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.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Sacramento-area officials say the risks of transporting oil should be weighed in refinery plans
• The planning commission in Benicia and planners in San Luis Obispo County have rejected refinery proposals
• If officials want to approve plans, they must justify why public safety is outweighed
Workers tend to the scene of a oil train derailment in Watertown, Wis., last Nov. 9. Communities across California and the country are concerned about the safety of trains carrying oil. John Hart Associated Press
Officials in the Sacramento region have every right to raise safety concerns about oil trains rumbling through. Now they have key allies in their cause.
Last week, the city of Benicia’s planning commission unanimously rejected a plan by Valero Refining Co. to take deliveries twice a day from 50-tanker trains that would roll through Roseville, downtown Sacramento, West Sacramento and downtown Davis on their way to Benicia. As The Bee’s Tony Bizjak reports, planners in San Luis Obispo County have also recommended against a plan by Phillips 66 for about 150 trains a year to bring oil to its refinery.
While local residents and environmental groups objected, some Benicia planning commissioners said they also heard Sacramento-area residents and officials loud and clear. “I don’t want to be the planning commissioner in the one city that said ‘screw you’ to up-rail cities,” Commissioner Susan Cohen Grossman said.
The Sacramento Area Council of Governments, representing six counties and 22 cities, had argued that Benicia’s environmental review was inadequate because it didn’t look at how to protect cities along the route. That analysis concluded the trains could create a “potentially significant” hazard to the public from oil spills and fires, but only once every few decades.
Yet, as Don Saylor, a Yolo County supervisor and a former SACOG chairman, points out, depending where a derailment happened, heavily populated neighborhoods could be in the blast zone.
He told The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board Tuesday that the best solution is for the oil to be stabilized at the source in the oil fields of North Dakota and elsewhere, and then transported in state-of-the-art rail cars. That, of course, would cut into oil and rail industry profits, and government regulators aren’t there yet.
Indeed, they have been trying to catch up to the boom in domestic oil production and rail transport. After more than two years of debate, the U.S. Department of Transportation last May issued new rules under which the oldest tank cars must be replaced by 2018 with thicker-shelled ones, and cars built since 2011 must be retrofitted or replaced by 2020.
Valero, which wants to build a rail spur and unloading station at its refinery, is expected to appeal to the Benicia City Council. The planning commission in San Luis Obispo is scheduled to vote in late March or April.
Officials could still overturn the recommendations and approve these trains. But at least now, they must justify why safety concerns are outweighed.
By Julie Small, February 6, 2016
A train carrying crude oil operated by BNSF railway in California. (Jake Miille/Jake Miille Photography)
A statewide conflict over whether to allow more trains carrying crude oil into California is coming to a head in communities hundreds of miles apart.
The Central Coast town of San Luis Obispo and the Bay Area city of Benicia are poised to make decisions in the coming days that would have broad implications for the future of this type of import.
Longtime San Luis Obispo resident Heidi Harmon hopes to stop trains from hauling crude through her town, citing what she calls an “elevated risk of derailment.”
Oil trains would likely have to cross a 19th century bridge just a mile from the city’s thriving downtown.
“You can see the antiquated style with which this was put together” says Harmon, gesturing to rail tracks perched on top of the trestle’s steel rods.
She describes Stenner Creek Trestle as “stunning to look at but terrifying to consider a mile-and-a-half-long oil train coming over.”
Trains hauling up to 80 tanker cars could cross the trestle bridge multiple times a week if Phillips 66 gets wins approval for a plan to build a rail spur at its nearby refinery.
The company has applied for a permit to connect its Santa Maria refinery to the nearby Union Pacific line.
A steady decline in California oil production has compelled Phillips 66 to look for ways to bring in crude from other states. The company’s landlocked refinery in Santa Maria has no pipeline connection to do that — and no nearby port terminal.
The San Luis Obispo Planning Commission held hearings that began Thursday on whether to allow the rail spur project. County staff has advised against it, saying it poses too great a risk to public health and safety.
Harmon and hundreds of other opponents packed the meeting.
San Luis Obispo resident Heidi Harmon describes Stenner Creek Trestle as ‘stunning to look at but terrifying to consider a mile-and-a-half-long oil train coming over.’ (Julie Small/KQED)
“We have an opportunity in San Luis Obispo to say we do not want this train” said Harmon. “We do not want the dangers — the air pollution hazards and the increased cancer risks — we do not want this in our community.”
A series of accidents, including the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster that killed 47 people in Quebec, have fueled fears and community opposition.
Phillips 66 officials declined an interview for this story but said in an email the company uses “one of the most modern railcar fleets in the industry.”
Over 100 government agencies and school boards, including many from the San Francisco Bay Area, also oppose the rail spur in San Luis Obispo.
A similar project at the Valero refinery in Benicia also faces strong opposition.
Valero also wants to connect its operations to Union Pacific.
