Category Archives: Crude By Rail

Air Quality, Carbon emissions, Clean energy, Crude By Rail, Fire, Public Health, Public Safety, Spill, Tar sands crude, Traffic, Valero Crude By Rail

SACRAMENTO BEE: Tom Steyer & Steve Young – Benicia should block oil trains

Repost from the Sacramento Bee

Benicia should block oil trains

By Tom Steyer and Steve Young, Special to The Bee, March 14, 2016 9:30AM

HIGHLIGHTS
•  Valero wants to bring trains carrying crude through Sacramento region to Benicia refinery
• Even without a catastrophe, oil trains pose a serious threat to public health and safety
• With clean energy and efficiency, California doesn’t need to take the risk

Railroad tracks lead to Valero’s refinery in Benicia. The company wants to ship oil there with two, 50-car trains a day.
Railroad tracks lead to Valero’s refinery in Benicia. The company wants to ship oil there with two, 50-car trains a day. Manny Crisostomo Sacramento Bee file

If approved, proposed new oil train terminals at refineries in California would turn our railways into crude oil superhighways. Mile-long oil trains would haul millions of gallons of toxic, explosive crude through downtown Sacramento and dozens of other California cities and towns. An estimated 5 million Californians live in the one-mile evacuation zone along oil train routes.

In Benicia, city officials are close to a final decision on the proposed Valero oil train terminal. It’s essential that City Council members, who hold a hearing on Tuesday, understand why oil trains are too dangerous for our communities. There is no sure way to protect public health while transporting crude oil by rail.

Tom Steyer

Valero wants to bring two 50-car trains carrying about 3 million gallons of oil to its Benicia refinery every day. The environmental review of the proposal cites the “potentially significant” hazard of a spill and fire.

In 2013, the oil train explosion in Lac Megantic, Quebec, demonstrated the danger. It killed 47 people, destroyed dozens of buildings and poisoned a local lake. Three years later, residents still live with fear and anxiety, and scientists have recorded an “unprecedented” spike of fish deformities.

Steve_Young
Steve Young

But it doesn’t take a catastrophe for oil trains to pose a serious threat to public health and safety. They disrupt traffic, delay emergency response and bring more poisoned air and increased disease. That’s why six counties and 22 cities around Sacramento have already said no to these trains. But the safety of all Californians living in the blast zone lies in the hands of Benicia city officials who will decide whether to approve Valero’s permit.

On Feb. 11, after days of testimony from experts and community members, the city Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny the permit. Valero has appealed to the Benicia City Council, which will make the final decision.

Something similar is happening in San Luis Obispo County, where the county staff and the California Coastal Commission recommended that the county reject the Phillips 66 oil train terminal proposal. The county Planning Commission must decide soon, but the final decision will rest with county supervisors.

Last year, NextGen Climate, the Natural Resources Defense Council, ForestEthics and Communities for a Better Environment released a report on oil industry plans to ship dirty Canadian tar sands crude to West Coast refineries. The report found that heavy crude would increase carbon pollution by as much as 26 million metric tons – the equivalent of adding 5.5 million cars to the road.

The good news is that we don’t have to live with these oil risks barreling through town. We can make our communities safer by transitioning to clean energy. A recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists revealed that improvements in fuel efficiency and energy technology could help us cut oil consumption in half by 2030.

There’s no place for extreme tar sands or Bakken crude in California’s emerging clean energy economy – and there’s no place in our communities for dangerous, unnecessary crude oil trains.

Tom Steyer is founder of NextGen Climate and can be contacted at info@nextgenclimate.org.  Steve Young is a Benicia planning commissioner and can be contacted at steveyoung94510@gmail.com.
Bakken Crude, Canadian regulation, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Federal Railroad Administration, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Positive Train Control, Rail industry, Train crew size

Rail industry opposes 2-member train crews

Repost from CTV News | Associated Press

Industry opposes proposal for 2-member train crews in light of Lac-Megantic disaster

Joan Lowy, The Associated Press , March 14, 2016 3:51PM EDT
Lac-Megantic oil train disaster
Wrecked oil tankers and debris from a runaway train in Lac-Megantic, Que. are pictured July 8, 2013. (Sûreté du Québec handout via CP)

WASHINGTON — Trains would have to have a minimum of two crew members under rules proposed Monday by U.S. regulators. The move is partly in response to a deadly 2013 crash in which an unattended oil train caught fire and destroyed much of a town in Canada, killing 47 people.

