Category Archives: ForestEthics

Benicia Planning Commission, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, Crude By Rail, ForestEthics, Local Regulation, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

STATEMENT: Benicia Planning Commission Rejects Valero Oil Train Terminal

Repost from ForestEthics (joint statement with Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community)

Statement: Benicia Planning Commission Rejects Valero Oil Train Terminal

Friday Feb 12, 2016, Contact: Eddie Scher, 415-815-7027
[Benicia, CA] Late last night the Benicia Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny the land use permit for the proposed Valero oil train terminal. Valero can appeal the decision to the Benicia City Council.

Citizen groups Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community and ForestEthics released the following statements:

“The unanimous vote by the Planning Commission to reject this deeply flawed environmental review is a vindication of the concerns that people in the community have had since this project was first proposed. It took three years of work in the community to build public pressure. The Planning Commission was thorough and methodological in their deliberation. The message to the city council is absolutely clear – they must reject this proposal and reevaluate how much trust they can put in their own staff and city attorney.”

– Andres Soto, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community

“In four days of hearings commissioners faced unrelenting pressure from Big Oil and Big Rail, and a city attorney and city staff who reminded the commission again and again that Valero’s tax contributions make up a quarter of the general fund. But last night, in a powerful display of democratic and thoughtful local governance, commissioner after commissioner ripped apart the Valero’s faulty environmental review and questioned the motives of city staff and the Benicia city attorney. Commissioners affirmed the actual charge of their commission to protect the health and welfare of the community.”

-Ethan Buckner, campaigner, ForestEthics

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, DOT-111, Earthjustice, ForestEthics, Sierra Club, Tank car design, US Department of Transportation

U.S. Sued Over Refusal to Ban Older Rail Cars for Crude

Repost from Bloomberg News
[Editor: See also the Earthjustice press release, “Groups Bring New Legal Action for Federal Ban of Dangerous Oil Tank Rail Cars”.  Here is the December 2 Petition.   Here is the original July 15 Petition.  – RS]

U.S. Sued Over Refusal to Ban Older Rail Cars for Crude

By Andrew Zajac, Dec 2, 2014
Crude by Rail California
A train with DOT-111 tanker cars. Chris Jordan-Bloch / Earthjustice

Earthjustice and other environmental groups asked a federal court to force the U.S. Transportation Department to reconsider its rejection of an immediate ban on the use of rail tank cars lacking updated safety features for shipping Bakken crude oil.

The tank cars’ safety was questioned after a July 2013 explosion that killed 47 people when an unattended, runaway train hauling 72 carloads of Bakken crude derailed in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.

The transportation department is managing tank car safety issues through a series of directives, short of a ban, and rules are being drafted to phase out the older rolling stock, the agency said in November, declining the groups’ request for an emergency ban.

That response fails to consider the risks posed by the cars, including “past findings that the surge in crude-by-rail shipments of Bakken crude in dangerous tank cars poses imminent hazards and emergency unsafe conditions,” according to the complaint, filed today in federal appeals court in San Francisco.

The rail vessels in question are older models, collectively referred to as DOT-111 tank cars, that lack safeguards needed to improve crashworthiness, according the environmentalists’ original request for a ban, filed in July.

Oil from the Bakken shale region of North Dakota tends to be more volatile and flammable than other crude, according to a Transportation Department study released in July.

Production of Bakken crude is soaring beyond the capacity of pipelines, leading to an increased use of trains.

The Sierra Club and ForestEthics joined Earthjustice in the lawsuit.

The case is Sierra Club v. U.S. Department of Transportation, 14-73682, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, (San Francisco).