Tag Archives: Marilyn Bardet

Benicia CA, Cleanup funding, Just transition, Public engagement, Signature Development Group, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Energy Corporation

Benicia’s Marilyn Bardet – Needed perspective on Signature Development Group and Benicia’s planning for Valero cleanup and transition

October 4, 2025 Roger Straw

BACKGROUND (by BenIndy Editor): On October 1, City Councilmember Terry Scott distributed without comment a link to a website, “Moving Benicia Forward”, movebeniciaforward.com. The front page invitation there reads, “We invite you to share your thoughts” and offers visitors to click on “Share Feedback.” This goes to a page with information about Signature Development Group, which is under contract with Valero “to evaluate redevelopment opportunities for the Benicia refinery property.” The page also offers a blank box for “FEEDBACK – Share your thoughts about the potential redevelopment.”

The Benicia Independent, by Marilyn Bardet, October 3, 2025

In my view, Signature Development Group’s setting up of an online platform inviting the public to submit ideas and comments for post-closure redevelopment of Valero’s ~900 acres seems like a well-meant gesture toward public involvement. I say “gesture” because such an approach to communication can lead to one-directional, top-down decision-making.

Since Valero’s announcement in April, Signature has been under contract with Valero to come up with a comprehensive re-development plan whose options would presumably be contingent upon, and possibly limited by, findings from investigations of soil and water contamination remaining from all uses by Responsible Parties, including the military. Yet, since April, the public has learned little or nothing from Signature about their initial thoughts, their approach, and preliminary reviews of conditions. What have the mayor and council members learned in conversation with Signature?

I’m seasoned in this: we’re well past the point of needing more info than has been spoken in generalities. We must get conversations out into the open.

BENICIA’S GENERAL PLAN AND A CITIZEN TASK FORCE

I don’t believe there is any substitute for the kind of “roll-up-your-sleeves-put-on-your-thinking caps” work done in person, when learning and respectful deliberation can take place among a broad-spectrum of community stakeholders. Any discussions on this momentous venture should be under guidance of the goals and policies of the Benicia General Plan.

Such a public oversight process is necessary and foundational to any plans for the Valero properties if those plans are to gain public approval. I believe Elizabeth Patterson’s reasoning and recommendation for establishing a community stakeholder task force now is absolutely sound, based on a proven record of what such an open deliberative process nets.

The task force could resemble a modified version of the General Plan Oversight Committee [GPOC], a council-appointed 17-member committee charged in 1995 to rewrite the city’s outdated 1978 general plan. (Note: in 1978, the refinery, then owned by Exxon, was new—only 10 years old!). As a professional planner, Elizabeth was appointed to facilitate the committee’s work, and under her leadership, GPOC members dove into discussions and debates on often contentious issues concerning land use, sustainable economic development, community health and safety, and community identity. Outside speakers offered expertise to inform GPOC and the public. The goals, policies and programs hammered out by consensus became the integrated guidance document required by the state, with legal standing, that we have today, inclusive of periodic updates. Our Benicia General Plan has stood the test of time and will keep evolving.

In effect, any decisions made for the Valero properties will shape the city’s future, for good or ill, and could represent a significant general plan “update”, thus invoking need for such a citizen task force.

The visions we collectively hold for our city’s sustainability and future development must entail hard-nosed assessments of prospective major changes over the next 5 – 10 years: changes that will be cumulative. (Think large-scale residential development currently proposed for Seeno property, the Arsenal, and now, possibly for portions of Valero property). Such changes deserve open public discussion that an on-going task force would serve as vehicle for: a public process oriented toward specific goals to ensure far-sighted oversight of what will unfold through cleanup investigations and redevelopment planning, inclusive of CEQA reviews.

While it may seem early in the game, so far, five months into it, no such public process has been set up by the city council to proactively engage residents as full participants in an endeavor that has apparently already begun.

CLOSURE CLEANUP BONDING — AND A NEVER IMAGINED REFINERY CLOSURE

In 1995, Koch Industries had come to town exclaiming the benefits of permitting a development proposal for a massive petroleum coke storage and shipping terminal at the port, which would serve all five Bay Area refineries. The public’s outcry in protest was enormous, and successful. Notable at that time, activists spoke up about the need for a secure bond to be required of Exxon that would pay for a future refinery cleanup. While Koch failed in its development bid, nothing came of recommendations for a “closure cleanup bond” to be put up by the refinery.

In 1999, the new general plan was adopted, just when Valero was negotiating terms with Exxon for purchase of the refinery. Though the general plan did not directly incorporate goals that specifically addressed the refinery’s possible closure, key policies addressed the need to protect residents from exposure to contaminated soils—the concern expressed based on the city’s oversight debacles revealed by the Rose Drive/Braito Landfill investigation and cleanup.

