Unfortunately, the DEIR for this Project fails to properly account for many of the Project’s potentially significant impacts pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act(CEQA). Specifically, the DEIR:
1. Underestimates the probability of an accidental release from the Project by considering only a fraction of the rail miles travelled when calculating the risk of derailment, by relying on a currently unenforceable assumption that newer, safer tank cars will be used, by failing to adequately describe the potential consequences of an accident resulting in a release of crude oil, and by improperly minimizing the risk to public safety from increased rail-use;
2. Improperly asserts that the proper baseline for the Project’s impact on air emissions is determined by the Refinery’s maximum permitted emissions;
3. Fails to analyze the impacts on air quality from the foreseeable change in the mix of crude oils processed at the Refinery;
4. Ignores reasonably foreseeable Project impacts by impermissibly limiting the scope of the affected environment analyzed to only the 69-milestretch from Benicia to Roseville;
5. Fails to consider the cumulative impacts on public safety and the environment from the proliferation of crude-by-railprojects proposed in California; and
6. Employs an overly broad determination of trade secrets, which results in the nondisclosure of the types of crude oil to be shipped by rail and refined onsite. As a result, the DEIR fails to provide sufficient information for an adequate analysis of the safety risks from transportation or the air quality impacts from refining the new crude.
These issues must be addressed and corrected before the City Council of Benicia takes action pursuant to CEQA on the DEIR or the Project.
Oil train wrecks across nation put Rocklin on alert
South Placer train yards at center of Valero’s proposal
By Scott Thomas Anderson, Editor, October 8, 2014
The train tracks that run between Rocklin and Roseville will be filled with nonstop oil trains if Vallero Refinery’s plan is approved. | Ike Dodson – The Placer Herald
The U.S. and Canada have together experienced seven sizable accidents in the last two years involving oil shipped across rail lines — and Rocklin leaders have no intention of seeing their city become the eighth location on the list as Valero moves forward with plans to push thousands of tanker-cars filled with “black gold” through the region.
Not without a plan, at least.
Two months ago, the Valero Refinery plant in Benicia, some 81 miles from Rocklin, submitted an Environmental Impact Report to California regulators for its Crude by Rail Project. Valero’s plan would bring individual train cars full of crude oil from Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan converging on the Union Pacific rail yard in Roseville, where they would be assembled into 50-car trains and then sent on to Benicia. According to the EIR, Valero hopes to send two of these 50-car convoys plugging through the older sections of South Placer County every day.
Since the release of Valero’s EIR, Rocklin Deputy Fire Chief Richard Holmes has been examining potential dangers for the city. In a recent staff report submitted to council members, Holmes noted that, between 2013 and 2014, seven American and Canadian cities have been forced to respond to serious accident involving crude oil, ethanol or similar petrochemicals being shipped across rails.
“The hazard identification of crude oil is ‘immediately hazardous’ with a highly flammable distinction,” Holmes wrote. “There have been many major accidents involving crude oil in North America … these events demonstrate that accidents can happen.”
Holmes added that Rocklin’s risks are likely softened by the fact its train tracks run only a few miles from Roseville’s Union Pacific yard, thus forcing any oil tankers heading northwest to depart on their way from one city to the other at “relatively slow” rates of speed.
However, even that rare bright spot in Holmes’ report may be of limited consolation to Rocklin city council members. In February, an oil train that crashed in Lynchburg, Virginia, was traveling at only 24 miles per hour, according to its ownership company, CSX. In that case, seven oil cars spilled into the environment — with three plunging directly into the James River.
The Lynchburg oil train wreck is in addition to the seven larger recent disasters Holmes mentioned in his analysis.
Rocklin Fire Department’s immediate conclusions in the face of Valero’s plans involve identifying the community’s specific risks if an oil train accident occurs, and then gearing training and preparedness for those exact scenarios. One asset the fire department currently already has is a foam tender with over 1,000 gallons of Class B foam. If the Valero EIR passes, obtaining more backup resources may be a topic the city council considers.