The Federal Railroad Administration is also considering allowing railroads that operate with only one engineer to apply for an exception to the proposed two-person crew rule, according to a notice published in the Federal Regulator.

The proposal is opposed by the Association of American Railroads, which represents major freight railroads. Many railroads currently use two-person crews, but some industry officials have indicated they may switch to one engineer per train once technology designed to prevent many types of accidents caused by human error becomes operational.

Most railroads expect to start using the technology, called positive train control or PTC, between 2018 and 2020. It relies on GPS, wireless radio and computers to monitor train positions and automatically slow or stop trains that are in danger of colliding or derailing.

A 2008 law requires PTC technology on all tracks used by passenger trains or trains that haul liquids that turn into toxic gas when exposed to air by Dec. 31, 2015. After it became clear most railroads wouldn’t make that deadline, Congress passed a bill last fall giving railroads another three to five years to complete the task.

There is “simply no safety case” for requiring two-person crews, Edward Hamberger, president of the railroad association, said in a statement. Single-person crews are widely and safely used in Europe and other parts of the world, he said.

There will be even less need for two-person crews after PTC is operational, he said. PTC “is exactly the kind of safety redundancy through technology for which the (railroad administration) has long advocated,” he said.

But Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said two-person crews are needed on trains in the same way it’s necessary to have two-pilot crews on planes.

“The cost of adding a second, skilled crewmember pales in comparison to the costs of avoidable crashes and collisions,” Blumenthal said. It’s important that the railroad administration impose what safety regulations they can now since railroads “have dragged their feet” on implementing PTC, he said.

On July 6, 2013, a 74-car freight train hauling crude oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota that had been left unattended came loose and rolled downhill into Lac-Megantic, a Quebec town not far from the U.S. border. The resulting explosions and fire killed 47 people and razed much the downtown area. The train had one engineer, who had gone to a hotel for the night.

Crude By Rail, Local Regulation, Phillips 66, Public Comment, San Luis Obispo County, Santa Maria Refinery

Hearing on Phillips 66 oil-by-rail plan continues Friday in San Luis Obispo

Repost from The Tribune, San Luis Obispo

Hearing on Phillips 66 oil-by-rail plan continues Friday in San Luis Obispo

HIGHLIGHTS
• The county Planning Commission holds a 4th day of public testimony on a proposal to bring crude oil by rail to the Nipomo refinery
•  Most of the four dozen speakers commenting Friday morning support the project; many coming from Southern California
•  As of 10:30 a.m. nearly 100 people were waiting to speak to the commission

By Cynthia Lambert, March 11, 2016 11:26 AM
The San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission on Friday, during a fourth day of a hearing on a proposal by Phillips 66 Co. to bring oil by rail to its Nipomo Mesa refinery.
The San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission on Friday, during a fourth day of a hearing on a proposal by Phillips 66 Co. to bring oil by rail to its Nipomo Mesa refinery. David Middlecamp

More than four dozen speakers, most of them in support of the Phillips 66 oil-by-rail plan, shared their views with San Luis Obispo County Planning Commissioners on Friday morning in the fourth day of a hearing on the controversial proposal that has drawn statewide attention.

Planning Commission Chairman Don Campbell said he hoped the board could wrap up public comment Friday, adding: “We aren’t getting a lot of new information. We’re getting a lot of the same information, just different people.”

The county planning staff said at 10:30 a.m. they still had a stack of 94 speaker cards. About 50 people had already commented at that point in the morning.