All that said, Valero Energy Corp’s announcement of its options for shutting down by April 2026, was a stunner. It became the hottest concern of the city, and respectively for the governor and legislature: nobody was prepared. The city instantly worried about projected serious “gap” in revenues, and the state, the significant “gaps” in the gasoline supply chain that shuttering production at the Benicia refinery would/could cause. Once it was determined that Valero wasn’t “taking” any of the state’s offers to stay open, the state seemed to walk away from the problems for the City raised by prospects of closure.

So, unfortunately, the city never imagined a future refinery closure, and thus, what legal obligations attendant on such an undertaking should be raised, such as a condition of any future development permit applied for by Valero. (For example, Valero’s permit for the 10-year Valero Improvement Project begun in 2003.) Thus, the city missed several key opportunities to impose a permitting condition that would, at the very least, require that Valero put up a bond dedicated for funding of closure and thorough cleanup of refinery properties.

As City Manager Giuliani said to me recently when I met with him to discuss my concerns, “We’re on our own now”. I’d just stated that there is no state law that requires full disclosure of total costs of a thorough cleanup. This bears repeating: there’s nothing in either our municipal laws or state law that would protect the City from any Valero failure to meet what the state and city should have formerly considered firm obligations for refinery closures and cleanups. Expecting a lawsuit to resolve such issues would be a David and Goliath contest.

WE’RE LEFT WITH QUESTIONS…

Will a citizen task force be established by council for the long-haul, to be dedicated to oversight of a cleanup process, and, ultimately, for reviewing re-development plans as proposed?

We of the Benicia community are now in the responsible position to publicly model what we mean by a process that oversees “refinery closure, cleanup and restoration” and appropriate sustainable future land uses for former refinery/military lands.

Marilyn Bardet
Good Neighbor Steering Committee
BCAMP Board Member
BISHO Working Group
Valero Community Advisory Panel

Benicia’s Marilyn Bardet: ‘The state has its tail between its legs, wagging, suckered into deal-making with an oil giant.’

September 12, 2025 Roger Straw

The Benicia Independent, by Marilyn Bardet, September 12, 2025

VALERO BENICIA REFINERY TO CLOSE? – BACK ROOM PRIVATE NEGOTIATIONS

On April 15th, Valero Energy Corp stunned our city making their “surprise” well-orchestrated announcement to the California Energy Commission [CEC] saying they intended to”idle, restructure or cease operations” at their Benicia refinery by next April. Evidently, the state was caught off guard, ill prepared for a second refinery closure, just after Phillips 66’s Wilmington refinery had announced last year that they’d be closing this year, (in fact, that closure is in progress).

So, I speculate in the dark, wondering about the state’s backroom private negotiations with the largest refiner in the USA whose profits please its investors. It’s well documented that Big Oil despises California’s extensive environmental regulations that they say impede doing business in this state. Valero tried to blame a restrictive regulatory environment including the City’s adoption of our Industrial Safety Ordinance for its reasons to opt out of refining in Benicia.

JUST A BARGAINING THREAT

But wait. Think about Valero’s position in negotiations. The law requiring refineries to report to the California Energy Commission [CEC] a year in advance of any proposed major change like closure gave Valero in particular a real advantage—a year after P66’s refinery closure that by itself wouldn’t strain the state’s gasoline supply. But if they were to threaten to end production in Benicia?

Surely Valero Corp knew the stats: stopping production at Benicia would cause a significant, though not bottomless, tanking of the state’s gasoline supply, such that consumers’ demand, while trending downward, could not be met without threatening the state’s economy: skyrocketing prices at the gas pumps, long lines for gas, empty stations—just what the all-powerful oil lobby, WSPA (“Whispa”– Western States Petroleum Association) wants us to understand.

Getting into negotiating position, Valero could demand capitulations on regulatory policy, and finesse a financial windfall to stay in business in California— with long-range implications for other oil giants’ maneuverings.

NEWSOM AND THE CEC FALLING FOR IT

After all, Valero Corp knew the governor would be very worried for his own political future as well as the state’s. He would have only four months to come up with tangible results before the end of the 2025 legislative session, which ends today, Sept 12. Newsom had quickly done his own gasoline-supply gap-math homework, and asked the CEC to advise about how to stabilize the state’s “petroleum market economy”. The CEC scrambled together an insider group of stakeholders, including environmental orgs, Benicia’s city manager, and industry reps, to put together recommendations to achieve “balance between available supply and current demand”. As it evidently turned out, the recommendations made public pivoted around the concessions that could be made to Valero to entice them to stay in business in Benicia.