Rocklin City Public Information Officer Karen Garner said the recent staff report to leadership is, for the moment, an overview.
“The presentation was just about presenting the facts and current status of a topic that’s received a lot of attention lately,” Garner said this week. “No request for additional equipment or resources is being made at this time.”
Repost from The Wall Street Journal [Editor: Following the money… WSJ’s important analysis of refinery trends in California includes a brief discussion of current and proposed projects, including Valero Benicia, with quotes by Valero spokesperson Bill Day and Andrés Soto on behalf of Benicians For a Safe and Healthy Community. Significant quote: “Opposition over safety has drawn out the permitting process in some cases, making some companies rethink their strategies. Valero Energy Corp. in March canceled plans to build an oil-train terminal near its Los Angeles refinery. But Valero still hopes to add a terminal to the company’s Benicia, Calif., plant, 35 miles northeast of San Francisco. ¶“Every day that goes by that we’re not able to bring in lower cost North American oil, is another day that the Benicia refinery suffers competitively,” says spokesman Bill Day. The state last month asked Benicia for another safety review to better forecast the potential for derailments and other accidents.” – RS]
California Finally to Reap Fracking’s Riches
Crude-by-Rail From Bakken Shale Is Poised to Reverse State Refiners’ Rising Imports
By Alison Sider and Cassandra Sweet, Oct. 7, 2014
Tanker cars line up in Bakersfield, Calif., where Alon USA Energy recently received permission to build the state’s biggest oil-train terminal. The Bakersfield Californian/Associated Press
For the past decade, the U.S. shale boom has mostly passed by California, forcing oil refiners in the state to import expensive crude.
Now that’s changing as energy companies overcome opposition to forge ahead with rail depots that will get oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale.
Thanks in large measure to hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. has reduced oil imports from countries such as Iraq and Russia by 30% over the last decade. Yet in California, imports have shot up by a third to account for more than half the state’s oil supply.
“California refineries arguably have the most expensive crude slate in North America,” says David Hackett, president of energy consulting firm Stillwater Associates.
Part of the problem is that no major oil pipelines run across the Rocky Mountains connecting the state to fracking wells in the rest of the country. And building pipelines is a lengthy, expensive process.
Railroads are transporting a rising tide of low-price shale oil from North Dakota and elsewhere to the East and Gulf coasts, helping to keep a lid on prices for gasoline and other refined products.
Yet while California has enough track to carry in crude, the state doesn’t have enough terminals to unload the oil from tanker cars and transfer it to refineries on site or by pipeline or truck.
Just 500,000 barrels of oil a month, or 1% of California’s supply, moves by rail to the state today. New oil-train terminals by 2016 could draw that much in a day, if company proposals are successful.
Bakken oil since April has been about $15 a barrel cheaper than crude from Alaska and abroad, according to commodities-pricing service Platts. That would cover the $12 a barrel that it costs to ship North Dakota crude to California by rail, according to research firm Argus.
The state’s lengthy permitting process has contributed to the shortage of oil-train terminals. Some California lawmakers also want to impose fees on oil trains to pay for firefighting equipment and training to deal with derailments and explosions. And community and environmental activists have been waging war on oil trains. The dangers of carrying hazardous materials by rail were underscored Tuesday when a train carrying petroleum derailed in Canada.
But energy companies recently won two hard-fought victories that will pave the way for California to get more crude by rail.
Kern County officials last month gave Alon USA Energy Inc. permission to build the state’s biggest oil-train terminal. That project, which the company hopes to finish next year, is designed to receive 150,000 barrels of oil a day in Bakersfield, Calif., 110 miles north of Los Angeles.
The site was home to an asphalt refinery until 2012 when Alon shut it down because it struggled to turn a profit. Alon plans to reconfigure and restart the plant, but much of the oil transported there by train will move by pipeline to other companies’ refineries in California.
Plains All American Pipeline LP says it plans to open a 70,000-barrel-a-day oil-train terminal in Bakersfield this month.
