Category Archives: Air Quality

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Environmental Impacts, Marine transport, Rail Safety

New Refinery Proposed For Washington Port on Columbia River, first on West Coast in 25 years

April 15, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from Northwest Public Radio
[Editor: See also at Riverkeeper, Reuters, Oregon Public Broadcasting and Bakken.com. – RS]

Refinery Proposed For Columbia River

By Conrad Wilson, April 15, 2015 4:47 pm

The Port of Longview has been in talks with an energy company about building a crude oil refinery in southwest Washington.

Washington’s Port of Longview says it is in talks with an energy company that last year submitted plans for a crude oil refinery on the Columbia River.

Details of the company’s planned refinery surfaced Wednesday through public records obtained and released by Columbia Riverkeeper.

A potential agreement between Riverside Energy, Inc. and the port, outlined in an unsigned memo of understanding dated July, 2014, described plans for the development of the first refinery on the Columbia River and the first on the West Coast in 25 years. The refinery would have a capacity of 30,000 barrels per day and produce a mix of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel all primarily for regional use, according to the documents, which were sent Wednesday to media organizations.

Port of Longview spokeswoman Ashley Helenberg said the proposal detailed in the documents is not an active proposal. She said the port is still working with Riverside Energy and is awaiting an updated proposal from the company. Helenberg said the port did not yet know what the new proposal would include, but that it would likely be for a crude oil refinery.

Oil prices have dropped sharply in recent months and oil production in North Dakota has fallen off, as well.

The newly released documents indicated that oil would travel to Longview by rail from the Bakken fields of North Dakota, creating an estimated traffic of 10 trains per month. The refined products would then travel by water.

Several trains carrying crude oil have derailed and exploded in recent years.

Columbia Riverkeeper Executive Director Brett VandenHeuvel said he would not want to see the proposed refinery materialize.

“This is shocking new information. Refineries are extremely polluting. Highly toxic air pollution,” he said. “And to combine a refinery with explosive oil trains — it’s the worst of both worlds.”

A presentation from Riverside Refining LLC estimated the project would create more than 400 construction jobs and 150 permanent positions, with an average annual wage of $75,000. The refinery would use “state-of-the-art processing technology” and “will have a lower carbon footprint than existing West Coast refineries,” according to the documents.

The refinery described in the documents would be smaller than the existing refineries in Washington. British Petroleum, Phillips 66, Tesoro and Shell own refineries in Northwest Washington, each of which has a capacity of at least 100,000 barrels per day. Tacoma’s U.S. Oil & Refining Co. has a capacity of 39,000 barrels per day.

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, Butane, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Earthquake, Explosion, Propane, Public Safety, Tar sands crude

Phillips 66 refinery plan threatens Rodeo California residents’ safety

April 6, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from The San Francisco Chronicle, Open Forum

Refinery plan threatens Rodeo residents’ safety

By Janet Pygeorge and Laurel Impett, April 6, 2015 4:08pm

Contra Costa County officials approved a controver sial expan sion of the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli / AP / FILE

The fracking boom in North Dakota and increased recovery of tar sands oil in Canada have prompted dramatic growth in transport of crude oil by rail throughout the United States from regions that pipelines don’t serve. Bay Area refineries and oil and gas companies already are planning for increased rail traffic and expanded operations. These plans are understandably alarming residents because of the potential for oil-train explosions. The Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, however, does not share this alarm.

The supervisors made that clear in February when they rubber-stamped a proposed operational expansion of the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo. Analyses done by Communities for a Better Environment, a nonprofit environmental justice organization that has sued to overturn this approval, show that the refinery’s expansion would significantly increase air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and public safety risks.

The board’s position defies both science and common sense. This refinery is located in the middle of an earthquake liquefaction zone. Phillips 66 plans to dramatically increase the number of railcars that are regularly staged at the plant; it also plans to begin processing propane and expand its processing of butane, both highly explosive.

The proposal includes plans to store 630,000 gallons of liquid propane about half a mile from homes, churches, a school and a park. And yet the environmental analysis approved by the board claimed that there would be no significant risks associated with this operational expansion.

In the case of a large earthquake, Phillips 66’s operational expansion would place huge swaths of Rodeo at significant risk of death and destruction, with damage radiating from the refinery up past San Pablo Avenue to as far away as where I-80 runs through Rodeo. It is simply unacceptable for our county officials to allow this expansion without requiring stringent attention to public health and safety by putting aggressive safeguards in place.

