Category Archives: Environmental Impacts

Benicia City Council, Crude By Rail, Environmental Impacts, Environmental review, Federal pre-emption, Local Regulation, Public Health, Public permitting, Valero Benicia Appeal, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

LETTER OF OPPOSITION: Five environmental attorneys and others

By Roger Straw, March 31, 2016

On March 31, five environmental attorneys and a host of experts and others (including Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community) sent the Benicia City Council this strong 3-page letter of opposition to Valero’s oil trains proposal.  (For a much longer download, see the Letter with Attachments [13 MB, 214 pages].)

Attorney signatories:

    • Jackie Prange, Staff Attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council;
    • Roger Lin, Staff Attorney for Communities for a Better Environment;
    • George Torgun, Managing Attorney for San Francisco Baykeeper;
    • Clare Lakewood, Staff Attorney for Center for Biological Diversity;
    • Elly Benson, Staff Attorney for Sierra Club.

Others signing the letter:

    • Ethan Buckner, ForestEthics;
    • Katherine Black, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community;
    • Janet Johnson, Richmond Progressive Alliance;
    • David McCoard, Sierra Club SF Bay Chapter;
    • Jessica Hendricks, Global Community Monitor;
    • Colin Miller, Bay Localize;
    • Denny Larson, Community Science Institute;
    • Nancy Rieser, Crockett-Rodeo United to Defend the Environment;
    • Steve Nadel, Sunflower Alliance;
    • Kalli Graham, Pittsburg Defense Council;
    • Richard Gray, 350 Bay Area and 350 Marin;
    • Bradley Angel, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice;
    • Sandy Saeturn, Asian Pacific Environmental Network

SIGNIFICANT EXCERPT:

The City Council can, and must, uphold the Planning Commission’s unanimous decision to deny the use permit for the Valero crude-by-rail project. Federal law does not preempt the City from denying the permit for this project. Furthermore, the City should not tolerate Valero’ s delay tactic of seeking a declaratory order from the Surface Transportation Board (STB). As explained below, the STB does not have jurisdiction over this project and will almost certainly decline to hear Valero’ s petition for the very same reason that preemption does not apply. Finally, even if preemption were to apply here, the project’s on-site impacts, especially the increases in refinery pollution, require the City to deny the permit.

Benicia City Council, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), California Supreme Court, Crude By Rail, Environmental Impacts, Environmental review, Local Regulation, Public Health, Valero Benicia Appeal, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

LETTER OF OPPOSITION: Attorney Rachael Koss, for SAFER California

By Roger Straw, March 31, 2016

On March 30, attorney Rachael E. Koss of Adams Broadwell Joseph & Cardozo,  representing Safe Fuel and Energy Resources California (SAFER), sent the Benicia City Council this letter of opposition to Valero’s oil trains project.

SIGNIFICANT EXCERPT:

First, Valero’s argument that the City should not consider Project impacts from crude slate changes because emissions would not exceed its permit limits has already been rejected by the California Supreme Court. The California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”)l requires the City to determine whether a project would change the existing environment by increasing emissions as compared to actual existing emissions — not whether the Project will change the environment by exceeding hypothetical emissions allowed under permit limits. This was precisely the issue before the California Supreme Court in Communities for a Better Environment v. South Coast Air Quality Management District.2 The Court rejected the argument that “the analytical baseline for a project employing existing equipment should be the maximum permitted operating capacity of the equipment, even if the equipment is operating below those levels at the time the environmental analysis is begun.”3 The Court held that CEQA requires the baseline to reflect “established levels of a particular use,” not the “merely hypothetical conditions allowable under the permits…”4 Following the Supreme Court decision, the court in Communities for a Better Environlnent v. City of Richmond5 similarly rejected the city’s use of a hypothetical baseline, which failed to reflect actual operational conditions. “The [Supreme Court] stated that using hypothetical, allowable conditions as a baseline ‘will not inform decision makers and the public of the project’s significant environmental impacts, as CEQA mandates.”’6 Thus, Valero’s argument has already been rejected by the California Supreme Court.

Benicia City Council, Carbon emissions, Crude By Rail, Environmental Impacts, Environmental review, Local Regulation, Public Health, Refinery emissions, Valero Crude By Rail

LETTER OF OPPOSITION: Greg Karras, Senior Scientist for Communities for a Better Environment

By Roger Straw, March 31, 2016

This morning, Greg Karras, Senior Scientist for Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) sent the Benicia City Council a 15-page Expert Report, Regarding the Appeal of Planning Commission Actions on the Valero Benicia Crude by Rail Project and Environmental Impact Report (EIR).

For Mr. Karras’ lengthy attachments, see the City of Benicia’s posting of letters received March 25-31.

