Tag Archives: Public permitting

Air Quality, Bakersfield CA, Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Environmental review, Public permitting

Environmentalists sue to stop crude-by-rail terminal in California

Repost from Reuters
[Editor: See also excellent coverage on YubaNet, The Sacramento Bee and Public News Service.  Read the legal document filed here.  Read the public records request here.  – RS]

Environmentalists sue to stop crude-by-rail terminal in California

By Rory Carroll, Jan 29, 2015
bakersfield-crude-terminal_EF_01.jpg
An oil train moves through California’s Central Valley. The newly opened Bakersfield Crude Terminal has the capacity to receive two 100-car unit trains a day. Credit: Elizabeth Forsyth / Earthjustice

Environmental groups on Thursday sued a California regulator that permitted trains carrying crude oil to begin making deliveries at a terminal in Bakersfield, arguing the permit was issued in secret and the volatile crude could cause explosions.

The plaintiffs asked the California Superior Court to stop operations at the newly opened Bakersfield Crude Terminal in Taft until a full environmental review is conducted. The terminal, located in Kern County, began receiving crude in November from North Dakota and Canada and is owned by Plains All American Pipeline LP.

In their complaint, the groups point to emails obtained through a public records request that they say show the San Joaquin Air Pollution Control District helping the company avoid environmental and public reviews of the project.

The terminal can currently receive one 100-car unit train a day carrying crude from the Bakken shale formation as well as heavier tar sands crude from Canada. The terminal will ultimately expand to receive two unit trains per day, carrying as much as 61 million barrels of crude a year, making it one of the state’s largest crude-by-rail terminals, the groups said.

Crude oil shipments by rail in California have jumped in recent years as producers seek to move cheap, landlocked crudes from North Dakota and Canada to refineries along the West Coast.

The increase has raised environmental and safety concerns due to a series of fiery derailments, most notably the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in Quebec in July 2013, which killed 47 people.

“The Bakersfield Crude Terminal evaded both state and federal environmental review and was permitted largely in secret. Given the potentially catastrophic damage from derailments of these tank cars full of volatile crude, these permits must be cancelled,” said Vera Pardee, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the five environmental groups who are plaintiffs in the case.

Annette Ballatore-Williamson, an attorney for the air district, said the lawsuit misrepresents the nature of the permit, which only covered the construction of a couple storage tanks that emit about a half a pound of air pollution per day.

The facility and the rail terminal underwent significant environmental review and analysis by Kern County several years ago, she said.

“The problem from (the plaintiff’s) perspective is the statute of limitations on their claim against Kern County expired quite some time ago so now they are just looking for a target,” she said.

(Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Andrew Hay and Lisa Shumaker)

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Hazmat notification, Hospitals, Massive increase in crude-by-rail, Public Comment, Public permitting, Schools, State regulation, Tar sands crude

New Jersey regulators bypassed public in permitting oil trains

Repost from NorthJersey.com

In the dark

Editorial, The Record, November 26, 2014
An air permit issued on Nov. 6 by the state Department of Environmental Protection allows Buckeye Partners to accept large amounts of Canadian tar sands oil at its newly renovated oil terminal in Perth Amboy.
An air permit issued on Nov. 6 by the state Department of Environmental Protection allows Buckeye Partners to accept large amounts of Canadian tar sands oil at its newly renovated oil terminal in Perth Amboy. | DON SMITH/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

SHARPLY INCREASING the amount of oil transported by rail through New Jersey is not a “minor modification” and should not have been approved by the state without public notice.

The result is that the public continues to remain largely in the dark about trains carrying crude oil through the area.

The lack of disclosure started with officials saying they feared that providing specifics about the trains and their contents could make them a target. What is known is that trains pass through 11 Bergen County towns on the way to a refinery in Philadelphia.

Without a public hearing, the state Department of Environmental Protection issued a permit on Nov. 6 to let Buckeye Partners accept large amounts of Canadian tar sands oil at its Perth Amboy terminal and also granted its request to increase the amount of oil it can transfer there annually to almost 1.8 billion gallons.

This means that an additional 330 oil trains could travel New Jersey’s freight lines each year, while as much as 5 billion gallons of crude oil from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota already pass through. The extra trains would add on average a little less than one train a day, which does not seem like much. But the lack of communication is disturbing.

Local emergency personnel and environmentalists fear the disaster they would face if a train derails. The tar sands oil can sink in water and is difficult to remove if spilled. Crude from the Bakken region is highly flammable. Having these materials hurtle through local neighborhoods — going by schools, hospitals and homes — brings major risks.

We know this isn’t an easy problem to solve. Oil has to be transported, and everyone enjoys cheaper prices at the gas pumps. However, DEP officials were wrong to say the 603-page permit was a “minor modification” that required no public participation.

New York officials faced a similar application from another company. That prompted a public hearing and a review of whether to allow the transport of large amounts of heavy crude because of these risks. New Jersey should at least have given this the same thorough — and public — review.

DEP officials say they can only regulate what happens on Buckeye’s property.

“We regulate emissions and have requirements for how materials are handled, stored or discharged, but we cannot limit how much is processed or how much is transported,” said Larry Hajna, a DEP spokesman.

While the federal government regulates the cargo carried on railroads, the DEP can cap the amount of emissions a facility can put in the air. That, according to environmentalists, could be an indirect way to limit the amount of oil moved through the state.

While rail industry officials say 99 percent of trains reach their destination without incident, it’s the 1 percent that worries us.

If anything, the number of oil trains barreling through New Jersey looks to be on the rise. That’s only more reason for the state to stop its silence on the issue.