Tag Archives: Valero Crude by Rail

Benicia Planning Commission, Crude By Rail, Public Comment, Public permitting, Revised Draft EIR (RDEIR), Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Over 700 letters received by the City of Benicia – keep them coming!

By Roger Straw, Benicia Independent Editor, October 20, 2015

City publishes new letters in 4 Parts

The City of Benicia published a monster of new public comments today, approximately 720 letters, mostly opposing crude by rail.  See below.

Note: The City of Albany documents in Part 1 are especially strong, including a recommendation to “reconsider” and a strongly worded multi-page resolution opposing crude by rail.

  • Public Comments October 10- October 16, 2015 Part 1
    8.5MB, 200 pages, including the index to Parts 1-4, and important letters by the Shasta County Air Quality Management District (p. 18), the City of Albany, CA (p. 19), and the City of Biggs, CA (p. 25, note Biggs NOT Briggs, CA)
    Public Comments October 10- October 16, 2015 Part 2
    9.5MB, 230 pages
    Public Comments October 10- October 16, 2015 Part 3
    9.7MB, 235 pages
    Public Comments October 10- October 16, 2015 Part 4 
    6.0MB, 106 pages.
    NOTE:  These pages do not make it easy to find a letter from a particular individual.  The only “index” provided is at the beginning of Part 1, and it does not show page numbers or Part numbers.   You will have to SEARCH on a name in Part 1, then guess in which Part that person’s letter will appear.  You may approximate like this: the index of commenters’ names comprises the first 17 pages of Part 1.  If your commenter’s name appears on page 1-4 of the index (top of Part 1), then the letter is likely lower in Part 1.  Pages 5-9 in the index show names of commenters whose letters mostly appear in Part 2.  Pages 10-14 of the index refer to letters in Part 3.  The remainder, pages 15-17 in the index, are in Part 4.
  • Public Comments October 3-9, 2015
    The link will download a 20-page document from the City’s website, a 1.1MB download, including a very interesting letter from the City of Gridley, California (pp. 2-5 in the PDF).
  • Public Comments September 26-October 2, 2015
    The link will download a 297-page document from the City’s website, an 11MB download.  Most of this is letters generated by the ForestEthics online comment generator.   (See also the Center for Biological Diversity online letter generator.)  Such support from EVERYWHERE is amazing and welcome!  To find individual letters of support or opposition, just open the PDF and search on a name.
  • Public Comments August 31-September 25, 2015 – A 545-page PDF.  The link will download a document on the City’s website, a 20mb download.  The PDF consists of:
    • 2 agency requests for extension of the comment period
    • 6 personal letters opposing the RDEIR and Valero’s proposal
    • 2 personal letters supporting the RDEIR and Valero
    • 253 letters from individuals from all over the country, generated by an online submittal form and mostly alike, also opposing the RDEIR and Valero’s proposal and received by the City on 9/25/
Comments still welcome

Your comments are encouraged and welcome until 5pm on Friday, October 30, 2015.  Send your thoughts to Amy Million, Principal Planner, Benicia Community Development Department, by email: amillion@ci.benicia.ca.us.  You may also send your letter to Amy Million by mail: 250 East L Street, Benicia, CA 94510, or by Fax: (707) 747-1637.

More information: HOW to write the City…

Crude By Rail, STOP Oil Trains, Uprail communities, Valero Crude By Rail

ForestEthics: Uprail opposition strategy – Benicia Organizing Toolkit

From a 10/21/15 email sent by Ethan Buckner, Forest Ethics

forest ethics logo

Hi all,

I am excited to share a new resource to support uprail work in the fight to stop the proposed Valero oil trains terminal in Benicia.

Our new Benicia Organizing Toolkit includes fact sheets, sample comments (DUE OCT 30!), a Letter to the Editor / OpEd guide, action alerts, and sample resolutions & opposition letters to bring to your city councils, county board of supervisors, school districts, and other public agencies.

As of now, there are NO cities & counties that have taken a firm oppositional stance and sent letters to Benicia’s decision makers urging them to reject the Valero project.  (Some area governments and the Attorney General critiqued the EIR, but they didn’t actually take a position on the project as a whole). This uprail opposition strategy has been very effective in the San Luis Obispo County Phillips 66 campaign and is an amazing opportunity we have in Benicia.

In reaching out to local governments, I recommend citing strong letters sent to SLO County in the Phillips 66 campaign. Along with the Organizing Toolkit, I’m making available a few of these letters:

Please download the Toolkit & letters, adapt and use as you will. If you plan to mount a resolution campaign in your city/county/school board/agency, please let me know and I will do my best to support you.

Many thanks for all your great work and more to come!

Onward,
Ethan

—
Ethan Buckner
Extreme Oil Campaigner
ForestEthics
www.ForestEthics.org/stop-oil-trains
follow me on Twitter: @ethanbuckner

Benicia Planning Commission, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, Crude By Rail, Environmental review, Valero Crude By Rail

Only two weeks (no, one week!) left to voice your opposition to Valero Crude By Rail

October 16, 2016

Send a letter of opposition today!

Below are just a few of the reasons you can cite in your letter to the City.  These points came from a handout by Benicians For a Safe and Healthy Community.  Here are two other letter guides: Center for Biological Diversity and ForestEthics.  Send your email to : amillion@ci.benicia.ca.us or send to  Amy Million, Principal Planner, City of Benicia, 250 East L Street, Benicia, CA 94510.