SIGNIFICANT EXCERPT:

Valero’s appeal asserts … that: “All of the public discussion about the Project has focused on the impacts of rail operations.” …The assertion that “[a]ll public discussion about the Project has focused on the impacts of rail operations”2 is inaccurate and misleading. Goodman and Rowan (2013) showed that the project could change the refinery’s crude slate.3 Fox (2013) showed this could cause significant impacts from refining operations.4 By 1 July 2013 at least eleven groups, including CBE and the refinery workers union United Steelworkers (Local 675), sought full disclosure and analysis of the changes in refinery oil feedstock and emissions that could result from the project.5 The EIR identified this potential for project-driven changes in its crude slate to cause impacts in the refinery as an “area of controversy.”6 Fox (2014),7 Pless (2014),8 Karras (2014),9 Fox (2016),10 Pless (2016)11 and others12 commented in detail on the EIR’s failure to evaluate these and other refining impacts of the proposed project. Valero is on record acknowledging this focus of independent public comment on refining impacts of the project, as shown by the company’s attempt, at the Planning Commission’s Public Hearing, to rebut comments regarding these refinery impacts of the project,13 in direct contradiction to its position on appeal.

Benicia City Council, Benicia Planning Commission, Crude By Rail, Environmental Impacts, Public Health, Public Safety, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Valero appeal letter: blatantly false opening statement

By Roger Straw, March 4, 2016

Valero appeal letter: blatantly false opening statement

2015-06-21 RDS Guerneville indoors (edited, soft, noexit whiteout 350px bdr)Every time there’s an oil train derailment, and especially when that oil train erupts in shocking balls of fire, the tv reporters run to capture video, bloggers like me post a week’s worth of stories on the catastrophic explosions, and the public gathers in City Park to say “no more, not here.”

Imagine how many hidden stories go unnoticed and unreported every day when our air is polluted. Imagine how many videos are impossible, untaken, unwatched of children with asthma. How many dead fish, how many forests destroyed, how many cancer victims along the rails and in oil production communities and refinery towns.

Every day that extreme North American crude is produced, transported and refined, MORE toxic emissions pollute mother earth and enter into our bodies and the bodies of land on which we live.

My blog, the Benicia Independent, may seem to focus primarily on the extreme safety hazards of these dangerous oil trains. Shocked by news of the many horrific oil train accidents, I have taken to scanning the national news every day for stories on train derailments, discussions of safety regulations and other news relating to hazardous material transport. But I have also faithfully posted Valero’s project documents, Benicia’s studies and staff recommendations, and the massive outpouring of citizen and expert comments critical of Valero’s proposal, comments based on a wide range of health and safety issues.

This week, Valero’s attorney submitted a letter appealing the unanimous decision of Benicia’s Planning Commission. With the backing of Benicia’s staff, Valero wants our City Council to review and dismiss the authoritative deliberations of our Planning Commission and the Commission’s decision to deny the project.

Valero’s appeal letter opens with a flat-out falsehood. It states, “All of the public discussion about the Project has focused on the impacts of rail operations….”

Valero wants to characterize opponents of the project as ONLY concerned about safety, and uninterested in any environmental and health impacts related to Valero’s proposal.

But from the very beginning in 2013, Benicia citizens submitted comments easily accessible as part of the official public record documenting scientific expert analyses that raise serious concerns about toxic emissions during transport, offloading, storage and refining of sweet light crude (Bakken) and ultra-heavy diluted bitumen (tar sands). Benicia’s Good Neighbor Steering Committee, and later, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community (BSHC) specifically critiqued the environmental impacts related to construction and operation of the proposed new facility here in Benicia.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, California’s Attorney General, experts Dr. Phyllis Fox and Dr. Petra Pless, the Goodman Group, SAFER California, regional governmental staff and electeds, and many other knowledgeable commenters have joined with local opponents in raising extensive and detailed warnings about the environmental consequences of 1) building and operating the offloading rack, 2) positioning it in the heart of our Industrial Park so near Sulfur Springs and Valero’s existing storage tanks, and 3) refining extreme North American crude oil.

Concerns have been raised repeatedly regarding the “fugitive emissions” escaping during transport on rail cars in and out of the refinery, and especially during the daily repetition of opening and closing valves on 100 train cars in the proposed offloading rack (as compared to many fewer openings and closings of valves for a marine delivery of crude).

Commenters have documented asthma and cancer concerns. We have submitted letters, studied lengthy analyses, and spoken out at hearings in 2013, 2014, 2015 and again last month.

Valero would like not to have heard us.

Our Planning Commission was listening. I hope that our City Council is deep into the 25-inch stack of documents, with ears and eyes open. We (and our Planning Commissioners) should NOT have been mischaracterized and demeaned by Valero’s attorney.

Someone described the harsh and untruthful Valero appeal letter as a “scorched earth” approach. It seems that Valero would like to frighten our City Council members into voting in favor of the project in order to avoid facing a lawsuit by the huge corporation.

The Council will be called upon for courage to do the right thing, regardless of the threats and misleading statements of the project proponent.

All of the public’s comments on health and safety can be found on the City’s website, or at BeniciaIndependent.com/project-review/. Valero’s appeal letter can be found here.