Category Archives: Sacramento CA

Crude By Rail, donner, Donner Summit CA, Dunsmuir CA, Feather River Canyon, Public Health, Public Safety, Redding CA, Rocklin CA, Roseville CA, Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG), Sacramento CA, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail, West Sacramento CA

Sacramento Bee: Area leaders accuse Benicia of failing to take steps to help protect cities

Repost from The Sacramento Bee

Sacramento officials challenge Benicia oil train project

By Tony Bizjak, February 5, 2016 11:30AM

HIGHLIGHTS
•  Valero Refining company wants to ship two 50-car oil trains daily through Northern California
•  The trains would pass through downtown Sacramento and other local cities
•  Sacramento area leaders say Benicia has failed to respond to rail cities’ safety concerns

This train is a crude oil train operated by BNSF. The train is snaking its way west through James, California just outside of the Feather River Canyon in the foothills into the Sacramento Valley. Photo taken June 5, 2014 by Jake Miille
This train is a crude oil train operated by BNSF. The train is snaking its way west through James, California just outside of the Feather River Canyon in the foothills into the Sacramento Valley. Photo taken June 5, 2014 by Jake Miille

Sacramento leaders this week accused the city of Benicia of failing to take any steps to help protect cities against potential oil spills from daily train shipments an oil company wants to run through Northern California.

The Sacramento Area Council of Governments, representing six local counties and 22 area cities, sent a letter Thursday to Benicia, saying that city’s environmental impact analysis of a rail plan by Valero Refining Co. is inadequate and represents “a non-response” to Sacramento’s safety concerns.

The challenge comes the week before the Benicia Planning Commission is scheduled to hear Valero’s controversial request for a permit to make changes at its Benicia refinery to allow it to receive two 50-car trains a day of crude oil from North America fields. The train shipments will replace current oil deliveries via ocean vessels.

The trains would travel through Rocklin, Roseville, downtown Sacramento, West Sacramento, Davis and other rail cities en route to the the refinery. It is not clear which route the trains will take east of Roseville, but potential routes include the Feather River Canyon, Donner Summit and via Oregon through Dunsmuir and Redding.

As more and larger crude oil shipments have ramped up in the United States in recent years, the number of oil spills and fires has increased as well. Several have produced major fires, including one that killed 47 people in a Canadian town two years ago. Cities along rail lines across the United States have been demanding more protections.

Benicia recently released an environmental analysis that concluded the trains would create a “potentially significant” hazard to the public from oil spills and fires, but said a spill is likely to only occur once every few decades.

Benicia city planning department officials wrote that they believe federal rail regulations prohibit the city from denying the project or placing restrictions because of concerns about rail safety. City officials also noted that Valero is the city’s largest employer and that it provides “a large source of revenue for the city.”

Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor, who signed the SACOG letter, said Sacramento officials are not asking Benicia to reject the plan, only to take legal steps to require the shipments are handled as safely as possible, including requiring rail companies use stronger tanker cars with safety mechanisms, and that the trains use new computer safety controls called “positive train control.”

Saylor pointed out that local emergency responders apparently will not be allowed to know when the trains are coming through.

“Our concern is about the 500,000 people in the 6-county area that live within a half mile of the rails, people who are exposed to potential risk,” Saylor said.

Sacramento officials and officials in other rail-line cities nationally have also called for requirements that companies take more steps to “stabilize” volatile North Dakota oil before it is shipped.

Benicia city officials have declined comment pending upcoming city hearings on the subject. Officials have set aside several nights in a row, beginning Monday, Feb. 8, for public comment on the plan. Those hearings are expected to be heavily attended by people arguing for and against the proposal.

Benicia’s approach contrasts with the way San Luis Obispo County is handling a similar crude oil train project. County officials there have recommended the county’s Planning Commission reject a proposal from Phillips 66 for changes at its local refinery that would allow it to bring oil trains on site. Those shipments would go through both Northern and Southern California, including the Sacramento area. The Phillips refinery currently receives oil via pipeline.

In a report, San Luis Obispo planning staff wrote they do not believe the economic and other benefits from the proposed project outweigh the unavoidable negative environmental impacts the project would cause. County officials listed the potential for elevated cancer risk from added air pollution near the tracks in the county and elsewhere in California.

“The project would be detrimental to the health, safety and welfare of the public and the residents of San Luis Obispo County due to the increase of hazardous accidents as a result of the project,” the county planning staff wrote in a report issued on Monday.

