of town it wakes and alarms children, sends dogs into a panic, and triggers those with PTSD. It is an intolerable affront to the peaceful enjoyment of our lives.  Without some type of action to stop this, it may well grow to more & more hunters, eventually altering the personality & character of our town.  It will impact the type of tourists we attract, & the type of businesses that may or may not prosper.  It will quite likely change the very nature of our town. To most nature lovers, being viscerally exposed to duck hunting along the Benicia shoreline is not consistent with our motto

It’s a Great Day by the Bay”.

All this said, ‘duck hunting’ itself is not the problem. Duck hunting off of the Benicia shoreline & the State Park waters is the problem. I’m calling upon all of our conscientious duck hunters in this town to speak to these younger duck hunters.  Share with them your integrity, your knowledge of right from wrong, & help them understand the give & take of being part of a larger community.  So far diplomacy has failed.  We must therefore be prepared to designate the waters along the Benicia shoreline & the State Park off-limits to hunting.  We need to establish a legal basis to return to the common sense and courtesy that prevailed for much of the past four decades.  To accomplish this will require us to combine our individual voices, to unify for a common cause, & be prepared to take the necessary steps to restore & protect the peaceful enjoyment of this beautiful oasis we call Benicia.

Respectfully submitted,

C Bennett

9,700+ people submit comments opposing Bay Area dredging project

Press Release, STAND.EARTH, April 21, 2020
The Carquinez Strait, looking east, the Carquinez Bridge in the foreground and the Benicia–Martinez Bridge in the background. [Wikipedia]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Tuesday, April 21, 2020

9,700+ people submit comments opposing Bay Area dredging project

Community members speak out during public comment period against Army Corps of Engineers proposal, calling it a move by President Trump to expand fossil fuel industry

Traditional Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone Lands (SAN FRANCISCO, CA) — More than 6,000 people have submitted comments in opposition during a public comment period for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposal to dredge San Francisco Bay.

The proposal, called the San Francisco to Stockton Navigation Improvement Project, would dredge a deeper channel through 13 miles of San Francisco Bay and the Carquinez Strait. Opponents criticize the project as a move by U.S. President Donald Trump and Big Oil to expand the fossil fuel industry in California — including increasing imports of Canadian tar sands crude oil. The proposal would provide a $57 million subsidy to Bay Area refineries.

“The world needs to start phasing out fossil fuel production — and this plan encourages just the opposite. It gifts four Bay Area oil refineries with millions in subsidies, pumps up the production of petroleum products, multiplies the risk of oil spills in local waters, threatens marine life, and increases greenhouse gas emissions and toxic pollution,” said Isabella Zizi, Climate Campaigner at Stand.earth in an op-ed published in the Benicia Herald.

The comment period on the proposal’s final environmental impact statement was extended from April 6 to April 21 after more than 100 social justice and environmental groups called on the Army Corps to extend comment periods and postpone public hearings while the country battles the coronavirus pandemic.

As of 4 p.m. Monday, April 21, 9,762 people had submitted comments through an online form during the comment period. An additional 36,492 signatures were collected on earlier petitions calling on President Trump and state and federal leaders to oppose the project, including Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, Rep. John Garamendi, Rep. Jerry McNerney, Rep. Mike Thompson, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and former presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris.

According to the draft environmental impact statement, the dredging project would enable the transport of greater amounts of crude oil imports and refined product exports to and from several oil refineries and other industries in the Bay Area. The proposal coincides with plans by Bay Area refineries — including an expansion proposal at Phillips 66’s San Francisco Refinery — to process greater quantities of Canadian tar sands crude oil. Tar sands, also called diluted bitumen or dilbit, is an extremely toxic, non-floating crude oil that is extremely difficult to clean up in the event of a spill.

Read more about the dredging proposal in this San Francisco Chronicle article from November 2019: San Francisco Bay dredging fuels an unexpected concern: climate change.