In terms of air quality impacts, this refinery has a dismal track record. It received more than 200 notices of violation from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District between 2003 and 2014. According to the California Environmental Protection Agency, it is the seventh-most-toxic polluter of all California facilities with large chemical releases. Phillips 66’s proposed changes would significantly increase the level of air pollution the facility produces, but the company used accounting tricks to hide the ball in its air-quality analysis. County officials did not question the refinery’s flawed analytical approach.

The Board of Supervisors showed its hand when it approved Phillips 66’s operational expansion without requiring investments to protect the health and safety of residents. Three different lawsuits have been filed against the county for lack of appropriate oversight in this matter. Contra Costa residents must demand better from local elected officials.

Join us in demanding that the county put an end to approving dirty industry at the expense of the public’s health and safety. Enough is enough.

Ultimately, if elected officials won’t stand up for health and safety, the court should intervene and protect the best interests of this community.

Janet Pygeorge is president of Rodeo Citizens Association, one of the groups that has filed suit in this matter. Laurel Impett is a planner with Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP, the law firm that represents the association.

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, Clean energy, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Oil Industry, Oil spill, Pipeline transport, Tar sands crude

Recent Grassroots Victories: Standing Against Big Oil’s Crude-by-Rail Push

April 6, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from NRDC Switchboard

Standing Against Big Oil’s Crude-by-Rail Push

By Franz Matzner, April 6, 2015

Franz Matzner Over the last few days, we’ve seen a series of grassroots victories that prove we’re not stuck with Big Oil’s plan to foist dangerous fossil fuel infrastructure on communities across the country.

Just last week, TransCanada (of Keystone XL infamy) confirmed that it is dropping a marine crude oil export terminal in Quebec due to environmental concerns, a move that will delay the target opening date for the massive Energy East tar sands pipeline by at least two years.

Across the continent, Big Oil was also dealt two blows against its attempts to import extreme crudes into California by rail. In the face of strong community opposition, midstream oil company WesPac has abandoned its plan to build a rail terminal that would have brought dirty crude oil into the San Francisco Bay Area.

A few years ago, WesPac proposed a rail and marine terminal that would transport 242,000 barrels per day of crude oil–nearly a third of the capacity of Keystone XL–through Pittsburg, CA, a small community of 60,000 residents and then on to Bay Area refineries. The problems with WesPac’s proposal are myriad: it would expose Pittsburg’s population, largely communities of color and low-income communities, to the risks of exploding trains and increased air pollution, and it would require a massive investment in fossil fuel infrastructure at a time when we should be moving toward clean energy solutions.

The project was so ill-conceived that, following comments by NRDC and others, the California Attorney General wrote a letter finding “significant legal problems” with the project’s environmental review documents. Accordingly, the city decided to put the project on hold and revisit its environmental review process. That’s where things stood for over a year, until last week, when WesPac announced that it would drop the rail terminal aspect of the project altogether.

As community and environmental advocates have repeatedly pointed out, oil trains pose serious risks–risks that were highlighted by a series of fiery accidents over the last few weeks. (Notably, some recent accidents have involved Canadian tar sands crude, in addition to a bevy of dangerous mishaps involving North Dakota’s Bakken crude, which has long been known to be highly volatile and has been the culprit in most oil train disasters.)

This win in Pittsburg follows a recent decision by another Bay Area city, Benicia, to withdraw and revise its environmental review documents for a proposed crude-by-rail terminal at Valero’s Benicia refinery. As NRDC and others, including the California Attorney General, pointed out in legal comments, the terminal would pose serious safety and health threats to Benicia and to residents along the rail line. Momentum is also building against another crude-by-rail proposal up for consideration further south in San Luis Obispo County.

These victories show the power of local communities to stop Big Oil in its tracks.

The battle, however, is far from over: Valero is still trying to push forward with its rail terminal, and WesPac’s proposed marine terminal would have significant impacts on the fragile San Francisco Bay Delta and nearby residents. In fact, WesPac’s plans may still include the renovation of long-dormant storage tanks to stockpile large volumes of volatile crude oil, even though those tanks are literally a stone’s throw from homes, churches, and a school.

Some critics have used the boom in crude oil trains as evidence that we should allow more pipelines. They offer the false choice of risk from pipelines or risk from oil trains. The truth is more sinister. Big Oil wants more of both. Pipelines and rail serve different geographic areas and often carry different types of oil. The problem is that both forms of transportation have risks, and both bring fossil fuels perilously close to our communities. Clean energy investments do the opposite: they eliminate the dangerous risks of spills and bomb trains, while cutting carbon pollution.

