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Martinez Gazette: Healing Walk for those living near refineries

Repost from The Martinez Gazette

Healing Walk to ‘Connect the Dots’ through Martinez

May 15, 2014

Participants to walk refinery corridor, bring awareness to danger of dirty fuels

MARTINEZ, Calif. – A “Healing Walk” will be held this Saturday, May 17, starting at Waterfront Park in Martinez, as local residents hope to draw awareness to the issues related to living near refineries and show support for transitioning beyond fossil fuels.

The Valero Benicia Refinery has proposed a project to begin transporting crude oil from North American sources to Benicia by rail tanker cars. The project has raised serious questions about the health and safety of those in Benicia and beyond.

The area is home to three oil refineries, Shell and Tesoro in Martinez and Valero in Benicia.

This is the second in a series of four “Connect the Dots: Refinery Corridor Healing Walks along the Northeast San Francisco Bay.” This walk is in conjunction with the May 17 “Day of Action against Dirty Fuels” to ask President Obama and local officials to reject the Keystone XL pipeline. The Refinery Corridor Healing Walk will be one of hundreds of synchronized events with Hands Across the Sand/Land and other partners to raise awareness about the dangers of dirty fuels and the need to speed the transition to available, affordable clean energy solutions.

Citizens from Martinez, Benicia and the Bay Area will be joined by members of the Sierra Club, Martinez Environmental Group, Stop Crude by Rail, CRUDE, Sunflower Alliance, APEN, Communities for a Better Environment, The Global Monitor, CREDO Action, Greenpeace, 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations.

Residents from Martinez and Benicia are expected to speak at the morning and afternoon rallies.

The event will begin at Martinez Waterfront Park at 9 a.m. with a sign in and an opening rally with speakers from the Martinez Environmental Group and Idle No More, and will end at the 9th Street Park in Benicia. The walk is approximately seven miles.

A group of kayakers will paddle in the Carquinez Strait as a group alongside the Healing Walk, forming a kayak flotilla. They hope to draw special attention to protecting the bay, Delta and ocean. If you plan to join or have questions, contact David at dsolnit@yahoo.com.

For more information about the walk, go to https://actionnetwork. org/events/time-to-transition-no-kxl-refinery-corridor-healing-walk.

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Benicia Herald: May 17 Healing Walk – wide coalition of sponsors

Repost from The Benicia Herald

Groups plan ‘healing walk’; call for end to crude by rail

May 15, 2014 by Donna Beth Weilenman

A “healing walk” organized by several area environmental groups is expected to attract participants who will carry banners Saturday as they walk from Martinez to Benicia to the sounds of Native-American drumming and prayers, said Roger Straw, a member of one of the groups, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community.

 A HEALING WALK will be held from Martinez to Benicia on Saturday. Courtesy photo
A HEALING WALK will be held from Martinez to Benicia on Saturday.  Courtesy photo

The event will begin with a prayer and a rally with speakers from Martinez Environmental Group and Idle No More. More prayers will be said near the Shell Refinery in Martinez and later near the Valero Benicia Refinery.

As participants cross the Benicia-Martinez bridge, engaging in prayer and conversation, a flotilla of canoes and kayaks are expected to be on the Carquinez Strait below, Straw said. Depending on weather, the boats may travel from Martinez to Benicia’s Alvarez Ninth Street Park for concluding activities.

Walkers will stop at Vista Point for prayer and educational talks, then continue toward the Benicia First Street waterfront by way of the city’s ballfields on East H Street, where restrooms are available.

The next stop on the way to the waterfront will be at the corner of East B and First streets, where parking and restrooms are available and food and beverages will be available for purchase.

Walkers will then proceed to Alvarez Ninth Street Park, where they will hear speakers at a concluding rally and can express their thoughts on pieces of muslin that later will be sewn into a quilt and displayed.

Support vehicles will accompany the walkers to give them an opportunity to rest, but lunch will not be provided, Straw said. Water will be available for those who bring refillable water bottles.

Straw said the walk is backed by the Sierra Club, Martinez Environmental Group, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, Crockett-Rodeo United to Defend the Environment, Sunflower Alliance, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Communities for a Better Environment, The Global Monitor, CREDO Action, Greenpeace, 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations.

Pennie Opal Plant, spokesperson for Refinery Corridor Healing Walks, said this is the second in a series of four San Francisco Bay Area “Connect the Dots: Refinery Corridor Healing Walks” to bring attention to the Keystone Pipeline System in Canada and the United States and its fourth phase of construction, as well as concerns about living near refineries and what Plant called “a just transition to clean energy.”

“This walk is in conjunction with the May 17 Day of Action against Dirty Fuels, to ask the president and local officials to reject the Keystone XL pipeline and other dirty fuel projects that threaten our communities and destabilize our climate,” she said.

“The Refinery Corridor Healing Walk will be one of hundreds of synchronized events with Hands Across the Sand/Land and other partners to raise awareness about the dangers of dirty fuels and the need to speed the transition to available, affordable clean energy solutions,” she said.

Plant said the actions are in response to the State Department’s announcement that it would extend its review of the Keystone pipeline.

The first walk was April 12, when participants walked from Pittsburg Marina Park to Martinez Waterfront Park.

The timing was near that of the “Reject and Protect” encampment on the National Mall in Washington from April 22-27, when farmers, ranchers and members of various Native-American organizations spent the week speaking out against the Keystone pipeline and tar sands crude.

The starting point was chosen because Pittsburg is a proposed site for an oil terminal that would bring up to 100 rail cars of crude daily for distribution. Martinez has two refineries, Shell and Tesoro.

