Communities Against Carbon Transport and Injection – CACTI
On September 9, 2025, CACTI was launched. Montezuma LLC is proposing to inject carbon dioxide waste underground near the Montezuma Wetlands in Solano County. Known as the Montezuma Carbon Hub, the project would involve capturing CO2 from Bay Area refineries and power plants, transporting it via underwater pipeline or boat, and injecting it near a site of sensitive ecological restoration.
The pipeline network and injection site would be developed near Bay Area communities like Martinez, Benicia, Antioch, Richmond, and Collinsville. Carbon waste dumping projects like this one threaten the health and safety of local residents, especially because CO2 pipelines are dangerous and underregulated. Pipeline leaks can cause suffocation or even death to people and wildlife.
[Note from BenIndy: Valero’s Benicia Refinery is the 5th largest stationary greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter in California. As Sunflower Alliance founding member Shoshana Wechsler notes below, “[t]he thing that continues to strike me is that the Bay Area has no clue how important we are as a major fossil fuel hub. […] We need to understand that refining both petroleum and biofuels has a very negative effect on our public health and obviously contributes mightily to the climate crisis.” Let’s enter 2024 with clear eyes…and hope for clearer lungs come 2025.]
Valero’s Benicia Refinery, a principal contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in California, looms over residential neighborhoods. | Samantha Laurey / The Chronicle 2022.
SF Chronicle, by Kurtis Alexander, December 31, 2023
California’s largest greenhouse gas polluters, from power plants to oil refineries to chemical manufacturers, produced slightly fewer emissions last year than the previous year, federal data shows. But it’s still too much planet-warming gas to cut significantly into the problem of climate change, environmentalists say.
Three of the five biggest carbon emitters in the state were in the Bay Area, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2022 data on large polluting facilities. All three were refineries in the East Bay, where the process of turning crude oil into gasoline, jet fuel and other high-demand petroleum products creates substantial greenhouse gas discharges — even before the fuels themselves are used in vehicles or planes.
The refineries were among 367 large stationary sites in California that collectively reported 93 million metric tons of carbon pollution last year, a decline of about 1% over 2021, according to the data. The facilities produce about a quarter of the state’s total human-generated greenhouse gases, which does not include wildfires. Cars and trucks remain the biggest source of carbon emissions.
“The thing that continues to strike me is that the Bay Area has no clue how important we are as a major fossil fuel hub,” said Shoshana Wechsler, a founding member of the Sunflower Alliance, an East Bay group that advocates for reducing refinery pollution. “We need to understand that refining both petroleum and biofuels has a very negative effect on our public health and obviously contributes mightily to the climate crisis.”
Worldwide discharges of greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, have contributed to warming the atmosphere about 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the post-industrial age. The heat, scientists say, has led to a host of problems, from an increase in drought and wildfire to rising seas and more extreme weather. The Earth’s 10 warmest years on record all were logged since 2010. This year is on track to be the hottest yet.
California regulators have established some of the most ambitious policies to restrict the release of greenhouse gases from large polluting facilities, including a cap-and-trade program that forces emitters to buy permits to pollute and requirements that electric utilities generate increasing amounts of clean energy.
Over the past decade, carbon emissions from the state’s big polluters have declined nearly 20%, according to the EPA data.
Many, though, say industry is still given too much leeway and stricter regulation is necessary given the climate challenge at hand. The state has a broad goal of reaching zero carbon emissions, on net, by 2045.
“Major polluters continue to pollute somewhat unabated,” said Nihal Shrinath, an associate attorney for the Sierra Club based in Oakland. “We really need to see much more aggressive emission reductions over the next 25 years.”
Shrinath said much of the decline in pollution from large facilities was due, not to regulation, but to unrelated factors, like Californians being more efficient with their energy use and needing less fossil fuels.
California’s top five greenhouse gas emitters were all oil refineries, according to the EPA data. Two were in Southern California in addition to the three in the East Bay: Chevron Richmond Refinery, Valero Benicia Refinery and Martinez Refining Company.
Ross Allen, a spokesperson for Chevron, described the company’s Richmond refinery as “absolutely essential to modern life in the Bay Area,” saying the facility supplied 60% of the fuel for Bay Area airports and about 20% of the gasoline used in Northern California. It also provides more than 3,000 jobs.
This is a screenshot of SF Chron’s interactive data table that shows greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial facilities in California, 2022. Click the image to be redirected to the webpage with the article and the table. Readers can use the table to search for and filter GHG emitters in this state. There may be a paywall.
“We are working to reduce carbon intensity of our operations, while continuing to provide an essential product,” he said.
The state’s refineries cumulatively emitted 22 million metric tons of carbon pollution in 2022, according to the EPA data. Refineries were the second-most-polluting type of facility, following power plants, which are far more numerous and emitted 35 million metric tons last year. The chemical industry, manufacturing hydrogen, nitrogen and other products, reported 10 million metric tons of emissions.
Also among California’s 25 biggest greenhouse gas polluters were two gas-fired power plants in Pittsburg and an oil refinery in Rodeo.
The EPA data on large polluting sites generally includes facilities discharging at least 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide and equivalent greenhouse gases a year, about what’s emitted by burning coal from 136 rail cars, according to the agency.
Since you’re here, learn more about Contra Costa’s search for accountability and transparency from refineries by clicking on any of the following links:
RICHMOND, Calif. (KGO) — The Chevron refinery in Richmond is investigating an oil spill Tuesday afternoon, according to city and county officials.