In my view, Valero holds all the cards, keeping its 3 options open with no official mention of “closure”. So far, there’s no final resolution to adopt a budget that would have to incorporate the extraordinary expense of the Valero/state deal—what California tax dollars in the tens of millions will be paying so that prices at the pump will be stabilized.

IT’S ALL ABOUT A ‘JUST TRANSITION’

Think how Big Oil thinks: Valero knew their plays from the get-go: they knew the state has yet to pass “just transition” legislation; AND, the state has made clear it can’t (politically) afford to have any gap in the gas supply chain. . .

Whoever does the negotiating for the state, their hands are tied: the state had yet to adopt any clear, fair plans, policy guidance and requirements for closing refineries, for example, for ensuring thorough cleanups with full costs to be borne by the industry as Responsible Party. Right now, there are no such protections in place as called for by major environmental orgs who have worked hard to get the state to listen. The state has its tail between its legs, wagging, suckered into deal-making with an oil giant.

What does “just transitioning” mean to the Governor? What it should mean—and does mean to us—is adoption of concrete regulatory policy for moving away from fossil fuel extraction and production within the state; for health and safety protections for fenceline communities; for maintaining CEQA—the California Environmental Quality Act, the only defense of citizens’ right, within their jurisdictions, to be informed and comment on large-scale development proposals; compensating cities for fiscal and physical impacts of a refinery closure; for worker retraining within the energy sector; for the ultimate goal, namely, protecting the climate from catastrophic runaway global warming.

Big Oil very easily gambles, playing their extortionist game. Very Big Bucks will be siphoned out of state coffers to pay Valero what it considers its due as the poor victim of state regs, now under threat of evisceration by backroom deal concessions.

[See ‘California in Talks to Pay Hundreds of Millions to Valero to Stave Off Refinery Shutdown‘]

This is very ugly backroom politics indeed. What will be the time limit set for Valero’s “phase out” to closure—three years? Or…. ten? Or, will the state find another operator? And what kind of deal would that call for?

CITIZENS UNHEARD IN THE HEARING

This is what some of us from Benicia needed to hear about at the Aug 20th Assembly Oversight Committee hearing on “Transportation Fuels Transition Plan”. We needed to learn details of the state’s aim to keep the Benicia refinery operating and to voice our concerns for our own city and about state’s strategies to ensure a sufficient gas supply. There were 3-1/2 hours of presentations, mainly by the CEC, with Q&A. Benicia Mayor Young spoke for 10 minutes, speaking about the City’s estimated $8-$12 million loss of revenue should the refinery close, thus indicating his primary fear. Why was there no recommendation by the CEC to incentivize “demand destruction”— transport electrification? etc etc.

It was 5:15 p.m. by the time the public got to speak; there were only a handful of Assembly members or CEC staff left in the room. Over 40 people had lined up to testify, each given 1 minute to speak. Some had come up from Kern County to oppose more drilling near their neighborhoods. The day’s performance seemed like window dressing, all for show, with most of the assembled minds having been already made up, not apparently caring much about the fallout of negotiations for fenceline communities’ future health and safety, or how the state will ever meet its lofty climate goals.

Marilyn Bardet
Good Neighbor Steering Committee
BCAMP Board Member
BISHO Working Group
Valero Community Advisory Panel

Marilyn Bardet: Petcoke pollution in Benicia, photos going back to 1995

October 7, 2021 Roger Straw

Petcoke pollution, Port of Benicia. Photo by San Francisco Baykeeper

Email from Benicia activist Marilyn Bardet, October 7, 2021

On the Baykeeper article with drone video and photos of petcoke pollution at Port of Benicia

I first heard a report about the petroleum coke plume spreading on the Strait from Benicia’s port on KQED radio yesterday, and now the Vallejo Sun (online news source—see link above)) has run an article that includes a drone video of what appears to be a plume from a coke ship at the Valero dock. Clearly, this can’t be a “first” incident. Thanks to Roger Straw,’s catch, the Benicia Independent ran the story yesterday.

The revelation is no surprise to me, although I’ve never had a drone to capture from the air what I’ve witnessed with my own eyes and photographed from near the port. In 1995, I snapped a picture of a “dust cloud” wafting up into the air from petcoke being dumped into the open hull of a coke ship. That “cloud” had been visible to the naked eye on a misty grey day. I’d reported this to the Air District then, (with photos taken from old camera) and similarly, over the years, to no avail. Petcoke is unregulated by Fed-EPA. (see “why” below).

