By Roger Straw, Editor [Editor: UPDATE ON 8/26/15: CONFIRMED: the first Planning Commission hearing will be on Tuesday, September 29, 6:30pm at City Hall Council Chambers. If additional speakers wish to offer public comments, subsequent hearings will be held on Wednesday, September 30, Thursday, October 1 and Thursday, October 8 (presumably at the same time and location?). The 45-day public comment period will close on October 15. – RS]
Benicia Planning Commission hearings will likely begin on Tuesday, September 29, 2015
The City of Benicia posted a notice on August 13 that the next Planning Commission hearing on Valero’s proposed Crude by Rail project will be held on Tuesday, September 29, 2015. If the hearing is held on that date, the Commissioners and public will begin their review of the RECIRCULATED Draft Environmental Impact Report, time and location yet to be announced.
The Planning Division’s 8/13/15 listing of Current Planning Projects shows a Planning Commission meeting on 9/29, designated for review of Valero’s Use Permit, and notes, “Railway extension inside refinery. Recirculated Draft EIR anticipated to be released for public review period on August 31, 2015.”
As of today according to the City’s Planning Department, the R-DEIR will be released as scheduled, on August 31, 2015. (Note correction: previously published information that the release would be on 8/29 was in error.)
We will let you know when dates and locations of future hearings are confirmed.
Health Professionals Call for Denial of Oil-By-Rail Terminal Permits in Oregon and Washington
By Regna Merritt, May 11, 2015
For Immediate Release
Contacts:
Laura Skelton, Executive Director WA Physicians for Social Responsibility, Laura@wpsr.org o: 206.547.2630
Regna Merritt, Campaign Director, OR Physicians for Social Responsibility, Regna@oregonpsr.org c: 971.235.7643
Mark Glyde, Resource Media, Mark@resource-media.org c: 206.227.4346
Bruce Amundson, MD, President, WA Physicians for Social Responsibility, jobrucebaa@frontier.com h: 206.542.5690
Seattle, WA – Nearly 300 doctors, nurses and other health professionals today called on Washington Governor Jay Inslee and Oregon Governor Kate Brown to deny permits for proposed new and expanded oil-by-rail facilities. The position statement based on peer-reviewed medical literature examines a broad range of public health and safety risks including air and water pollution, oil spills and clean-up, delayed emergency response, and storage tank fires and explosions. The statement to the Governors has been signed by 289 health professionals so far.
“There is simply no way that the health and safety of residents of these communities can be assured, given the number of dangerous oil trains heading our way and the scale of these massive storage and shipping facilities so close to residential areas,” said Bruce Amundson, a family physician and President of Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR).
If all the proposed new and expanded oil terminals were built, the Northwest could see an increase in oil train traffic coming into the region from current levels of about 19 per week to more than 130 trains per week. Up to 1.5 miles long each, oil trains can block street crossings for 10 minutes or more.
“In trauma care, outcomes drastically worsen for seriously injured patients who need an emergency operation and don’t receive treatment within the ‘golden hour,’ said Pat O’Herron, MD, who practices acute care surgery in Salem, Oregon. “Ten minutes can cost lives or save lives.”
Oil trains are also a significant source of air pollution. Diesel pollution is linked to increased cancer rates particularly in the lung and breast, heart attack and stroke, and contributes 78% of the risk for cancer in airborne toxics in the Puget Sound area. In children, diesel pollution is linked to higher rates of neurodevelopmental disorders, impaired lung development, and increased frequency and severity of asthma.
“The expected surge in oil train traffic will add to already high levels of airborne toxin exposure experienced by many communities along rail lines,” said Mark Vossler, a cardiologist and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, WA.
The position statement also looks in-depth at the health impacts of water contamination from oil spills. Crude oil is a complex mixture of thousands of chemical compounds, many of them harmful to human health. Often overlooked is the toxicity of oil dispersants used to clean up spills.
“We have a history of oil spills in our Northwest waters and every day brings the risk of another one,” said Mary Margaret Thomas, a registered nurse who assisted with the clean-up of the BP Deepwater Horizon spill. “I saw first-hand the grave effects of oil dispersants including nausea and vomiting, seizures and memory loss, undiagnosed skin rashes and lesions, and hormonal changes.”
Many ingredients in oil dispersant products listed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are known or suspected toxins which can affect every organ system of the human body.
Findings of the 2014 Marine and Rail Oil Transportation Study from the WA State Dept. of Ecology reflect an overall lack of adequate training, resources, design and regulatory oversight to properly respond to an oil spill given current terminal proposals.
