Valero Oil of Texas
Is not the oil for me,
They want to ship explosive crude
But the people disagree
‘Cause the tank cars are not safe enough
For the North Dakota crude
And if a few tip over,
You know we will be screwed.
They plan to send a hundred cars
Each and every day
To their big refinery
In Benicia by the Bay,
This crude makes more pollution
Than we already get
They think they can roll over us
But they ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Valero Oil of Texas
It’s time to get a clue
That fracked-out oil’s a menace
Besides, there’s CO2,
So in every city on the route
And every farm and town
Let’s all stand up and holler
“Leave the oil in the ground!”
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.”
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
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.
BREAKING: Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) highly critical of Valero oil train EIR
The Benicia Independent is in receipt of a Sacramento Area Council of Government letter sent on February 4, 2016 to the City of Benicia, but not as yet posted on the City’s website. The letter is severely critical of the City’s Final EIR, and calls for the Benicia Planning Commission to “provide full and adequate responses to our comment letters,” and “to fully evaluate all measures to mitigate the significant environmental impacts that this Project will inevitably have on our communities and our residents.”
The letter is signed by SACOG Immediate Past Chair Don Saylor. SACOG represents 22 cities and 6 counties in the Sacramento area.
The letter begins by summarizing two previous letters sent to Benicia, one in 2014 commenting on the original Draft EIR, and another in 2015 commenting on the Revised DEIR. The 2015 letter claimed that the City did not adequately respond to their first letter. “…we submitted a second comment letter citing the mandate in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to describe all mitigation measures that could, if implemented, minimize significant environmental effects. (CEQA Guidelines, §§ 15 I26(c), 15126.1 (a).) We urged the City to adopt all feasible mitigation measures that will protect our communities before the catastrophic events forecast by the RDEIR occur. We noted that nearly one quarter of our region’s population lives within one-half mile of the crude oil shipments.”
This new 2016 letter continues with criticism of the Final Draft EIR, “…we appreciate that the City finally acknowledges the substantial risk to our region resulting from the crude oil shipments. However, the FEIR still fails to adopt a single mitigation measure to address the impacts of the Project and the FEIR fails to adequately respond to our letters.”
The letter concludes with five detailed examples of “the inadequacies and misstatements in the Responses to our comment letters.”
Taken together, these inadequacies point out what may be understood as “fatal flaws,” indicating that the EIR should be revised and recirculated yet again, or thrown out for a fresh start.
Or … as in my opinion, the project should simply be dropped.
Valero Oil Trains
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