The spill happened in what’s called the “Long Wharf” off Point Richmond, where a sheen can be seen on the top of the water at Bear Point.
California’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) says a pipeline is leaking approximately five gallons a minute. It’s unknown what caused the spill at this time.
Crews are trying to stop the leak, which “has not been stopped and is not contained with waterways impacted (San Francisco Bay),” according to OES officials.
The Contra Costa Health Department is calling this a “Level 2” incident and issued a public health advisory for residents of Richmond, North Richmond and San Pablo.
The incident “could affect individuals with respiratory sensitivities,” health officials said.
While noting most people will not be affected, officials say eye, skin, nose or throat irritation may be possible for some people in the affected area.
Health officials advise that if people experience any irritation, they should go inside and rinse any irritated area with water.
Benicia’s rejection of oil trains could reverberate across country
By Kurtis Alexander, 9/21/16 5:11pm
The Valero refinery is seen in the background behind signage for a railroad crossing on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 in Benicia, Calif. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle
Benicia’s rejection of plans to bring trains filled with crude oil to Valero Corp.’s big refinery in the city was hailed Wednesday by critics of the country’s expanding oil-by-rail operations, who hope the flexing of local power will reverberate across the Bay Area and the nation.
Of particular interest to environmentalists and local opponents, who for years have argued that Valero’s proposal brought the danger of a catastrophic spill or fire, was a last-minute decision by U.S. officials that Benicia’s elected leaders — not the federal government — had the final say in the matter.
Word of that decision arrived just before the City Council, in a unanimous vote late Tuesday, dismissed Valero’s proposal for a new $70 million rail depot along the Carquinez Strait off Interstate 680. Valero had said the project would not only be safe but bring local jobs, tax revenue and lower gas prices.
“We’re pleased with the decision and the implications it will have across the country,” said Jackie Prange, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of several groups opposed to the project. “This issue is live in a number of sites across the country. This is definitely a decision that I think cities in other states will be looking to.”
As oil production has boomed across North America, so has the need to send crude via railroad. The uptick in tanker trains, though, has been accompanied by a spate of accidents in recent years, including a 2013 derailment in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic in which a 72-car train exploded and killed more than 40 people.
The authority of communities to limit oil trains has been clouded by the assertion of some in the petroleum industry that local officials don’t have jurisdiction to get in the way. Companies like Valero have contended that railroad issues are matter of interstate commerce — and hence are the purview of the federal government.
Shortly before Tuesday’s meeting, however, Benicia officials received a letter from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which wrote that Valero, based in Texas, was not a railroad company and that the proposed rail terminal fell under city jurisdiction.
“It’s what I was waiting for to help me make my vote more defensible,” said Councilman Alan Schwartzman at the meeting.
Earlier this year, Valero had asked the Surface Transportation Board for “preemption” protection for the project after Benicia’s Planning Commission rejected the proposal. The plan proceeded to the City Council upon appeal.
The plan called for oil deliveries from up to two 50-car trains a day, many passing through several Northern California communities en route from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota. Those trains would carry as many as 70,000 barrels of oil.
The company billed the project as a way to keep gasoline prices low in the absence of a major oil pipeline serving the West Coast. Crude is currently brought to the Bay Area mostly by boat or through smaller pipelines.
On Wednesday, Valero officials expressed frustration at the city’s decision.
“After nearly four years of review and analysis by independent experts and the city, we are disappointed that the City Council members have chosen to reject the crude by rail project,” spokeswoman Lillian Riojas wrote in an email. “At this time we are considering our options moving forward.”
The vote directly hit the city’s pocketbook. Nearly 25 percent of Benicia’s budget comes from taxes on the oil giant, and the city coffers stood to grow with more crude. The refinery employs about 500 people, according to city records.
But the city’s environmental study showed that oil trains presented a hazard. The document concluded that an accident was possible on the nearly 70 miles of track between Roseville (Placer County) and the refinery, though the likelihood was only one event every 111 years.
The document also suggested that much of the crude coming to the Bay Area from North Dakota, as well as from tar sands in Canada, was more flammable than most.
Several cities in the Bay Area and Sacramento area joined environmental groups in calling for rejection of the project.
“The council’s vote is a tremendous victory for the community and communities all throughout California,” said Ethan Buckner of the opposition group Stand, who was among more than 100 people who turned out for the council’s verdict. “At a time when oil consumption in California is going down, projects like this are unnecessary.”
At least two other plans are in the works for oil delivery by rail elsewhere in the region — in Richmond and Pittsburg. A handful of other proposals have been put forth in other parts of California, including the expansion of a rail spur at a Phillips 66 refinery in San Luis Obispo County, which is scheduled to be heard by the county planning board Thursday.
Prange, with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said this week’s finding by the Surface Transportation Board gives cities the confidence to reject the proposed oil trains, if they wish to do so.
“It reaffirms the power of local government to protect their citizens from these dangerous projects,” she said.
U.S. oil deliveries by rail have grown quickly, from 20 million barrels in 2010 to 323 million in 2015, according to government estimates. In response, federal transportation officials have worked to improve the safety of oil-carrying cars with new regulations.
But over the past year, rail deliveries nationwide have slowed, in part because of the stricter rules as well as local opposition, falling crude prices and new pipelines.
Critics have complained that the tightened rules have fallen short, pointing to incidents like a June train derailment in Mosier, Ore., which spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude into the Columbia River. Leaders in Oregon are discussing a statewide ban on crude trains.
Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
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