It’s time our elected leaders follow the example of communities across the country by saying “no” to Big Oil and “yes” to clean solutions that accelerate fuel efficiency, electric vehicles, clean fuels, and renewable energy such as solar and wind.

Franz A. Matzner is associate director of government affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council. His policy background includes energy, climate, and forestry. He previously held the position of senior policy analyst for agriculture and the environment at Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS). Matzner graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania. He is co-author of the NRDC report “Safe At Home: Making the Federal Fire Safety Budget Work for Communities.”

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, California Energy Commission, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Insurance and liability, Moratorium on oil trains, Rail inspection, Risk Assessment, Tank car design

Concerns of communities heard at meeting of the Cal Energy Commission in Crockett CA

March 28, 2015 Roger Straw

Repost from The Contra Costa Times

Contra Costa residents pushing for more information on crude by rail

By Karina Ioffee, Bay Area News Group, 03/27/2015 05:22:01 PM PDT

CROCKETT — With plans in the works to transport crude oil by rail through Contra Costa County cities to a Central California refinery, local residents say they want assurances that state and federal agencies are doing everything they can to keep them safe.

Less than 1 percent of crude that California refineries received in 2014 came by rail, but the negative perception of transporting oil by train has grown sharply because of highly publicized accidents. A derailment in Quebec in 2013 killed 47 people and destroyed parts of a town; another in West Virginia contaminated local water sources and forced the evacuation of hundreds of residents.

Tanker cars sit on railroad tracks near the Shell Refinery in Martinez on May 6, 2013. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)

If the Phillips 66 plans are approved, an estimated five trains a week, each hauling 80 tank cars, could travel through Contra Costa cities, then Berkeley, Oakland and San Jose along the Amtrak Capitol Corridor, before arriving at the refinery in Santa Maria.

At a community meeting here Thursday, residents peppered a representative from the California Energy Commission about what kind of emergency plans were in place should a train derail and explode, what timelines the federal government had for new and improved tanker cars, and whether railroad companies have enough insurance in case of a catastrophic event.

Many came away unsatisfied with what they heard, saying they were terrified by the prospect of rail cars filled with Bakken crude from North Dakota, which is lighter and more combustible than most types of petroleum.

“The oil companies are getting all the benefits and the communities who live near them are taking all the risk,” said Nancy Rieser, who lives in Crockett and is a member of Crockett-Rodeo United to Defend the Environment, a community organization.

Her group is pushing the railroad industry to release its risk-assessment information, required for insurance purposes, to better understand what kind of plans companies have in an event of an emergency and whether their insurance policies would cover a large incident. Railroad companies have so far declined to release the information.

“You need to have hospitals at the ready, you need to have first responders, so if you keep it a secret, it’s as if the plan didn’t exist,” Rieser said. “You can’t be coy with the communities.”

Regulations about rail safety are written and enforced by the Federal Railroad Administration, and the California Public Utilities Commission focuses on enforcement in the state, employing inspectors to make sure railroads comply with the law. There is also an alphabet soup of state agencies such as the Office of Emergency Services (OES), the Office of State Fire Marshal (OSFM), California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) and the Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR).

But to what extent the agencies are working together to prepare for crude-by-rail transports and how they’re sharing information remains unclear. Last year, an Interagency Rail Safety Working Group, put together by Gov. Jerry Brown, produced a report recommending that additional inspectors be hired to evaluate tracks, rail cars and bridges; more training for local emergency responders; and real-time shipment information to local firefighters when a train is passing through a community. According to the report, incidents statewide involving oil by rail increased from three in 2011 to 25 in 2013.

Many at Thursday’s meeting said the only way to prevent future accidents was to ban the transport of crude by rail completely, until all rail cars and tracks had been inspected.

“These trains are really scary because we live so close to them and we feel the effects deeply through emissions and air pollution,” said Aimee Durfee, a Martinez resident. Statewide, Californians use more than 40 million gallons of gasoline each day, according to the California Energy Commission.

Bernard Weinstein, associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University, said railroad companies are already shifting to new cars — outfitted with heat shields, thicker tank material and pressure-relief devices — although the process is gradual because of the sheer volume of the fleet, estimated at more than 25,000. New rulings specifying tanker car standards and timelines about phasing in updated technology are also expected this May.

“No human activity is completely risk-free,” Weinstein said, adding that the spill rate for trains transporting crude was roughly four times higher than accidents involving pipelines.

“Communities are resistant to crude by rail and they are against pipelines, but they also want to go to the pump and be able to fill up their car.”

The Benicia Independent ~ Eyes on the Environment / Benicia news & views