I remember back in Benicia’s crude-by-rail days, when Deputy Attorney General Scott Lichtig of Attorney General Kamala Harris’ staff wrote to the City of Benicia. He wrote first in 2014 urging revision of an “inadequate” Draft EIR, and again in 2016, defending the City’s right to deny a land use permit. Lichtig advised our city leaders, “For Benicia to turn a blind eye to the most serious of the Project’s environmental impacts, merely because they flow from federally-regulated rail operations, would be contrary to both state and federal law.”
There were a LOT of us who worked long and hard to defeat Valero’s dangerous and dirty oil train proposal. Local activists and folks from far and wide disagreed with City staff and Valero’s execs and highly paid attorneys. We criticized, protested and sent volumes of comments over the course of 3 ½ years. Scientific and environmental experts and friendly attorneys weighed in. But it was eye-opening for everyone when the Attorney General’s office got involved.
But… note that the AG letter wasn’t enough. It’s important here for us to not dwell on the past or get too optimistic. Stay tuned via Fresh Air Vallejo and keep up the good work.
…because ORCEM/VMT wants to run 552 trucks a day up and down Lemon Street! We stand in solidarity with residents, business owners and all of our neighbors in Vallejo. And it’s important to realize that the truck exhaust will travel by air west to east, settling, surely, in Glen Cove and Benicia.
Let’s hope the Vallejo City Council has the backbone Benicia had in 2016, to DENY THIS PROPOSED CATASTROPHIC PROJECT!
By John Glidden, November 29, 2018 at 2:05 pm
Vallejo City Manager Greg Nyhoff
Vallejo City Manager Greg Nyhoff reiterated Tuesday night that a Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) being completed for a controversial south Vallejo project won’t be released until early next year.
Toward the end of the Vallejo City Council meeting, Nyhoff addressed the contents of a four-page advertising insert paid for by the project applicants and published in the Times-Herald on Nov. 22.
He took issue with a statement printed on top of the insert asserting that the FEIR being prepared for the Vallejo Marine Terminal, Orcem Americas project would be released “within a matter of days.”
“I just want to clarify — it looks like it’s official news. That’s not the case,” Nyhoff said to the councilors. “No — this report won’t be coming out within a matter of days.”
VMT and Orcem representative Sue Vaccaro said via email on Wednesday that the Times-Herald’s deadline to submit artwork for the insert was Nov. 9, several days prior to Nyhoff’s original announcement during the Nov. 13 council meeting that release of the FEIR would be delayed.
“By that time, due to the two weeks of lead time required in accordance with the newspaper’s specifications, there was not an opportunity to update that two-line reference,” Vaccaro wrote. “In short, we were acting in good faith based on the City Manager’s comments at the time the artwork was submitted for print … obviously, had we known what was coming out from the Attorney General’s Office and subsequent delay ordered by the City Manager, we wouldn’t have made that reference.”
However, in a phone interview on Thursday, Nyhoff disagreed, noting that despite previously saying in September that the FEIR would be released toward the end of November, both the city and applicants knew the report wouldn’t be released in November — even before the DOJ letter was sent to the city.
“Everyone still knew we weren’t going to meet that deadline,” Nyhoff explained. He said the city and consultants are still waiting to hear back from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), which is still reviewing information about the project.
Nyhoff said during the council meeting, and again on Thursday, that City Hall will also be looking into additional claims made in the insert, including the $1 million benefits program, and the Lemon Street maintenance program being offered by the applicants.
He said it’s important to make sure Lemon Street is going to be taken care of, due to the large volume of trucks trips — about 552 — expected daily. Nyhoff said analyzing truck traffic and its impact to surrounding streets near Lemon is also needed.
Earlier this month, the California Department of Justice sent city officials a 13-page letter warning that environmental documents, a draft final environmental impact report (DFEIR), an Environmental Justice Analysis (EJA), and Revised Air Analysis prepared for project are misleading and violate state law.
“The environmental documents for the project fail to provide adequate legal support for the City of Vallejo to approve the project,” Erin Ganahl, deputy attorney general for the State of California, wrote on behalf of state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “The DFEIR fails to adequately disclose, analyze, and mitigate the significant environmental impacts of the project; the EJA improperly concludes that the project would not disproportionately impact low-income communities of color, and thus misleads decision makers and the public by minimizing the projects significant environmental justice concerns.”
The Vallejo Planning Commission voted 6-1 in 2017 to reject the VMT/Orcem project, agreeing with City Hall that the project would have a negative effect on the neighborhood, that it would impact traffic around the area and the proposed project was inconsistent with the city’s waterfront development policy. The project also has a degrading visual appearance of the waterfront, City Hall said at the time.
City officials argued in 2017 that since a rejection was being recommended, an FEIR was not required.
Orcem and VMT appealed the Planning Commission decision, and in June 2017, when reviewing the appeal, a majority of the council — Jess Malgapo, Rozzana Verder-Aliga, Hermie Suna, and Pippin Dew-Costa — directed City Hall to complete the impact report.