And in northern California, a judge last month dismissed a lawsuit brought by environmental groups that challenged Kinder Morgan Inc.’s rail permits. The company is now receiving oil trains at a Richmond, Calif., terminal near San Francisco that was built to handle ethanol.
Opposition over safety has drawn out the permitting process in some cases, making some companies rethink their strategies. Valero Energy Corp. in March canceled plans to build an oil-train terminal near its Los Angeles refinery. But Valero still hopes to add a terminal to the company’s Benicia, Calif., plant, 35 miles northeast of San Francisco.
“Every day that goes by that we’re not able to bring in lower cost North American oil, is another day that the Benicia refinery suffers competitively,” says spokesman Bill Day. The state last month asked Benicia for another safety review to better forecast the potential for derailments and other accidents.
Several oil-train explosions in the last 15 months—including last year’s blast in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people—have struck fear in many residents along rail corridors.
“These railcars are not safe at any speed,” says Andrés Soto, a musician from Benicia who has helped organize campaigns against several oil-train projects. “We don’t see that there’s any way that they can actually make these projects fail-safe.”
Environmental-impact challenges have been one means that groups have used to delay oil trains.
Pittsburg, Calif., officials say WesPac Midstream LLC’s proposed oil-train terminal is on hold after the state attorney general asked for an expanded environmental review. The company is gathering answers for regulators and hopes to gain approval and start accepting oil trains at the site by late 2016, 40 miles east of San Francisco, a WesPac spokesman says.
Even if oil trains are kept off California tracks, more fracked crude still could flow to California. A 360,000-barrel-a-day oil-train terminal in Vancouver, Wash., aims to transfer North Dakota crude from tanker cars to barges that will sail the Columbia River about 100 miles northwest to the Pacific Ocean. From there, it is a quick trip down the coast to California ports.
That project also has faced stiff headwinds. Refiner Tesoro Corp. and transportation provider Savage Cos. were forced to postpone the start for the Vancouver terminal because of approval delays. While the governor hasn’t approved the project, the companies say they expect to be up and running next year.
Repost from FOX40 NEWS Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto [Editor – The 2 minute video is MUCH better than the online text below. Two excellent on camera comments by Antonia Juhasz. Significant closing statement by Fox40 reporter Ben Deci, “The process in Benicia is moving along pretty quickly. Valero says it expects to be in front of that [Benicia] City Council before the end of the year.” (…apologies for the video advertisement.) – RS]
Crude Oil Rail Meeting Sparks Questions in Fairfield
September 29, 2014, by Ben Deci
FAIRFIELD – Oil is coming out of Middle America and needs to get to refineries somehow. Lots more of it, orders of magnitude more, is moving by rail.
But that means more accidents.
“In 2013 alone, we had more crude oil spills by rail than in every year since 1975 combined — 1.1 million gallons. But thus far in 2014 we’ve already surpassed that,” said Antonia Juhasz, an author and investigative reporter sitting on a panel about oil transport through Solano County.
If Valero gets plans approved for a new refinery complex in Benicia, a lot more oil will be loaded on trains, coming this way.
“Our business is dealing with flammable liquids. We deal with it every day. I’m confident in our preparations,” said Chris Howe, with Valero in Benicia.
For those gathered at today meeting in Solano county who don’t want the crude rolling through their backyards, it’s not clear how much choice they have.
“Freight railroads in the United States are actually required to accept any commodity that is delivered to us by our customers, so long as it’s packaged according to U.S. Department of Transportation regulations,” said Liisa Stark, spokesperson for Union Pacific.
The federal government right now is considering stricter standards for the kinds of train cars the crude can be transported in.
But can the wheels of government keep pace with the wheels on the rail?
“It must. If it’s not going to happen at the federal level, it has to happen at the state level. If it’s not going to happen at the state level it has to happen at the community level. There are communities all across the country that are banning crude by rail,” Juhasz said.
Part of the problem is that no major oil pipelines run across the Rocky Mountains connecting the state to fracking wells in the rest of the country. And building pipelines is a lengthy, expensive process.