Hearings are ongoing over that project. SACOG sent a letter this week as well to San Luis Obispo County saying that –if the project is approved –the county should imposed “a full complement of mitigation measures addressing our safety concerns.”

Phillips 66 recently announced it will reduce the number of annual train shipments it plans to make from 250 to about 150.

California House Transportation Subcommittee on Railroads Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, California Regulation, Crude By Rail, Emergency Readiness & Response, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Sacramento CA, Tank car design, Uprail communities, US Department of Transportation, Valero Benicia Refinery

Sacramento Bee editorial: We need open debate on oil train safety

Repost from The Sacramento Bee
[Benicia Independent Editor:  A bit odd that the Bee editorial is defending the rail industry’s right to talk to the media and to lobby congress.  Nice, though, when the Bee writes, “Thankfully, officials in Benicia actually listened to people who exercised free speech.  They announced last week they will redo parts of an environmental study….”  A call for open debate is a good thing.  However, the House subcommittee’s urging for timely new rules on tank car safety is infinitely more important than Rep. Denham’s comment and the Bee’s response.  For a more substantive article on the subcommittee proceedings, see the CQ Roll Call story.  – RS]

We need open debate on oil train safety

By the Editorial Board, 02/10/2015
Rep. Jeff Denham, chairman of the House Transportation Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, questions a witness last year.
Rep. Jeff Denham, chairman of the House Transportation Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, questions a witness last year. Pete Marovich / MCT Tribune News Service

As oil trains rumble through the Sacramento region, a key House panel held an important hearing on how rail and pipelines can keep up – safely – with the boom in domestic oil production. For two hours, top rail and oil industry executives testified and answered questions on this crucial issue.

Then Rep. Jeff Denham had to go and spoil it.

The Turlock Republican, chairman of the House Transportation Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, ended last week’s hearing on an unfortunate note – an unnecessary dressing down of a rail car manufacturing executive who called on federal regulators to speed up the rollout of safer oil tank cars.

Though his firm (which has a repair shop in Modesto) would benefit financially, Greg Saxton, senior vice president and chief engineer at the Greenbrier Companies, happens to be right. The National Transportation Safety Board, which put rail tank car safety on its “most wanted” list for 2015, points out that more than 100,000 outdated cars carry crude, increasing the risk of leaks and explosions. Denham also says he’s concerned that the U.S. Department of Transportation missed its own Jan. 30 deadline to submit new rules on oil tank cars.

So what was Saxton’s transgression, according to Denham? He had the temerity to talk to lowly newspaper editorial writers, as well as esteemed members of Congress.

Denham lectured Saxton that he didn’t want the “wrong people” – whoever they are – “talking to the ed boards across the country” and creating a “misperception” that “our industry” is unsafe.

“I just want to make sure we’re all singing the same tune that we have a very safe industry and we want to work together in improving that industry,” the congressman said, as pointed out by Mike Dunbar, opinions page editor at The Modesto Bee who talked to Saxton last month.

Last time we checked, acting as a public relations consultant for the oil industry isn’t Denham’s job. He should care much more about keeping his constituents in Modesto and Turlock safe. As chairman of this important panel, he should encourage open debate. Instead, his spokeswoman said Tuesday, Denham stands by his remarks to Saxton.

Thankfully, officials in Benicia actually listened to people who exercised free speech.

They announced last week they will redo parts of an environmental study on the proposal for two 50-car oil trains a day to traverse Sacramento and other Northern California cities on the way to the Valero refinery in Benicia.

Benicia officials are responding to environmental groups, Sacramento-area officials and Attorney General Kamala Harris, who had all properly pointed out that the report fell short in analyzing potential oil spills and fires in the middle of urban areas and didn’t even consider possible harm east of Roseville.

The updated study, to be released June 30, also needs to at least consider suggestions from Sacramento and Davis leaders that Union Pacific Railroad be required to give advance notice of oil shipments to emergency responders and be banned from parking oil trains in urban areas.

They’re the sorts of ideas that people might just want to explain to a congressional committee – or perhaps even an editorial board.