Benicia’s planning commission has set a public hearing on that crude-by-rail project Monday. Staff there is recommending approval.
Political leadership is divided, but many residents are opposed. Some of those municipal governments of nearby cities want more safeguards included in the project. To get to Benicia, the crude would first pass through communities far north, including Auburn, Sacramento and the university town of Davis.
“The rail line passes through the heart of our downtown and has a few geographic elements to it that raise concerns when oil trains are going through it,” said Mike Webb, city planner for Davis.
“We are not trying to stop the project,” Webb emphasized. “Our primary mission is to ensure that, to the extent that these trains and these materials are going through our communities, let’s make it as safe as it can possibly be.”
Davis officials and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) are pushing for a commitment from Valero and UP to use technology that automatically slows trains in densely populated areas.
“Public safety and first responder advance notification is of paramount concern,” said Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor, a former council chair.
Officials also want a commitment to provide more training and funding for first responders in communities along the route and for emergency crews to get warned before an oil train comes down the line.
Chris Howe, a manager for Valero, testified at a public hearing last year on the Benicia oil-by-rail project that the company is committed to strong safety standards and modern technology.
“We have from the start planned to utilize in our project upgraded railcars.” Howe said.
Valero is also working with an experienced railroad.
San Antonio-based Valero Corp. is the nation’s biggest refiner. The Benicia refinery is one of two the company operates in California. (Craig Miller/KQED)
“We expect UP railroad — which is the prime railroad that we’ll be utilizing to move those trains — to do so safely,” Howe said. “Many of the incidents that have happened have occurred on much smaller, less well maintained railroads.”
Union Pacific says it has made changes to reduce the risk of hauling crude: implementing slower speeds in high-population areas and creating analytical tools to find the safest routes.
The two projects under consideration are among a handful of crude-by-rail projects proposed in recent years to take advantage of inexpensive crude from North Dakota, Canada and Texas.
But the recent plunge in oil prices has made hauling it by train more expensive, causing some of those plans to unravel.
“The rail economics have changed the calculus for some companies” said Gordon Schremp, a senior fuel analyst with the California Energy Commission.
Last year WesPac abandoned a plan to build a rail terminal in the Bay Area town of Pittsburg, citing a lack of investors for the project. Alon USA has yet to act on a permit the company acquired in 2012 to build a crude-by-rail terminal at an idle refinery in Bakersfield.
According to Schremp, even at the peak of industry interest rail imports comprised just 1 percent of California’s oil imports. By the end of 2015, those imports plummeted to one-tenth of 1 percent.
“Crude-by-rail was never a very important source supply,” said Schremp, “because we did not have the facilities constructed.”
Repost from KCBX FM, Central Coast Public Radio [Editor: Significant quote: “I think that they have a strong argument in the sense that we do need every job. We do need well paid jobs. But, we’re being asked to make a choice between the long-term health and safety of our community and these specific jobs. And that’s a choice no American should ever have to make.” – Eddie Scher of ForestEthics. Hearings will continue on February 25. – RS]
Another hearing scheduled for opponents of Phillips 66 oil-by-rail plan
By Daniel Park, February 5, 2016
The San Luis Obispo Planning Commission wrapping up public comment Friday after hearing from hundreds of people voicing opposition to an oil-by-rail plan over a two day period.
Not everyone has been heard though, so commissioners must carry those over to the next scheduled meeting on February 25, 2016.
Opposition to the Phillips 66 plan to increase the number of trains carrying crude oil to refinery near Nipomo got a major boost Friday as well.
Phillips 66 plans to bring crude oil by train to their Santa Maria refinery. CREDIT DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT
Opponents received a key endorsement, as the California Coastal Commission sent a letter to the SLO Planning Commission urging members to reject the proposal based on adverse impacts to the environment.
If the Planning Commission votes no and the company appeals, the proposal could eventually end up before the Coastal Commission, which has regulatory authority over coastal land use.
Supporters say the proposal’s economic benefits would outweigh the potential costs.
Phillips 66 spokesman Dennis Nuss said Friday, the plan will provide jobs and maintain the area’s energy production.
“There’s been a decline in both onshore and offshore California crude oil productions, so additional reliable sources of crude are required to ensure that the refinery can continue to meet those critical energy needs and support jobs in the community,” Nuss said.
If approved, Phillips 66 said it will hire 200 people for construction jobs, as well as 12 permanent positions in its refinery.
Opponents say jobs aren’t worth the project’s potential damage.
Eddie Scher, the spokesperson for ForestEthics, an environmental organization that demands environmental responsibility from corporations, said that the choice between jobs and the environment isn’t fair.
“I think that they have a strong argument in the sense that we do need every job. We do need well paid jobs,” Scher said. “But, we’re being asked to make a choice between the long-term health and safety of our community and these specific jobs. And that’s a choice no American should ever have to make.”
Commissioners won’t make a decision until after hearing from everyone later this month.
Phillips 66 says it will pursue other options, should it’s proposal fail.
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.
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