By Roger Straw, February 9, 2016 [Editor: UPDATE – Note additional hearing date of Monday, April 18. This new date is IN ADDITION TO the previously scheduled hearings. – RS]
Benicia announces City Council dates for hearings on Valero Crude by Rail appeal
Hearings will begin on March 15 and continue for public comment on April 4, 6, 18 and 19
The Benicia City Council Agenda for March 15 included staff recommendations on Valero’s appeal of the Benicia Planning Commission’s unanimous February 11 decision to deny Valero Crude By Rail.
Staff is recommending that Council begin the hearings on March 15 and continue for public comment on Monday, April 4, Wednesday, April 6, and Tuesday, April 19 if needed. Note that these dates for public hearings are NOT CONSECUTIVE EVENINGS as was the case in previous hearings.
Staff recommended the Council hear city staff and representatives of Valero on March 15, and then ask questions. UPDATE ON MARCH 11 – The Planning Commission has been granted 15 minutes to present its case at the March 15 City Council meeting. Chair Don Dean will represent the Commission.
Other documents released today include the following:
Written public comments are encouraged now! Send your thoughts to the City Council by email directed to Amy Million, Principal Planner, Benicia Community Development Department:amillion@ci.benicia.ca.us. You may also send your letter Amy Million by mail to 250 East L Street, Benicia, CA 94510, or by Fax: (707) 747-1637.
And mark your calendar now, so you don’t forget. Please plan to attend on Tuesday, March 15 for the presentations, and again on Monday, April 4, Wednesday, April 6 and Tuesday, April 19. All meetings will be held at 7:00 p.m. in City Hall Council Chamber, 250 East, L Street, Benicia.
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. 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.
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.
Report finds overwhelming opposition to project that would bring crude-by-rail through Bay Area cities
By Tom Lochner, 03/04/2016 04:44:34 AM PST
BERKELEY — A crude-by-rail project in Central California that could bring up to five trains a week through Berkeley and other East Bay shoreline cities has garnered overwhelming opposition among local politicians and the public, an observer for the city reports.
Ray Yep, a member of the Public Works Commission working with Councilwoman Linda Maio, represented Berkeley at hearings before the San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission last month on the Phillips 66 Rail Spur Project. The proposal calls for bringing out-of-state crude oil, likely the tar sands variety, to the Phillips 66 Santa Maria refinery via 80-car trains, via a 1.3-mile spur that would connect the refinery with the Union Pacific mainline.
Possible access routes to the refinery from outside the area would be from the south via the Los Angeles Basin, and from the north via the East Bay and South Bay along Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor tracks.
As early as 2014, the Berkeley and Richmond city councils voted to oppose the transport of crude oil through the East Bay.
Hearings were held Feb. 4 and 5, with at least one more hearing before the planning commission votes on the project. The next hearing is 9 a.m. March 11.
At the Feb. 4 hearing, the county staff gave a presentation, ending with a recommendation to deny the project. A county attorney followed with a discussion of federal pre-emption, characterizing it as a “gray area,” according to the Berkeley report.
Phillips 66 has challenged the county’s standing to evaluate Union Pacific mainline issues — including possible effects on the communities it traverses. In an ensuing presentation, the company held that mainline issues fall under federal regulations, the Berkeley report noted.
Phillips 66 said the rail spur project is needed because of declining of oil production in California, and that it would keep the refinery in operation and provide local jobs and taxes, according to the Berkeley report. The company declared willingness to reduce the volume of trains to three per week, which critics have derided as a tactic to facilitate approval without addressing the danger of fire, explosion and pollution.
Without approval of the rail spur project, 100 trucks would transport crude oil daily from Kern County to the Santa Maria refinery, according to the report.
About 300 people submitted speaker cards at the Feb. 4 hearing and 69 spoke that day, from as far away as Crockett, Davis and Sacramento, according to the Berkeley report. Some 430 speaker cards were submitted at the Feb. 5 hearing.
The report noted that 17 elected officials spoke, all but one against the project.
Maio is expected to present the report to the City Council on Tuesday. It is available online at bit.ly/1QsQL6w.
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