Category Archives: San Luis Obispo County

Benicia Planning Commission, Crude By Rail, Local Regulation, San Luis Obispo County, Santa Maria Refinery, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

ETHAN BUCKNER: Derailing Big Oil’s Plans for San Luis Obispo and Benicia

Repost from STAND (Stand.earth, formerly ForestEthics)
[Editor:  Apologies for not posting this sooner – great wrap-up of the February Benicia Planning Commission hearings by our friend Ethan Buckner.  – RS]

Derailing Big Oil’s Plans for San Luis Obispo and Benicia

By Ethan Buckner, Extreme Oil Campaigner, February 18, 2016
Andrés Soto of Benicians for a Safe & Healthy Community leads a rally outside the Benicia Planning Commission Hearings on February 8, 2016

In early February, two California planning commissions held hearings and faced decisions on permitting dangerous new oil train projects. In both cases local grassroots groups, supported by people and organizations across the state, spoke loudly and clearly against the projects. The question then became, would commissions listen?

San Luis Obispo is a town of 46,000 on the Central Coast between LA and San Francisco. Three years ago the Phillips 66 refinery, just south of town, proposed a new train terminal to bring in five oil trains a week, about 10 million gallons of crude. Around the same time in Benicia, a town of 27,000 in the Northernmost reaches of San Francisco Bay, Valero proposed an almost identical oil train terminal. Trains traveling to either refinery would travel right through downtown SLO or Benicia, and through the downtowns of cities and towns across California.

So for three years grassroots activists in both cities — as well as in cities all along the rail lines – have built campaigns to stop these dangerous proposals. And in early February the Planning Commissions for Benicia and San Luis Obispo held hearings to allow citizens, industry and others to comment before commissioners made decisions on the permits that would allow or deny the projects.

Staff reviewed roughly similar data in both cases, but came to starkly different conclusions. In Benicia, staff recommended that commissioners approve the Valero oil train plan. In San Luis Obispo, county staff recommended that commissioners deny the Phillips 66 proposal. But the decision, of course, lies with the commissioners.

On February 4 and 5, hundreds of Californians descended from all corners of the state to San Luis Obispo to speak at SLO Planning Commission hearings on the proposed project. During two impassioned days of public testimony, commissioners heard from dozens upon dozens of teachers, nurses, students, firefighters, elected officials, and neighbors. A highlight of the day was testimony from Gabby Davis, a high school student from Paso Robles, who told commissioners, “oil trains are dinosaurs, and dinosaurs belong in museums.”

At noon on Thursday, February 4, 600 rallied behind signs and a 90-foot-long inflatable oil train, making front page news. The rally highlighted the breadth of opposition to oil trains and reflected how communities across the state and the nation are tied together by the rail lines. By the end of February 5, only a fraction of those signed up to speak had delivered public comments. The decision remains pending and hearings will continue February 25.

In Benicia, Planning Commission hearings kicked off on Monday, February 8. For four consecutive nights hundreds of Benicia residents and allies flooded the hearing chambers to urge commissioners to deny Valero’s proposal. After a dramatic final night of hearings on Thursday, February 11, the Benicia Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny the project’s land use permit.

The decision by the Benicia Planning Commission came despite unrelenting pressure from big oil and railroad lobbyists, even city staff. The city attorney reminding the commission over and over again that Valero’s tax contributions constitute a quarter of the city general fund. But late into the night, when the commissions finally got their chance to speak, they spoke with one powerful voice. They tore apart the project’s faulty environmental review and questioned the motives of city staff and their attorney. They expressed gratitude for the tremendous display of public opposition and affirmed the actual charge of their commission: to protect the health and welfare of the community.

In a dramatic moment, Commissioner George Oakes, who had listened intently during the four days of the hearings, said “I don’t want to be complicit with what has become a social nightmare across the country. What we are talking about here is some additional profit for a couple of companies.” Commissioner Susan Cohen Grossman followed up on Oakes’ comment by saying, “I don’t want to be the planning commissioner in the one city that said screw you to up-rail cities.”

The hearing was a beautiful display of democratic and thoughtful local governance. Today, the Benicia Planning Commission released this extraordinary resolution affirming the project’s denial. The denial will most certainly be appealed to the Benicia City Council, so it’s not over yet — but this is a victory worth celebrating.

The heroes here are the tireless and passionate leaders of Benicians for a Safe & Healthy Community, Mesa Refinery Watch Group, the ProtectSLO Coalition, and many, many others. These folks built community power that proves that no matter where big oil tries to go next with their dangerous oil train plans, there will be people power there to stop them.

Crude By Rail, Local Regulation, Phillips 66, Public Comment, San Luis Obispo County, Santa Maria Refinery

Hearing on Phillips 66 oil-by-rail plan continues Friday in San Luis Obispo

Repost from The Tribune, San Luis Obispo

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.
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.

Berkeley, Crude By Rail, East Bay, Federal pre-emption, Local Regulation, Phillips 66, San Luis Obispo County, Santa Maria Refinery, Union Pacific Railroad

Berkeley report finds overwhelming opposition to project that would bring crude-by-rail through Bay Area cities

Repost from the Contra Costa Times

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 report on SLO hearingsBERKELEY — 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.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Lac-Mégantic, San Luis Obispo County

VIDEO: Marilaine Savard Speaks Out Against Proposed SLO Oil Train Project

Repost from ForestEthics on Youtube

Sign up to join the #StopOilTrains Movement

February 25, 2016, www.forestethics.org/sign-join-movement

Marilaine Savard speaks out against the proposed Phillips 66 oil train project in San Luis Obispo today — as testimony for the SLO Planning Commission’s continued public hearing process. They’ll be making their decision on the proposed Phillips 66 project in the coming weeks. 

“Lac-Megantic was a beautiful and peaceful community just like San Luis Obispo. I think that’s all you need to know before making a decision.” 

Marilaine is from Lac-Mégantic, Québec, and unintentionally became a spokesperson to stop oil trains across the country. That’s because she lived through the deadliest oil train disaster in history. In July 2013, Lac-Megantic was changed forever, when an unattended 74-car crude oil train derailed and exploded in their small town, killing 47 people. Since then, she has advocated for rail safety and climate justice – to make sure no community becomes another Lac-Mégantic.

Sign up to join the #StopOilTrains movement: http://www.forestethics.org/sign-join-movement