No decision on Phillips 66 oil-by-rail proposal after fifth day of hearings
By David Sneed, April 15, 2016 10:27 AM
HIGHLIGHTS
• Planning Commission continues the discussion to May 16, when a decision is expected
• Panel considered a range of issues, including air quality, bridge safety and emergency response
• Public turnout Friday was light because no public comment was taken
Planning commissioners listen Friday during the fifth hearing on Phillips 66’s oil-by-rail proposal for its Nipomo Mesa refinery. Credit: David Middlecamp
After a fifth daylong hearing, the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission did not come to a decision on a controversial proposed rail spur project at the Phillips 66 Nipomo Mesa refinery and scheduled a sixth and possibly final hearing for May 16.
During Friday’s hearing, the commission considered a wide range of issues associated with the project, including air quality, bridge safety, hazards, emergency response and the composition of the oil to be shipped. One of the greatest fears regarding the proposed rail spur at the Phillips 66 oil refinery is that one of the long trains supplying the refinery could derail in a fiery crash.
“What is a rail car going to do if it turns over on the (Cuesta) Grade,” asked Commissioner Jim Irving. “Is it going to blow up?”
Jim Anderson, refinery manager, said the company will use the latest, most up-to-date tankers to transport the oil according to the Department of Transportation requirements to prevent that from happening. He also said the type of crude oil the tankers will be hauling is the heavier, less flammable kind.
“These cars are the state-of-the-art according to the DOT,” he said. “We will not start this project without those cars.”
John Peirson, a consultant with Marine Research Specialists of Ventura, which prepared the project’s environmental impact report, said even with the heavier crude oil, crashes have resulted in explosions and fireballs. He also said a thinner would be added to make the oil easier to pump and transport, and that this would increase its flammability.
“It is less likely, but it is possible,” he said.
For oil train accidents, the evacuation zone along the railroad is half a mile on either side. In San Luis Obispo County, 88,377 people live within half a mile of the tracks, said Ryan Hostetter, senior county planner.
The evacuation zone is the area adjacent to the tracks in which a person is liable to be injured in the event of a fire and explosion. Of greatest risk are densely populated areas and public facilities such as schools and hospitals. For example, Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center in San Luis Obispo is near the railroad.
“These are areas where you would expect very severe consequences,” said Steve Radis, another MRS consultant. “Potentially, if you were outdoors, you could be injured, and evacuating a hospital would be a major disruption.”
The amount of crude oil transported by rail has increased 50 times since 2009. Since that time, three accidents a year involving oil cars have occurred nationally, none locally, Radis said.
In October 2015, Cal Fire conducted a simulated oil car derailment accident drill at the California Men’s Colony prison that involved 100 people. The simulation included multiple fires, creek pollution and inmate injuries, Battalion Chief Laurie Donnelly said.
It took several hours to put the oil fires out, but the most time-consuming part of the drill was treating the injured inmates.
“We did well, but we found a few areas of improvement, which is to be expected in a drill like that,” she said.
More than 50 people were in attendance Friday at the commission’s fifth hearing on the project.
Public turnout at Friday’s hearing was light compared with past hearings, which attracted hundreds of people. The light turnout was attributable to the fact that no public comment was taken.
The oil company has applied 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.
These improvements would allow the refinery to accept 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 rail cars carrying a total of 2.2 million gallons of crude oil.
County staff is recommending the proposal be denied. The project drew more than 400 speakers at previous hearings as well as thousands of letters and comments sent from around the state.
Opponents say the project will cause air pollution and other environmental consequences. They are also concerned about a derailment causing an oil spill and fire.
In order to reduce these environmental impacts, Phillips 66 has offered to reduce the shipments to three trains a week, or 150 per year.
Supporters say the project is needed to keep the refinery economically viable and protect its 200 jobs. They also point out that the refinery has operated safely and the state needs the oil products it will produce.
