Yesterday, Benicia Planning Commissioner Steve Young was interviewed on KPFA 94.1 radio, Berkeley. Host Andrés Soto questioned Mr. Young on the dirty and dangerous proposal of Valero Benicia Refinery to bring oil trains through northern California to the Bay Area. Listen here, for Andrés Soto’s Friday Afternoon show.
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.
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.
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