ABOUT STAND.EARTH AND THE PROTECT THE BAY COALITION

San Francisco-based environmental organization Stand.earth is a member of the Protect the Bay coalition, a group of local residents that aims to educate the Bay Area community about the expansion proposal at Phillips 66’s San Francisco Refinery in Rodeo. 
Coalition members include Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), Crockett-Rodeo United to Defend the Environment (CRUDE), Idle No More SF Bay, Interfaith Council of Contra Costa County, Rodeo Citizens Association, Stand.earth, and Sunflower Alliance. Supporting organizations include 350 Bay Area, Amazon Watch, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth US, Fresh Air Vallejo, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, San Francisco Baykeeper, 350 Contra Costa County, and 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations.
Learn more about the Protect the Bay coalition at protectthebay.org

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Media contact: Virginia Cleaveland, Communications Manager, media@stand.earth, 510-858-9902

 

Environmental Groups Oppose U.S. Army Corps Plan to Dredge the Bay for Bigger Oil Tankers

BayNature.org, by David Loeb, April 16, 2020
The Phillips 66 San Francisco Refinery in Rodeo. (Photo By Dreamyshade, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0)

Drive east along Interstate 80, past the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo, and you can see that the Bay Area remains very much embedded in the fossil fuel economy. And if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has its way, we may well be doubling down on that relationship.

The Corps has a pending proposal, officially dubbed the “San Francisco Bay to Stockton, California Navigation Study,” to dredge a 13-mile stretch of the San Francisco Bay Estuary from San Pablo Bay (just north of Point San Pablo) through the Carquinez Strait to the Benicia-Martinez Bridge. This project would deepen the channel leading to four oil refineries along the shoreline by an average of three feet, allowing for the arrival of a larger class of oil tankers than can currently access these refineries. The Army Corps’ January 2020 Environment Impact Statement (EIS) for the project claims that the total volume of oil shipped will not necessarily increase as a result of the project, but rather claims that the dredging might even result in reduced ship traffic in the Bay by delivering the same amount of oil on fewer (but larger) ships.

A map of a proposed new San Francisco Bay dredge from the Army Corps of Engineers’ January 2020 environmental impact statement.

This argument has not persuaded Bay Area environmental groups, who last spring submitted comments on the Draft EIS opposing the dredging project. These groups, including San Francisco Baykeeper, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Communities for a Better Environment, and Ocean Conservation Research, are submitting similarly negative comments on the Final EIS, which they say is not much of an improvement over the 2019 draft version. The deadline for public comments has been extended, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, until Tuesday, April 21.

The concerns of these organizations fall in to three basic categories: direct impacts on the local aquatic environment from both the dredging itself and from the increased traffic; direct air quality impacts on local communities from the increase in refinery operations; and above all, concern that increasing the capacity for delivery and production of fossil fuels directly contradicts the state’s mandated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to slow the impact of climate change.

I. Impacts on Local Aquatic Environment

The Army Corps’ EIS contends that the Bay floor sediments to be disturbed by the dredging do not contain significant levels of toxic materials. But comments by the environmental organizations point out that the Corps appears to be relying on studies done over a decade ago or more, and they list a range of contaminants that could be re-suspended from the settled sediment that are not addressed by the Corps. The groups point out that this narrow body of water connecting the Bay with the Delta is heavily used by endangered fish species, including Delta smelt, longfin smelt, and Chinook salmon, among others, as well as by harbor seals and California sea lion, both protected marine mammal species.

The groups also point out that the EIS only addresses the impact of the dredging itself on the local aquatic environment. By asserting that the deepening of the channel will not, on its own, increase the level of shipping in the channel, the Corps disclaims any responsibility to address the impact of increased oil tanker traffic. However, as the environmental organizations point out, there is little chance that the refineries would not take advantage of this opportunity to increase their operations. In fact, as Ocean Conservation Research points out in its comments, the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo has recently been granted permission by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to double its refining capacity. So it would be naïve to ignore the probability of increased traffic in the Strait, with is attendant increase in disturbance of all kinds (noise, water pollution, possible spills, etc.) and the resulting impact on wildlife populations.

In addition, Ocean Conservation Research’s comment letter points out that in order to accommodate the larger ships of the Panamax class (so-called because they are the maximum size allowed through the Panama Canal), the Phillips refinery has proposed an enlargement and expansion of its wharf facility. Such a project would involve disturbance of sediments full of toxic heavy metals left behind by the Selby Slag, a company that operated a smelter there into the 1970s, extracting ore from waste metals. Because the wharf expansion is considered a separate project, the Corps is not legally required to address it in its EIS — but expansion of the wharf would not be economically viable without the deeper channel.