• Tank car design is inadequate, with extremely poor safety records – BOTH DOT-111 AND the “safer” CPC-1232 cars are not safe and have derailed and exploded in other communities.  The  federal government can’t agree on a safe car and its years away from being implemented.
• New Federal Department of Transportation Rules (May, 2015) are inadequate and do not move quickly enough.
• Derailed oil trains that explode cannot be extinguished and so are left to burn themselves out which takes several days.  Emergency response plans are non-existent for a catastrophic derailment and explosion.
• The RDEIR proposes three dangerous routes: a) through the Sierras, the Feather River route – note the recent corn car derailment with resulting spill in the Feather River, b) the Dunsmuir route with the historic spill into the River and c) the Truckee / Donner Lake route with its treacherous mountain grades and beautiful resort areas.  All 3 routes go through areas described by the state as high hazard areas for derailments.  What are the risks of fires in our mountains and spills into all of the waterways the trains pass over?
• We question the statistics on the possible rates of derailments and train explosions.
• High hazard flammable trains will be going through highly populated areas like Davis and Sacramento when the National Transportation Safety Board says they should be rerouted whenever possible away from populated areas.
• Union Pacific can run trains any time they want to and even send in two train shipments in one day.  Neither the City of Benicia nor Valero have control over routes, cars, and shipment times.  Note statements about “federal pre-emption” in the appendices.
• What are the economic risks if there was a derailment and explosion and the refinery was to catch on fire?  Valero’s tank farm is in the blast zone.
• The Draft Revised EIR says there are significant hazards to the public through a reasonably foreseeable accident.  Why would we tolerate this?
• What are the environmental impacts when such extreme methods to get the oil, such as fracking and basically strip mining for tar sands are used to get the oil that is coming by rail?

• There’s lots more – add your own concerns – speak from the heart and with conviction!

Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community
SafeBenicia.org
Facebook.com/StopCrudeByRail
(707) 742-3597
DONATE OR SIGN THE PETITION HERE!

Opposed to Crude by Rail and/or critical of the EIR

• Over 1300 who signed the petition (mostly Benicians)
• Benicians For a Safe and Healthy Community (SafeBenicia.org and on Facebook at StopCrudeByRail)
• Hundreds of Benicians and others who wrote letters calling into question the claims of the Environmental Impact Report
• California’s Attorney General
• The Sacramento Area Council of Governments
• The City of Davis, California
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• Sierra Club
• ForestEthics
• Center for Biological Diversity
• EarthJustice
• Sunflower Alliance
• Communities for a Better Environment
• Bay Area Refinery Corridor Coalition (BARCC)
• Crocket Rodeo United to Defend the Environment (C.R.U.D.E.)
• Idle No More – Bay Area
• Martinez Environmental Group
• 350 Bay Area
• Global Community Monitor
• … and many more

More information:

• Take Action (including more info on letter-writing)
• Project Documents (Valero’s proposal)
• Project Review (letters on the EIR submitted by agencies and individuals)
• Local Media Coverage (letters to the news media)

 

 

 

 

 

We have moved into the final phase of the City of Benicia’s comment period.  Your voice is important as the Planning Commission

Broken rail, City of Benicia, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Rail infrastructure, Rail inspection, Train weight, Union Pacific Railroad, Valero Crude By Rail

AUBURN CALIFORNIA: No to proposal that would bring oil through Auburn

Repost from the Auburn Journal

Another View: No to proposal that would bring oil through Auburn

By: Rosalie Wohlfromm / Guest Columnist

Rosalie WohlfrommDo you remember back in 2013, when there was a train derailment carrying crude oil in Lac-Megantic, Quebec? That incident resulted in a fiery explosion and caused the death of 47 people.

It has been reported that crude oil from North Dakota and Canada into California would be expected to rise from just 1 percent of total oil imports in 2013 to 25 percent by 2016, according to state energy officials.

This oil would travel by rail through densely populated areas to refineries on the coast. One of these routes is right through our town of Auburn.  We could see trains pulling 100 oil tanker cars going past our homes, schools and parks.

Since 2013, we have heard of numerous derailments causing evacuations of citizens from their homes. One of the latest was last February in Lynchburg, Virginia. It is now known that the cause of the derailment was  a broken rail, which was missed in two previous inspections.

Oil giant Valero wants to build a massive terminal for oil trains at its Benicia refinery. Union Pacific runs from Reno via Donner Pass, a dangerous route that, according to the Environmental Impact Report for Valero Crude by Rail Project, has only 3.5 percent of Class 4 or 5 track, the quality deemed by the U.S. Dept of Transportation necessary to support daily travel of extremely heavy unit trains made up of over 100 tank cars loaded with crude oil.

The City of Benicia is currently in the process of approving or rejecting the Valero Refinery’s proposed CBR project, which would permit Union Pacific to haul crude oil through Auburn.  If this project is approved, Auburn could see oil trains loaded with highly flammable oil from North Dakota running right through our town on their way to Benicia. I ask you to remember what happened in Lynchburg. That could happen here.

Concerned citizens of Benicia are asking for those of us along the rail lines to call or write the City of Benicia City Manager, Brad Kilger, 250 E.L. Street, Benicia CA 94510 or e-mail Planner Amy Million at amillion@ci.benicia.ca.us.   Please submit your comments by 5pm on Oct. 30.