Category Archives: Revised Draft EIR (RDEIR)

Benicia Planning Commission, Environmental review, Revised Draft EIR (RDEIR), Valero Crude By Rail

Special meetings set for comments on Valero Benicia Refinery’s proposed project

Repost from the Vacaville Reporter (Also appearing in the print edition of the Vallejo Times-Herald and the Benicia Herald.  Most likely a City of Benicia press release.)

Special meetings set for comments on Valero Benicia Refinery’s proposed project

By Times-Herald staff report, 09/23/15, 6:13 PM PDT

Benicia >> A series of special Planning Commission meetings is set next week to give the public a chance to comment on the redistributed Draft Environmental Impact Report, or RDEIR, on the proposed Valero Crude-By-Rail project.

The meetings are set at 6:30 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday, and Oct. 1 and 8, at the Benicia City Council Chambers, 250 East L St.

The meetings will be held only as needed. If all public comment has been received, the item will be closed and the additional meeting, or meetings, will be cancelled, officials said.

The meetings will provide an opportunity for residents who are seeking to make verbal comments on the document that was released Aug. 31.

Comments on the RDEIR may also be submitted in writing, no later than 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 16. Written comments should be submitted to amillion@ci.benicia.ca.us or Principal Planner Amy Million at the Community Development Department.

For further information about the RDEIR and the public hearing contact Million at 707-746-4280.

The report can be reviewed at the Benicia Public Library, 150 East L St.; the Community Development Department, 250 East L St.; or http://bit.ly/1lBeeTt.

Crude By Rail, Oil spill, Revised Draft EIR (RDEIR), Valero Crude By Rail

BENICIA HERALD LETTER: Hoping RDEIR isn’t a model

Repost from the Benicia Herald
[Editor:  No link is provided for this letter because the Benicia Herald does not publish Letters in its online edition. – RS]

Hoping RDEIR isn’t a model

By Nancy Rieser, September 10, 2015, Benicia Herald
As a resident of Crockett, I can only hope Benicia’s Revised Draft Environmental Impact Report on Valero’s Crude-by-Rail Project does not set a tone for future refinery EIRs elsewhere in Northern California.  Granted, the RDEIR’s matter-of-fact admission that dangers of oil spills can’t be mitigated is enough to turn one’s hair gray.  However the rather dismissive statement, “A larger spill of 30,000 gallons is listed as a once-every-38-to-80-years event, but could cause injuries and deaths,” is even more disturbing.

Could it be that Valero management and city of Benicia staff both feel that “injuries and death” to their grandchildren and great grandchildren would be OK?  Do oil executives and city staff believe that any severe devastation occurring after they (the decision makers) die of old age would be acceptable because … the decision makers would already be dead?

Corpses?  Feh.  Why should they care?

Air Quality, Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), Bay Area Refineries, Benicia CA, Crude By Rail, Revised Draft EIR (RDEIR), Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

League of Women Voters to host Benicia forum on refinery rules

Repost from the Benicia Herald

Benicia forum on refinery rules set

September 8, 2015 by Nick Sestanovich

Air District to have 2-hour ‘open house’ at Robert Semple Elementary on Sept. 17

Debate over the Valero Crude-by-Rail Project — now well into its third year — intensified last week after the release of the revised Draft Environmental Impact Report. But even as residents, businesses and others in the city continue to pore over that massive document, they will have the opportunity to learn more about newly drafted state rules for refineries at a forum here next week.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District will host a series of open houses at elementary schools in the refinery-heavy nexus of Benicia, Martinez and Richmond this month to present the agency’s four new and amended rules to reduce refinery emissions.

“This is part of an effort to reduce emissions from Bay Area refineries by 20 percent or as much as feasible by 2020,” Air District spokesperson Ralph Borrmann said Friday.

The four rules deal with limiting ammonia from fluid catalytic cracking units; broadening equipment leak standards to include all equipment that handles heavy liquids; reducing sulfur dioxide from coke calcining processes; and regulating cooling towers to reduce emissions of organic compounds, toxics and methane by being able to detect and fix leaks.

“The Air District passed a resolution almost a year ago to develop a strategy to reduce refinery emissions,” Borrmann said. “Bay Area refineries are among the most regulated in the country, if not the world, but these meetings are presenting the public with an ambitious approach to reduce emissions that are part of an aggressive approach to regulate refineries in our area.”

The open houses, Borrmann said, will not be lectures but rather forums for people to discuss and gather information. Tables will be set up with in-house experts so attendees can ask questions about the new rules, he said.

“We hope the communities and other stakeholders will have an opportunity to learn about air quality and have a role in the rule-making process,” he said.

The BAAQMD’s Benicia open house will be from 6-8 p.m. Sept. 17 at Robert Semple Elementary, 2015 East Third St.

The two other open houses will be Sept. 15 from 6-8 p.m. at Las Juntas Elementary School, 4105 Pacheco Blvd., in Martinez; and Sept. 28 from 6-8 p.m. at Lincoln Elementary School, 29 Sixth St., in Richmond.

Crude By Rail, Public permitting, Revised Draft EIR (RDEIR), Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Benicia posts additional Reference Documents on Valero Crude-by-Rail RDEIR

By Roger Straw, Benicia Independent Editor

This morning, I discovered that the City of Benicia posted 90 new documents on its website sometime AFTER the official August 31 release of the Recirculated Draft Environmental Report (RDEIR).

The City’s new page, “Revised Draft EIR Reference Documents” contains a variety of supporting documents, some of which are familiar and others which contain interesting new information.

Those who are carefully reading and reviewing the RDEIR should not rely on previous downloads or announcements that do not show the Reference docs.

Here is the link to the new page:  http://www.ci.benicia.ca.us/index.asp?SEC={CA5CAF51-2ABC-4E34-A195-C894F062FED7}&Type=B_BASIC&persistdesign=none