Additionally, according to Baykeeper Executive Director Sejal Choksi-Chugh, “Baykeeper has concerns about how the project will impact salinity in the Delta. Deepening the shipping channel will push the fresh water/salt water mixing zone (known as the X2) further east, threatening drinking water supplies” for people in Contra Costa County and other Delta communities.

II. Impacts on Local Communities

Again, by asserting that the dredging project will not result in increased refining activity, and therefore only considering the impact of the actual dredging work, the Corps’ EIS does not find any impact on surrounding “environmental justice communities.” These communities, including Richmond, Vallejo, and Martinez, have been subjected to high levels of pollution from decades of industrial activity, and are demographically “majority minority” and low income. The failure of the EIS to contemplate increased levels of air pollution from increased refinery activities belies the refineries’ long record of “accidental” spills, flares, releases, etc. that have caused the area’s residents to periodically “shelter in place” long before the novel coronavirus.

III. The Big Picture

All of these local negative impacts are bad enough. But in their comments, the environmental groups assert that it is essential to step back and look at the much larger picture of what the dredging project implies for the region, the state, and the planet:

“The proposed channel alterations would remove constraints on expanding fossil fuel import and export volumes … The project will likely result in a significant increase in future volumes of crude oil and refined petroleum products shipped through the Bay … Here, the increased volume of oil and coal passing through the deepened channels will lead to greater refining and export activity. These in turn will lead to more greenhouse gas emissions, both at the refineries and when the products are combusted. Stated differently, the dredging is ‘a mere step in furtherance of many other steps in the overall development’ of the area’s fossil fuel industry.”

The environmental groups believe that the ultimate plan of the oil companies is to have the Bay Area’s refineries serve as an outlet for oil extracted from the Alberta tar sands, one of the most carbon intensive fuel sources on the planet, given the energy that must be invested to extract it, liquefy it for transport, and ship it. Moreover, the transport of this oil from its source in northern Alberta to the Bay Area is highly problematic, both politically and environmentally. It involves expansion of the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline over First Nation lands of the Salish people in Canada (a project that they are resisting both in the courts and on their land). Then the unrefined oil must be transported by tankers through the Salish Sea, threatening the already depleted Southern Resident population of killer whales. And finally, the tankers must pass through the Golden Gate, where recovering populations of humpback whales and gray whales are also facing increased threats from ship strikes in this busy shipping channel.

All of this leads to the final question of why U.S. taxpayers should fund (at an estimated initial cost of $57 million) a project whose main intended beneficiaries are privately owned oil refineries. Of course, direct taxpayer subsidies to the fossil fuel industry are nothing new, but in an era when we climate change requires us to be reducing our dependence on carbon-intensive fossil fuels, this project would appear to be moving us in the opposite direction.


About the Author

David Loeb
From 2001-2017, David Loeb served as editor and then publisher of Bay Nature magazine, and executive director of the nonprofit Bay Nature Institute. A Bay Area resident since 1973, David moved here after graduating from college in Boston. The decision was largely based on a week spent visiting friends in San Francisco the previous January, which had included a memorable day at Point Reyes National Seashore. In the late 1990s, after many years working for the Guatemala News and Information Bureau in Oakland, David had the opportunity to spend more time hiking and exploring the parks and open spaces of the Bay Area. Increasingly curious about what he was seeing, he began reading natural history books, attending naturalist-led hikes and natural history courses and lectures, and volunteering for several local conservation organizations.
This was rewarding, but he began to feel that the rich natural diversity of the Bay Area deserved a special venue and a dedicated voice for the whole region, to supplement the many publications devoted to one particular place or issue. That’s when the germ of Bay Nature magazine began to take shape. In February 1997, David contacted Malcolm Margolin, publisher of Heyday Books and News from Native California, with the idea of a magazine focused on nature in the Bay Area, and was delighted with Malcolm’s enthusiastic response. Over the course of many discussions with Malcolm, publishing professionals, potential funders, and local conservation and advocacy groups, the magazine gradually took shape and was launched in January 2001. It is still going strong, with a wider base of support than ever.
Now retired, David contributes to his Bay Nature column “Field Reports.”