Whatever decision the Planning Commission makes will certainly be appealed to the county Board of Supervisors.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris challenges Benicia oil plan
By Tony Bizjak, April 14, 2016 4:29 PM
HIGHLIGHTS:
• Harris said Benicia has the right to say no, is not pre-empted by federal law
• Two 50-car oil trains would travel daily through downtown Sacramento
• Valero spokesman: ‘We remain confident our views related to the application of federal pre-emption in this matter’
This train is a crude oil train operated by BNSF. The train is snaking its way west through James, California just outside of the Feather River Canyon in the foothills into the Sacramento Valley. Photo taken June 5, 2014 by Jake Miille
California Attorney General Kamala Harris weighed in on Benicia’s ongoing oil train debate on Thursday, arguing that the city has a legal right to reject a local refinery’s oil train plan and the obligation to review environmental risks.
The debate involves a plan by Valero Refining Co. to ship up to two 50-car trains a day of crude oil through Northern California, including through Roseville, downtown Sacramento and Davis, to its plant on Suisun Bay on the outskirts of Benicia. Valero is seeking city permits to make changes at its refinery to allow it to receive train shipments.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris addresses the California Chamber Capitol Summit in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, May 27, 2015. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
In a five-page letter Thursday, Harris repeatedly challenged Valero’s assertion – and the opinion of an attorney on hire to Benicia – that the city cannot consider any potential negative impacts of oil trains to cities along the rail line.
“We disagree that the city is prohibited from considering the project’s 11 significant and unavoidable rail-related impacts when exercising its local land use authority,” said Harris, the state’s top law enforcement official, said.
An earlier environmental impact report conducted by Benicia concluded that the trains presented significant and unavoidable risks of oil spill, environmental damage and potential loss of human life if one were to derail while en route to the refinery. Several spills and explosions in recent years, including one in which 47 people were killed, have highlighted the dangers of crude oil trains nationally.
Bradley Hogin, an environmental attorney hired by Benicia, has argued that federal interstate commerce law pre-empts the city from turning Valero’s proposal down because that decision would at least indirectly be telling the Union Pacific railroad company what it can and can’t do.
The Benicia Planning Commission earlier this year rejected Hogin’s opinion and denied Valero’s permit request. Planning commissioners said they did not want to put cities on the rail line at risk, but they also made a point of saying they also were rejecting Valero’s proposal because of local issues, such as flood and traffic concerns.
Valero appealed that decision to the Benicia City Council, which is conducting hearings, including two scheduled for next week.
Numerous attorneys representing environmental and social justice groups have argued that Hogin’s reading of the law is wrong. Sacramento-area officials have sent several letters to Benicia calling on that city to protect communities along the rail line, and a number of Sacramento and Davis residents have testified in Benicia against the plan.
The state attorney general is the highest law enforcement official to weigh in on the matter. Harris, a Democrat, is running for U.S. Senate this year.
Harris argues, in her letter, that federal pre-emption law on rail shipments does not apply because Valero is not a railroad company and is only asking Benicia for permission to make improvements at its local refinery site.
“Both Valero and city staff incorrectly argue that the city’s denial of Valero’s use permit will somehow impermissibly interfere with Union Pacific’s rail operations,” the attorney general said in her letter, written by Deputy Attorney General Scott Lichtig. “The city’s denial of Valero’s use permit is not categorically pre-empted” by federal law because it doesn’t interfere with UP’s federal rights.
In sum, the attorney general’s office said that under federal law Benicia “retains its authority to take discretionary action to approve or deny Valero’s project.”
Valero spokesman Chris Howe responded Thursday in an email to The Sacramento Bee, saying, “We remain confident in our views related to the application of federal pre-emption in this matter.”
In an email to The Bee Thursday evening, Hogin responded.
“City staff disagrees with the Attorney General’s letter,” he wrote. “Based on current law, cities do not have the authority to make permitting decisions based on impacts from rail operations. Cities may only consider local impacts that could result from a shipper’s unloading facility. The status of the permittee as rail carrier or shipper is not the deciding factor; what matters is the nature of the regulation – whether it addresses impacts from a shipper’s unloading facility, or impacts from rail operations.”
Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor, who has acted as spokesman for the local six-county Sacramento Area Council of Governments, said the Attorney General’s analysis is consistent with SACOG’s own legal analysis. “At this point it seems clear that the significant environmental impacts and public safety risks of this expanded crude oil terminal outweigh the project benefits,” he said.
Ethan Buckner of Stand California, one of several organizations that oppose crude oil shipments, issued a statement lauding Harris.
“Attorney General Harris stood up for democracy and public safety today,” Buckner said. “Valero was hoping to cloud the issue with complicated federal law. … The City Council must now uphold the Planning Commission’s unanimous decision to reject the Valero oil train project.
“And all other cities in California and around the U.S. now know for certain that federal law does not preempt or constrain the city’s discretionary decision-making authority.”
Repost from WAMC Northeast Public Radio [Editor: Significant quote: “More than 80 environmental, business, recreational and other organizations along with former members of state agencies, current and former state legislators and both the Plattsburgh and Burlington City Councils have signed a letter to the Vermont and New York Congressional delegation calling for a ‘federal legislatively imposed ban on the transport of oil along Lake Champlain and the Hudson River.'” – RS]
Advocates Call On Federal Officials To Ban Rail Transport Of Bakken Oil
By Pat Bradley, Apr 14, 2016
PAT BRADLEY/WAMC
A coalition of environmental and municipal officials stood in a park overlooking the Saranac River and a rail trestle this morning. They announced a new effort to convince federal representatives from New York and Vermont to ban crude oil transport in order to protect Lake Champlain and the Hudson River.
The group met at MacDonough Park across from City Hall. The park is only a few hundred yards from a rail trestle that daily sees trains carrying crude oil cross over the Saranac River as it empties into Lake Champlain. The advocates say transporting Bakken oil by rail remains an unacceptable risk to Vermont and New York, and is especially hazardous to the sensitive ecosystems of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks.
More than 80 environmental, business, recreational and other organizations along with former members of state agencies, current and former state legislators and both the Plattsburgh and Burlington City Councils have signed a letter to the Vermont and New York Congressional delegation calling for a “federal legislatively imposed ban on the transport of oil along Lake Champlain and the Hudson River.”
National Wildlife Federation Senior Counsel Jim Murphy outlined a precipitous increase in rail accidents nationally over the past three years and says the oil trains that travel along Lake Champlain are too dangerous. “We have concluded that there is no safe way to transport this oil at this time. The trains that roll along this lake are sometimes twice the length of the train that destroyed Lac Megantic. The danger is just simply too high.”
Plattsburgh Ward One City Councilor Rachelle Armstrong called the oil trains travelling through the city an ominous problem. “Our municipalities need to stand up and become the advocates in a bold and aggressive way so that we bring the attention to bear on this issue that our leaders at the federal level need to recognize.”
The rail corridor along Lake Champlain also passes through the Adirondack Park. Adirondack Council spokesman John Sheehan says the trains pose a significant risk to the largest park in the contiguous United States. “This is also considered to be a biosphere reserve by the United Nations. The danger here is also to a drinking water supply for one hundred eighty thousand people. Lake Champlain serves as water for people from Vermont, New York and Quebec. So we have grave concerns about the environment, about communities and about wild lands here and we’re hoping that the federal government takes them seriously.”
The trains carrying Bakken crude travel 100 miles along Lake Champlain and through the Adirondacks to the Port of Albany. Lake Champlain Committee Executive Director Lori Fisher believes a catastrophic accident is not a matter of if, but when. “In the past we have pushed for a ban on the DOT-111’s. That hasn’t happened. There’s been some movement to upgrade trains to the twelve thirty two’s. They don’t represent a greater safety for our communities. That’s why we see the need to push for a ban on oil transport until it can be safe. We know it’s not safe now and it’s a ticking time bomb and we need to act now.”
The advocates noted that the evacuation zone from an oil train derailment in Plattsburgh includes City Hall, the downtown business area, the Country Government Center and numerous schools.