Crude By Rail, donner, Local Regulation, Sacramento CA, State regulation, Take Action, Valero Crude By Rail

Crude oil train protests planned in Sacramento and Davis

Repost from The Sacramento Bee
[Editor:  Check this out – Benicia’s uprail friends are getting out on the tracks, and they are getting the media’s attention.  Thanks to everyone who is following this story.  Benicia is in the “crosshairs” of a nationwide – worldwide – focus on this dangerous and dirty money grab by the oil and rail industries.  More and more, thoughtful people are saying, “No, not here.”  – RS]

Crude oil train protests planned in Sacramento, Davis

By Tony Bizjak, Jul. 8, 2014
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Jake Miille / Special to The Bee | A crude oil train operated by BNSF snakes its way west through James, Calif., just outside the Feather River Canyon in the foothills into the Sacramento Valley.

Laurie Litman, who lives a block from the rail tracks in midtown Sacramento, says oil and rail companies are about to put her neighborhood and plenty of others in danger, and she wants to stop it.

Litman is among a group of environmental activists in Sacramento and Davis who will gather this week at the Federal Railroad Administration office in Sacramento and at the Davis train station to protest plans by oil companies to run hundreds of rail cars carrying crude through local downtowns every day. The protests, on the anniversary of an oil train crash and explosion that killed 47 people in the Canadian city of Lac-Megantic, will spotlight a plan by Valero Refining Co. of Benicia to launch twice-daily crude oil train shipments through downtown Roseville, Sacramento and Davis early next year.

“Our goal is to stop the oil trains,” said Litman of 350 Sacramento, a new local environmental group. “We are talking about 900-foot fireballs. There is nothing a first responder (fire agency) can do with a 900-foot fireball.”

Sacramento Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, an advocate for increased crude oil rail safety, will speak at noon Wednesday during the Sacramento event at 8th and I streets. The Yolano Climate Action group will distribute leaflets at the Davis train station Tuesday and Wednesday evening about the Valero proposal. The Davis City Council recently passed a resolution saying it opposes running the trains on the existing downtown Davis rail line.

The protests are among the first in the Sacramento area in response to a recent surge in crude oil rail transports nationally, prompted mainly by new oil drilling of cheaper oils in North Dakota, Montana and Canada. In California, where rail shipments have begun to replace marine deliveries from Alaskan oil fields and overseas sources, state safety leaders recently issued a report saying California is not yet prepared to deal with the risks from increased rail shipments of crude.

Oil and railroad industry officials point out that 99.9 percent of crude oil shipments nationally arrive at their destinations without incident, and that the industry is reducing train speeds through cities, helping train local fire and hazardous material spill crews, and working with the federal government on plans for a new generation of safer rail tanker cars. Valero officials as well say their crude oil trains can move safely through Sacramento, and a recent report sponsored by the city of Benicia concluded that an oil spill along the rail line to Benicia is highly unlikely.

In a letter last week, however, four Northern California members of Congress called on the federal government to require oil and rail companies take more steps to make rail crude shipments safer. The letter was signed by Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, George Miller, D-Martinez, Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, and John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove.

“We are especially concerned with the high risks involved with transporting .. more flammable crude in densely populated areas,” the group wrote to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “Should spills or explosions occur, as we have seen over the last year, the consequences could be disastrous.”

The four lawmakers said oil companies should be required to remove more volatile gases from Bakken crude oil before it is shipped nationally from North Dakota. The federal government issued a warning earlier this year about Bakken crude after several Bakken trains exploded during derailments. The California Congress members also encouraged federal representatives to move quickly to require railroads to install advanced train control and braking systems. Industry officials have said those systems, called Positive Train Control, are expensive and will take extended time to put into place.

Representatives from a handful of Sacramento area cities and counties are scheduled to meet this week to review Valero’s crude oil train plans, and to issue a formal response to the environmental document published two weeks ago by Benicia that concluded derailments and spills are highly unlikely. City of Davis official Mike Webb said one spill and explosion could be catastrophic, and that as more oil companies follow Valero’s lead by bringing crude oil trains of their own through Sacramento, the chances of crashes increase.

The Sacramento group has indicated it wants a detailed advanced notification system about what shipments are coming to town. Those notifications will help fire agencies who must respond if a leak or fire occurs. Local officials say they also will ask Union Pacific to keep crude-oil tank cars moving through town without stopping and parking them here. The region’s leaders also want financial support to train firefighters and other emergency responders on how to deal with crude oil spills, and possibly funds to buy more advanced firefighting equipment. Sacramento leaders say they will press the railroad to employ the best inspection protocols on the rail line.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/07/08/6541363/crude-oil-train-protests-planned.html#storylink=cp