Plant said “Connect the Dots” walks will take place monthly for four months. There is no charge to participate but walkers are asked to donate at least $5 to defer costs, and additional contributions will be accepted, she said.

This second walk will start at 8:15 a.m. Saturday with a prayer for water and a rally at Martinez Waterfront Park at Court Street at the north end of Ferry Street, Martinez, and will conclude with another rally at the end of the walk at the Alvarez Ninth Street Park.

Future walks will go from Benicia to Rodeo June 14, and from Rodeo to Richmond July 12.

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Public Comments on Valero Crude by Rail – April, 2014

The City of Benicia has released public comments concerning Valero Crude By Rail received for the record during April, 2014.

This document, and earlier public comments documents have all been reformatted with searchable text, to accommodate public study and review.

See the April comments here on the Benicia Independent,
… or here as a download from the City’s website.

YOUR comments are always welcome at City Hall.  Detailed instructions for how to mail or email your thoughts are available here.

Air Quality, Bakken Crude, Bay Area Refineries, Benicia-Martinez rail bridge, Martinez CA, Spill prevention and response, Take Action

Request to Martinez City Council: moratorium on crude by rail

Repost from The Martinez Gazette

Martinez Environmental Group: Martinez moratorium resolution, facts to consider

May 11, 2014 | by GUY COOPER,  Special to the Gazette

The Martinez Environmental Group presented a resolution to the City Council May 7, proposing opposition to increased crude-by-rail (CBR) traffic through our city, mirroring similar resolutions and expressions of concern already proffered by Berkeley, Richmond, Davis, Benicia, and many other communities along the tracks. The following is what I wish I would have said in support at that meeting if I hadn’t chickened out.

A major attraction of Martinez is its status as a transportation hub. People commute and travel via Amtrak. There are connections to BART and bus destinations north, south, east and west. The train brings people to our town, sometimes for the first time. They stop, stroll, eat, drink, shop. I’ve talked to many of them. They like what they see, are amazed by the friendliness of the locals. Many are surprised such a town even exists huddled beside those hulking refineries. Basically, they come and go with a good impression that can’t hurt.

Personally, I love being able to jump on the train, catch a Giants game, make a trip to the City or Jack London Square for an event, or head towards Davis, Sacramento, or Truckee for a weekend. Naturally, money is spent on tickets, restaurants, hotels, etc.

If WestPac, Tesoro, Valero, Kinder Morgan, Chevron and Phillips 66 have their way, we could see five to six oil trains a day pass through. Each train consists of about 100 tanker cars. Each car holds about 30,000 gallons of crude. So each train contains about 3 million gallons, is over a mile long, and weighs about 28 million pounds.

A major consideration: How much can our 85-year-old rusty Benicia/Martinez rail trestle tolerate? Has it ever had to endure that kind of traffic before? What’s the frequency of inspections and maintenance of that span? None of this info is easily accessible. The Coast Guard and rail companies have haggled over a bridge refurb for years. How can it be done without contaminating the water, and who’s going to pay for it? Meanwhile, nothing happens. A few years back Channel 4 did a piece on the trestle, noting the heavy rust, separated metal and bent bolts. I guess it was stoutly built way back when, but how long can we expect our elderly bridge to endure an onslaught not seen since WWII? If the rail bridge failed under the load of one of these trains … well, I don’t even want to contemplate that disaster.

These oil trains would use the same tracks used by the California Zephyr, the Capital Corridor commuters, the Coast Starlight.

Farmers, industrial customers, and rail passengers in the heartland of this country are already complaining about train delays and freight delivery impacts due to oil train traffic kludging up the system. What exactly will the local economic impact be if passenger rail schedules are severely disrupted?

Have you noticed the increase in delays lately just trying to get across the tracks to the waterfront as oil trains are built, rolling back and forth, attaching more cars, blocking traffic?

Exactly what economic impact do the local refineries have? Taxes, wages … I’d like to see the details. And please, not the contributions to local causes. For them, that’s just a drop in the PR bucket. What about the health effects of the carcinogens and other toxics spewed into our local environment? We rate amongst the worst in the country in that regard, because of the refineries. What are those costs? The more trains, the more detrimental health impacts. These trains out-gas toxic stuff while unloading or just sitting. Has that been factored into the cost/benefit mix? How about emergency response costs? Not just in responding to a sudden emergency, but in equipping and staffing for the eventuality. Are the oil producers and refiners offering to cover those costs?

Here’s some more math. These so-called “Bakken Bombers” carry a crude that has been likened to gasoline in volatility. One gallon of gas is equivalent to the explosive power of 63 sticks of dynamite. A Bakken Bomber contains about 3 million gallons, or the equivalent of 189,000,000 sticks of dynamite. You know, I’ve been to Hiroshima, Japan. A sobering experience. The power of the bomb that flattened that city was rated at 12 kilotons, or equivalent to 4.8 million sticks of TNT. So one Bakken Bomber train could potentially contain the explosive power of 39 Hiroshimas.

My point is, there is very little benefit to our city hosting this exponential increase in oil train traffic. And much at risk. Any one of these trains could annihilate our town or indelibly poison our water front. It’s just not worth it.

I believe the City of Martinez should be acutely concerned about this issue and wish to join our neighboring municipalities in conveying that concern to the powers at the state and federal levels that can do something about it. So I ask that the City Council call for a moratorium on crude-by-rail until all safety and health concerns are remedied. Vote to pass our resolution.