EPA Cites Bakersfield Oil Train Terminal for Clean Air Act Violations
Federal agency says California oil train terminal is major air pollution source, permit is invalid without significant environmental review
Contact: Maggie Caldwell, Earthjustice, 415-217-2084, mcaldwell@earthjustice.org, Monday, May 4, 2015
The newly opened Bakersfield Crude Terminal in Taft which the EPA has found in violation of the Clean Air Act. | Elizabeth Forsyth / Earthjustice
Taft, CA —The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has cited the Bakersfield Crude Terminal for 10 violations of the Clean Air Act, declaring the California crude-by-rail facility a major air pollution source that should have been subjected to rigorous environmental review during the permitting process. The federal agency found that the terminal’s permit is invalid and that the facility lacks required pollution controls and emissions offsets, and that it is in violation of the Clean Air Act’s public notice and environmental review requirements.
In January, Earthjustice and Communities for a Better Environment sued the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, which issued the invalid permit, over the permitting process for the facility’s expansion— a process that was conducted without public review. Earthjustice is representing the Association of Irritated Residents (AIR), ForestEthics, Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity.
A public records request revealed communications between San Joaquin Valley Air District officials and the project manager for the terminal that included advice from the officials about how the project could avoid public noticing and pollution controls. The Air District approved the massive expansion in a piece-meal permitting process that allowed one of the largest crude oil operations in California to expand largely out of public scrutiny.
“The EPA’s announcement declares the Air District’s permit a sham and that the Bakersfield terminal is operating illegally,” said Elizabeth Forsyth, Earthjustice attorney. “Air District officials went out of their way to exclude the public from the process and speed the approval through, ignoring the environmental review required by state and federal law. We applaud EPA for stepping in and enforcing the Clean Air Act.”
EPA’s action could subject the terminal to serious Clean Air Act fines, and should force the Bakersfield Crude Terminal to undergo the major source permitting required by the Clean Air Act.
“The EPA stepped in to protect California from this crude-by-rail facility’s dangerous air pollution,” said Vera Pardee, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Federal intervention is urgently needed because the air district and Kern County officials have utterly failed to safeguard public health and the environment. They’re turning a blind eye to air pollution and environmental risks such as catastrophic explosions linked to these massive trains full of volatile crude.”
“EPA’s notice of violation should serve as a wake up call to local authorities around the country who help polluters when they should be protecting public health,” said Matt Krogh, ForestEthics Extreme Oil Campaign Director. “Oil trains threaten 25 million Americans who live in the blast zone, plus millions more who live downwind of a refinery, downstream of where an oil train crosses a river, or in the Bakken and tar sands producing regions of North Dakota and Alberta, Canada.”
“In Kern County, with the worst air in the nation, the air district has harmed the health of the public by intentionally allowing this facility to violate the Clean Air Act,” said Tom Frantz, with Association of Irritated Residents.
“Given the increased pollution and hazards from refining and transporting a lower quality crude, there is immediate need for a moratorium that halts new permits and construction of extreme oil infrastructure, not the opposite fast track permitting process that Air District officials put this massive crude by rail terminal on – and in secret,” said Roger Lin, attorney with Communities for a Better Environment.
“The US Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement today is a significant step forward for Bakersfield and Kern County residents who bear all the burdens of volatile, accident-prone crude by rail transport and none of the benefits,” said Gordon Nipp Bakersfield resident and Sierra Club Kern-Kaweah Chapter Vice Chairman. “This terminal wreaks havoc on our region’s already compromised air quality and our communities now fear the risk of exploding trains.”
The agency also weighed in on the issue of vapor pressure of Bakken crude, declaring it unreasonable to underestimate the vapor pressure when permitting a crude-by-rail site and requiring vigorous monitoring and reporting of what crude oil is actually shipped. One way many of these facilities get around major source permitting is by cherry-picking the volatility of the crude oil being shipped, estimating the vapor pressure on the low end of the spectrum, which would keep emissions of volatile organic compounds under the threshold for triggering Clean Air Act review.
In addition to emitting volatile organic compounds from the off-loading of crude oil, the facility endangers Bakersfield and other communities in California by increasing the amount of explosive crude oil transported by rail through the state. There have been multiple incidents of train derailments and explosions across the nation and in Canada. An oil train that derailed in Lac Megantic, Quebec, destroyed most of the town center, burning more than 30 buildings to the ground and killing 47 people. Just this year, there have been four derailments and explosions in West Virginia, Illinois and Ontario involving oil trains.