I also took photos in 2013-2014 of coke trains traveling from the refinery along Bayshore Rd, and I’ve collected petcoke off railroad ties that had sifted out from the hopper cars’ undercarriage (from which hinged flanges open up for dumping coke onto underground conveyor belt at the port, which is then trasferred to the petcoke silos. (see photos below). The coke can still be seen along the tracks–proof of how coke gets airborne from its transport from trains to silos to ships’ hulls.

Bayshore Road, oily black coke residue embedded in railroad ties (mjb oct 2013)

Coke train derailed (mjb nov 4 2013)

petcoke collected from train tracks along Bayshore Road in Benicia (mjb oct 9 2013)

Petcoke is a dangerous particulate (PM 10 and PM 2.5) that settles on the water and all around the lower Arsenal area in the vicinity of the arts community and Arsenal Historic District. Tiniest invisible particles blow around, becoming part of the carbon grit that settles on cars, window sills, etc. etc.

close-up of petcoke collected off train tracks in Benicia (mjb oct 9 2013)

Petcoke on a paper towel (mjb oct 9 2013)

petcoke on a paper towel dispersed when blown on (mjb oct 9 2013)

Petcoke oily stain left on paper towel (mjb oct 9 2013)

As most of you know, I’ve railed for years, since 1995, about how petroleum coke is a serious airborne pollutant in our local environment. In 1995, Koch Carbon Industries (subsidiary of Koch Industries) came to Benicia proposing to build a mega-industrial 24/7 petcoke storage and shipping terminal operation that was to serve all five Bay Area refineries including Exxon Benicia (now Valero). That project would have been disastrous for Benicia, creating a massive “toxic coke dump” at our port, with all the cumulative consequences to public health and the environment. We, the public, fought the project fiercely and forced Koch Industries to abandon their proposed “Coke Domes” project. But they went up river and built a smaller coke terminal in Pittsburg instead— speaking of environmental injustice).

Giant tanker (mjb july 19)

close up of tanker and pipelines (mjb july 19)

Valero’s petcoke storage silos (mjb july 19 2021)

If you read no further, the announcement yesterday underscores my point, made over many years and currently, that residential development in the lower Arsenal should not be allowed, because doing so would deliberately create an environmental injustice: the area is inherently industrial and dangerous and polluted by the various specific operations of Valero and Amports. Check it out! Active crude oil pipelines run from the refinery behind our historic Officers’ Row and Clocktower to the Valero tanker dock, (located just east of the Clocktower); petroleum coke is is transferred from the refinery two or three times per week by train along Bayshore Rd to Valero’s petcoke shipping dock (immediately adjacent to Amports’ car import dock); diesel exhaust contributes toxic gases to the air from ships’ engines running while in port and on the Strait. To my knowledge, the cumulative amount of pollution produced everyday in the vicinity of the port has not been calculated.

sign along railroad tracks along Bayshore Rd (MJB)

Valero’s easement along Park Rd (mjb)

Giant tanker (mjb july 19)

close up of the tanker (mjb july 19)

close up of tanker and pipelines (mjb july 19)

Petcoke ship at Valero’s dock (mjb)

ABOUT PETCOKE

Petcoke collected from train tracks along Bayshore Road in Benicia (Marilyn Bardet, Oct 9, 2013)

For those of you not sure about how petcoke is produced and why it’s dangerous to human health: Petroleum coke is the name given to the residue left in the hydrocracker processing unit during the refining of crude oil’s distillates. This residue is an oily, black crumbly carbon substance that must be scraped out of the hydrocracker everyday, and transfered to a “coker” for more processing. to create what’s called “petcoke”. The heavier (dirtier) crude oil refined, the more coke residue is created. The coker unit at Valero transforms the coal-like rocks into a fluffed up powdery-fine granular particulate which is marketed as a product, sold mainly to Asia as a cheap fuel for use in place of more expensive coal in steel furnaces and for other domestic uses. With few exceptions, petcoke cannot be used as a fuel in the US.

Burning petcoke as a fuel contributes to global warming, every bit as much as burning coal or any other fossil fuel. It is also hugely dangerous to human health when inhaled. The coke particulates contain heavy metals, depending on the source of crude oil being refined on any given day. Nickel is a carcinogen when inhaled. PM2.5 particulates of petcoke lodge in the lungs and send other toxic gas molecules—which have piggy-backed onto airborne petcoke particulates—into the bloodstream, thus cumulatively affecting circulatory, heart and lung functions from chronic, daily, low-level exposures breathing airborne petcoke. Of course, petcoke ending up in the water on a regular basis can be ingested by fish and waterfowl and other organisms, contaminating the Strait. Much more investigation of this issue is urgently needed!