Once the FEIR is completed, Nyhoff previously said the report will be circulated for at least 60 days prior to the council taking up the appeal again.
From an E-Alert by Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson
Much more than fence-line air monitors…
Monday, November 19, 2018
Elizabeth Patterson, Benicia Mayor 2007 – present
The regular council meeting will be at 7:00 and the agenda and staff reports and recommendations are online here.
The main item of interest is the “report” to Council about progress on installation of air monitors by Valero. The report came about because of the request by the Industrial Safety Ordinance working group – a citizens’ steering committee which researched and developed a draft Industrial Safety Ordinance in response to the near catastrophic melt down of Valero Refinery in May of 2017 and subsequent plumes of black smoke.
The request to the city council was – and is – to have an outside subject matter expert with legal skills to review the proposed ISO and determine its legal sufficiency and report to the council. For some reason staff does not make this clear but rather states that it is a vote up or down on the ordinance. This is incorrect.
The request to have an expert opinion report on the need, adequacy and value of the Industrial Safety Ordinance is meant to have a neutral party report to council. I made a request for considering the ordinance in May of 2017 and soon realized that this would not be addressed quickly. Therefore, I advised the Benicians for Safe and Healthy Community and thus they took the initiative to research, interview, have an expert panel discussion and draft the ordinance. Naturally, this was done to expedite the process. The small step of seeking outside advice on the draft Ordinance was voted down by the council majority.
A couple of common objections to the Industrial Safety Ordinance are:
An ISO is not necessary now that the state has adopted many of the Contra Costa County ISO regulations.It should be noted that none of the cities or county have rescinded their ordinance because they still find it meets specific needs and is subject to better reporting to local government.
Now that the fence-line monitors are in place there is no need for the ISO because the county’s Program 4 suffices. Actually this is a requirement of the state to coordinate state and local regulations and is incorporated by reference into the draft ISO. The county does not have regulatory authority, but rather coordinates. For instance, the county reports on inspections and status of required reports. The coordination with local government to date has been a booth at the 2018 Peddlers’s Fair. CalEPA requires a full public participation program for the community air monitor(s) to be implemented. Neither the community air monitor nor the public participation program has been done.
In short the proposed Industrial Safety Ordinance is much more than fence-line monitors at the refinery or portable emergency air monitors. It is providing a seat at the table participating with the county and state regulators and the regulated industries. It is a guarantee to get reports and posting them on city website rather than chasing down reports at the county or state and often with broken links. It is a fee structure to pay for continuous staff level of engagement rather than driven by budget constraints. It is memorializing our affirmative duty to protect public health. It establishes a collaborative relationship with regulators and the regulated refinery and not a co-dependent relationship.
Repost from the Vallejo Times-Herald [Editor: These fines are routinely written off by giant Valero as a cost of doing business. Examples from recent years: Valero Benicia Refinery fined $122,500 in 2016. And fined $183,000 in 2014. IMPORTANT: Benicia Mayor Patterson and residents have repeatedly petitioned the Bay Area Air District to channel at least SOME of these fines to the affected community. The District has suggested responsiveness, but failed to engage meaningfully. Again in today’s news, the District will keep the fines for its own use, leaving the polluted community adrift in the wind (as it were). – R.S.]
Valero paying $266,000 for air quality violation
By John Glidden, October 10, 2018 5:45 pm | UPDATED: 7:38 pm
A photo of the Valero Benicia Refinery taken at night in May 2014.
BENICIA — Valero Refining Co. will pay $266,000 to settle 22 air quality violations that took place mostly in 2016 at the Valero Benicia Refinery, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) announced this week.
“This settlement helps to ensure that Valero remains vigilant in running its operations according to all air quality regulations,” said Jack Broadbent, executive officer of BAAQMD, in a district news release. “Our air district enforcement and source testing teams, together with a variety of other tools are in place to ensure refineries comply with their permits.”
Eleven of the violations were for exceeding emission limits, with nine of them being detected by monitors which measure emissions from refinery equipment, the air district said in a news release. Officials said the other two violations were discovered by a source test conducted by the facility’s contractor and by a BAAQMD inspector.
Seven additional violations were recorded for hydrocarbon leaks from storage tanks or lines, while two violations were given because there were errors in an inspection database which resulted in missed leak inspections for valves omitted from the database, officials explained in the same release.
Single violations were assessed for a missed calibration on an emissions monitor and a failed monitor accuracy test, officials said.
The Air District said in the same release that violators must respond to a violation notice within ten days and further submit a detailed description of what actions they will take to correct the problem.
Officials said the settlement funds will be by the air district to fund future inspection and enforcement activities.
A representative with Valero couldn’t be reached for comment prior to press deadline.
But… note that the AG letter wasn’t enough. It’s important here for us to not dwell on the past or get too optimistic. Stay tuned via Fresh Air Vallejo and keep up the good work.
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