Repost from DeSmogBlog [Editor: Sign the CREDO petition opposing the Enbridge expansion scheme. – RS]
Emails: How State Department Secretly Approved Expanding Piece of Enbridge’s “Keystone XL Clone”
By Steve Horn, April 20, 2015 – 03:58
DeSmogBlog has obtained dozens of emails that lend an inside view of how the U.S. State Department secretly handed Enbridge a permit to expand the capacity of its U.S.-Canada border-crossing Alberta Clipper pipeline, which carries tar sands diluted bitumen (“dilbit”) from Alberta to midwest markets.
Enbridge State Department Emails | Image Credit: U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota
Environmental groups have coined the approval process an “illegal scheme” because the State Department allowed Enbridge to usurp the conventional presidential permit process for cross-border pipelines, as well as the standard National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, which allows for public comments and public hearings of the sort seen for TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.
Further, the scheme is a complex one involving Enbridge’s choice to add pressure pump stations on both sides of the border to two pipelines, Enbridge Line 3 and Enbridge Line 67, to avoid fitting under the legal umbrella of a “cross-border” pipeline.
Hastening the approval process — and thus dodging both the conventional presidential permit and NEPA process — came up in a June 6, 2014 memo written by Coburn and his Steptoe co-counsel Josh Runyan. Enbridge’s legal argument centered around ensuring profits for its customers “consistent with its obligations as a common carrier.”
On March 18, 2014, Ona Hahs, Attorney-Advisor for the State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor, informed her Department colleagues in an email that “we have to wrap this up” because she was informed by Coburn that Enbridge was moving forward with the project and about to break ground on it.
Just over a week later on March 27, 2014, Hahs emailed her colleagues again, informing them that Coburn had just called her again and they were “running out of time” to offer Enbridge what it requested.
Though officially written by Cekuta, the bottom of the memo indicates it was drafted by both Hahs and Michael Brennan. Before serving in various capacities for the State Department beginning in 2003, Brennan worked for Shell Oil as its Manager for Export Sales Business Development in Asia and Latin America, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Later that same day, Brennan fired an email off to Coburn informing him of the State Department approval decision.
“Keystone XL Clone” Precedent Cited
In the June 6 memo penned by Enbridge’s counsel, its attorneys explained why “interconnections on Line 67 can take place in advance of the U.S. Department of State’s issuance of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (‘SEIS‘) and the requested Presidential Permit to authorize Enbridge to operate the border segment of Line 67 at its design capacity of 880,000 barrels per day.”
Among the myriad legal cases cited in the memo, Coburn and Runyan pointed to the Sierra Club, et al v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers case reported on by DeSmogBlog, which Enbridge argued and won as a defendant.
Coburn and Runyan wrote that the Sierra Club v. Army Corps of Engineers case rejects the legal “argument that construction of pipeline outside the area of federal permitting jurisdiction could be [prohibited] pending NEPA review.”
“Because construction of the pump stations and interconnections are not occurring within the border segment of Line 67, and are independent from the Line 67 border capacity expansion…this activity is not required to await the completion of the SEIS,” they wrote.
That case, like the current one, centered around NEPA.
In that one, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers handed Enbridge a controversial Nationwide Permit 12 permit to build its now-operational Flanagan South pipeline, which Sierra Club argued circumvented the NEPA process. It appears that case set an important legal precedent.
Flanagan South connects to Alberta Clipper in Flanagan, Illinois and ends in Cushing, Oklahoma via a connection to the Seaway Twin pipeline, which Enbridge co-owns with Enterprise Products Partners. From there, the heavy tar sands dilbit is taken to Gulf coast refineries, the same ones TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline system currently feeds into.
Together, all three pipeline pieces make up what DeSmogBlog has called the “Keystone XL Clone” pipeline system.
“Stand Down”
Asked about the emails, Doug Hayes, the Sierra Club attorney working on the U.S. District Court of Minnesota case, wrote in an email to DeSmogBlog that he thinks the State Department is essentially partaking in a dereliction of duty.
“There is absolutely no question that the State Department has the authority to tell Enbridge to stand down and follow the process that was always intended,” wrote Hayes. “The State Department is just not taking its presidential permitting responsibilities seriously and letting Enbridge call the shots.”
Neither representatives from Enbridge, the Steptoe & Johnson attorneys nor the State Department officials involved in the behind-the-scenes permitting of the “illegal scheme” responded to requests for comment sent by DeSmogBlog.