Petcoke plume in Carquinez Strait, Benicia. Photo by San Francisco Baykeeper

The sad, unethical fact is that long ago the oil industry lobbied Fed-EPA to exempt petcoke from regulation as a toxic waste, arguing that petcoke becomes a marketable “finished product” when further processed, and therefore belongs in the same category that includes gasoline, kerosene, diesel, and all other liquid distillates produced by refineries. As more and more heavy crude is being refined in California, our refineries will be producing much more petcoke for export as fuel for burning….

To date, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) responds to residents’ complaints about petcoke only if it is visible as an opaque dust cloud when backlit in the air! (This was told to me by BAAQMD staff member).

I hope this helps everyone understand why petcoke is a human health and environmental danger, and why we should NOT be allowing residential development in the lower Arsenal Historic District, for all the enviro reasons cited above. Period!

Please share with your friends!

On the side of public health and safety, social and environmental justice,

Yours truly,
???? Marilyn

Benicia City Attorney Heather McLaughlin, Benicia City Council, Benicia city staff, Benicia Planning Commission, Crude By Rail, Surface Transportation Board, Valero Crude By Rail

Valero Benicia Crude By Rail: No news is, well, a bit of news

September 19, 2016 Roger Straw

By Roger Straw, September 2, 2016
[UPDATE as of Sept. 19, 2016 10AM PDT – still nothing from the STB.]

The Latest …

Every day, I check the Surface Transportation Board’s website, watching to see if they post a decision on Valero’s end run to delay the proceedings. Nothing yet. [If you go to their website, under E-Library, go to Decisions & Notices, or Filings, and search for “valero” under Case Title.]

Opponents of Valero’s dirty and dangerous proposal are trying to plan for the City Council’s September 20 meeting when Crude By Rail will again be on the agenda, but…

no one knows at this time whether the STB will have issued an advisory or declined to do so, and if so, what the STB advice will be, and
no one is sure exactly what procedures will guide Council and the public in either case!

The latest guidance from City Attorney Heather McLaughlin is complicated, a bit confusing, and perhaps inconclusive. In response to Benicia resident Marilyn Bardet’s inquiry, McLaughlin wrote on 8/30:

I am sorry but I have to give you the lawyerly “it depends” answer at this point. It will depend if we get an answer from the STB. If we don’t get an answer, the Council already closed the public comment. They would have to take action to re-open the hearing. If we do get an answer, the Council would have to open the public hearing to allow comment only on the new information from the STB. The Council discussion is a continuance from the last appeal hearing. They specifically continued the item to September 20th.

Then on 8/31, McLaughlin added:

If the STB responds in time for the meeting on the 20th, the Council would open the hearing for comments as it relates to the STB response. Public comments would have to relate to the response. I can imagine a range of public comments along the lines of the STB’s response means the EIR must be redone, or that the EIR is good enough, or that some aspect of it must be redone, or that some permit condition should be applied to address the STB response. As long as comments relate to the STB response, then the comment is ok. Comments on the EIR or permitting that do not relate to the STB response would not fit in since the hearing for general comments has already happened.

Quickie Background…

Last February, after 3 years of study, public and expert comments and lengthy hearings, Benicia’s Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny Valero Crude by Rail. Valero immediately appealed the decision to Benicia’s City Council.

In March, as Valero presented its appeal to the City Council, the refinery’s attorney surprised everyone by asking for a delay so that it could ask the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) for a declaratory order favoring Valero’s proposal. Valero’s petition asks the STB to clarify whether the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act, or ICCTA, prohibits the city from taking rail-related impacts into account while deciding on the project.

In April on a 3-2 vote, ignoring the advice of city manager and staff, the City Council granted Valero’s request for a delay. As part of the motion, the Council “approved continuing discussion on this item to September 20.”

After a delay of its own, Valero submitted its petition to the STB on May 31. On Jun 10 the STB granted an extension for public comments until July 8. The STB has received multiple letters pro and con on Valero’s petition. Among the many letters is a response by the City of Benicia to Valero’s petition, in which the City asserts local land use permitting authority.

No one knows if – and when – the STB will give an opinion; and if the STB does weigh in, no one knows to what extent they will support Valero or uphold local land use permitting authority.

For complete background on the Appeal and STB, see the Benicia Independent’s APPEAL PAGE. For public comments and City transcripts, see the Benicia Independent’s PROJECT REVIEW PAGES. All things Valero CBR can also be found on the City of Benicia website.