Phillips 66 has applied to San Luis Obispo County to build a 1.3-mile rail spur with five parallel tracks from the main rail line to its Nipomo Mesa refinery, an unloading facility at the refinery and on-site pipelines. In three previous days of hearings, hundreds of people from around the state packed the meeting room, many condemning the proposal out of fears that an oil train derailment anywhere along the route would be disastrous. Supporters at previous meetings, many of them Phillips 66 employees, had defended the proposal, pointing to the refinery’s good safety record and the jobs it provides.

On Friday morning, many of those who commented before the commission’s morning break said they traveled to San Luis Obispo County early in the morning from Southern California to support Phillips 66 and United Steelworkers members.

Some said they were affiliated with the South Bay Center for Community Development, based in Wilmington, which has partnered with the union and the refinery to provide job opportunities for the community.

Phillips 66’s Los Angeles refinery comprises two facilities in Carson and Wilmington.

“We’re talking about directly benefiting 200 households, providing jobs for these people,” said Noel Genuino, who works for the nonprofit organization and was wearing a United Steelworkers shirt.

Cal Poly student Paul Sullivan, a computer science master’s student, also spoke in support.

“I think that any jobs we can find, especially in this area, is something we really need to work for,” he said. “I think that the environmental (impacts) and danger of the project is definitely overstated and a lot of students agree with me.”

The few speakers in opposition on Friday included Grover Beach City Councilwoman Miriam Shah, who said that blocking the project “may very well be our last chance to control the rail lines that run through the coast.”

“I can’t see a reason to put any more pollution into the environment and into their lungs,” she said.

The board of supervisors’ chambers, where the meeting is taking place, was full Friday morning, with many opponents and supporters in the room. But many of the opponents have already given their comments to the commission.

More than 300 people have spoken in front of the commission in three previous hearings. Most of the 200 speakers during the first two days, Feb. 4 and 5, urged the panel to reject the project, while many of the 100 speakers on the third day of the hearing, supported the plan.

The county planning staff has recommended denial of the project, which as proposed would allow five trains a week, for a maximum of 250 trains per year to deliver crude oil to the refinery.

Each train would have three locomotives, two buffer cars and 80 railcars carrying a total of about 2.2 million gallons of crude oil, according to county planners.

During a previous hearing day, representatives from Phillips 66 urged the commissioners to approve an alternate plan to allow three trains a week instead of five, or a maximum of 150 trains a year.

The county staff report states that three trains a week — or 150 a year — would reduce the significant toxic air emissions to no longer be considered a “Class 1 significant impact” at the refinery, which refers to the highest level of negative impacts referenced in the project’s final environmental impact report.

But emissions of diesel particulate matter would still remain a “Class 1” impact on-site, according to the staff report, and there would still be 10 “Class 1” impacts along the main rail line, such as impacts to air quality, water resources, potential demands on emergency response services and an increased risk to the public in the event of a derailment.

Benicia City Council, Benicia Planning Commission, Crude By Rail, Local Regulation, Valero Benicia Appeal, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Chair of Benicia Planning Commission to speak at March 15 City Council meeting

By Roger Straw, February 12, 2016

Commission votes to send a representative, will get 15 minutes

At its meeting on March 10, the Benicia Planning Commission was granted 15 minutes to present its case at the March 15 City Council meeting. Chair Don Dean will represent the Commission.

This would seem to be an adjustment in the agenda.

Previously, the public notice on the March 15 hearing stated that “Staff presentations and Valero presentations will take place on March 15, 2015.”  An email from the City confirmed that “The City and Valero will present at the Council’s March 15 meeting.”  The City’s website says “The City Council will open the hearing on the appeal on March 15, 2016 for Staff and Applicant presentations. ”

The appearance to the public was that staff, in full support of Valero’s proposal and in opposition to the Planning Commission’s denial of the project, was engineering a pro-Valero opening night at City Council, giving voice ONLY to itself and Valero.  This may not have been the case.

The Planning Commission had not taken formal action to name a representative to speak at the hearings until last night. So it may have been due to an abundance of procedural caution that the City failed to name the Commission as a presenter on the 15th.

At any rate, it is a welcome bit of news that Chair Dean will be allowed to speak on that first night of hearings.  It is only right that the Commission’s views get a hearing as Council members’ deliberate.