By Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent, December 18, 2015
Latest: Valero Crude By Rail FINAL Environmental Impact Report likely to be released early January
During staff comments at the conclusion of the December 10, 2015 meeting of the Benicia Planning Commission, Principal Planner Amy Million offered an update on the Valero Crude By Rail proposal.
Currently, the City’s consultants are preparing the Final Draft of the Environmental Impact Report (FEIR), including responses to public comments.
Ms. Million reported that staff had hoped the FEIR would be completed by end of this year, but that it looks like it will be another week or two into January before it is released.
According to Million, “No date has been set for the FEIR/Use Permit,” but she confirms that there will NOT be public hearings on the project at the Commission’s January 14 meeting.
That said, the law allows a MINIMUM of only 10 days between release of the document and a public hearing and decision. Million is on record saying the City will provide “more than that.”
At any rate, I am guessing that we should be ready for hearings in early February, March at the latest if there are no unexpected delays.
By Roger Straw, Benicia Independent Editor, 3 December, 2015
City posts new comments – important letter from Fire Chief of West Sacramento
These new letters were posted on the City of Benicia’s Crude by Rail page today. See link below, along with the index I created. Alternately, you can go to the Benicia Independent Project Review page. (See also the LATER UPDATE below, on older letters that are now posted on the City’s website.)
2.1MB, 103 pages, posted on the City’s CBR page under “Additional Public Comments.” (Index, click here)
This PDF document includes:
An important letter from Fire Chief John Heilmann, writing on behalf of the City of West Sacramento (pages 2-10). The letter strongly endorses the Sacramento Area Council of Governments’ October 30 critique of the RDEIR.
86 identical CREDO-generated letters from individuals far and wide (including 3 from Benicians), “Reject Valero’s dangerous oil trains project.” These 86 can be added to 1976 such letters received previously, for a total of 2,062. There is WIDESPREAD and growing opposition to Valero’s dangerous and dirty proposal and to oil transport by rail in general.
3 identical VALERO-generated letters (2 from Benicians), “I support the Valero Crude by Rail project.
LATER NOTE: On December 4, 2015, the City of Benicia posted some older comments on Valero’s RDEIR that had previously not been released. In Part 4 of comments received Oct. 24-30, 2015, the City had listed the names of those who sent identical letters in response to 3 different appeals, but did not actually post each individual letter. Now the letters are also available:
The issue: Bay Area city can’t see past its own back yard on refinery project
The city of Benicia — the only entity capable of exerting any control over the crude-oil shipments set to arrive at a planned expansion of a Valero oil terminal — has shown in a draft environmental impact report that any impact the terminal has on communities farther up the train tracks is none of its business.
THE PROPOSED project would allow Valero to transport crude oil to its Benicia refinery on two 50-car freight trains daily on Union Pacific tracks that come right through Davis, Dixon, Fairfield and Suisun City on their way to Benicia. The rail shipments would replace up to 70,000 barrels per day of crude oil currently transported to the refinery by ship, according to city documents.
The original draft EIR, released in 2014, didn’t adequately address safety and environmental concerns. Local governments — including the city of Davis, Yolo County and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments — weighed in on the draft, urging Benicia to take a second look.
Benicia withdrew the draft and went back to work, and the new document acknowledges the risks of pollution, noise and, oh yes, catastrophic explosions from oil trains, the likes of which leveled Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in 2013.
Disappointingly, having recognized the issues involved, the report simply says there’s no way to mitigate them and recommends moving ahead. With a bureaucratic shrug of the shoulders, the concerns of communities from Roseville to Suisun City are dismissed.
NATURALLY, SACOG disagrees, and so do we. While it’s true that there’s not a lot Benicia can do itself to mitigate the impact of its project, it can force Valero to do something about it.
SACOG urges a raft of measures that are within Valero’s control: advanced notification to local emergency personnel of all shipments, limits on storage of crude-oil tanks in urban areas, funding to train emergency responders, cars with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, money for rail-safety improvements, implementation of Positive Train Control protocols and, most importantly, a prohibition on shipments of unstabilized crude oil that hasn’t been stripped of the volatile elements that made Lac-Mégantic and other derailments so catastrophic.
Due to federal laws, cities along the railway lines have no ability to control what goes through. Only Benicia, now, while the project is still on the drawing board, has the authority to set reasonable limits and conditions on a project that puts millions of people along the railroad in harm’s way.
We urge the Benicia City Council to use its discretionary authority in this matter to protect those of us who have no say in the process.
Safety still a primary concern with Valero rail transport plan
By Kevin W. Green, November 07, 2015
The Valero oil refinery operates, Friday, Sept. 25, 2015, in Benicia. (Steve Reczkowski/Daily Republic file)
FAIRFIELD — Most of those who provided formal comments on the revised draft environmental impact report for the Valero crude-by-rail project in Benicia focused on a need for increased safety and possible mitigation measures.
The city of Benicia Planning Department received plenty of input leading up to last week’s deadline for submitting written comments on the revised report.
The proposed project would allow Valero to transport crude oil to its Benicia refinery on two 50-car freight trains daily on Union Pacific tracks that come right through downtown Davis on their way to Benicia. The trains also pass through Dixon, Fairfield and Suisun City.
The rail shipments would replace up to 70,000 barrels per day of crude oil currently transported to the refinery by ship, according to city documents. The Valero refinery would continue to receive crude by pipeline, the city said.
Among the written comments submitted on the revised impact report was an eight-page response from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments. The agency responded on behalf of the 22 cities and six counties in its jurisdiction, including the city of Davis and Yolo County.
“Our earlier letter expressed grave concern that the DEIR concluded that crude oil shipments by rail pose no ‘significant hazard’ to our communities, and we urged the city of Benicia to revise the DEIR to fully inform decision-makers and the public of the potential risks of the project,” SACOG said in its remarks.
The agency’s response included a list of eight measures its board of directors indicated that, at a minimum, should be followed.
Those directives include advance notification to county and city emergency operations offices of all crude oil shipments; limits on storage of crude oil tank cars in urbanized areas of any size; and appropriate security for all shipments.
Other directives outlined need for support, including full-cost funding for training and outfitting emergency response crews; and use of freight cars with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, rollover protection and other features that mitigate what the agency believes are the risks associated with crude oil shipments.
Finally, the agency calls for the implementation of Positive Train Control to prioritize areas with crude oil shipments.
Solano County Resource Management Director Bill Emlen, a former Davis city manager, noted in his response that he had no specific comment on the revised report, but that the county stands behind its initial remarks about the original draft report.
In those remarks, dated Sept. 8, 2014, Emlen said the county wanted more done to address potential derailments.
The original draft EIR admitted the project “could pose significant hazard to the public or the environment,” but minimized the chances of that happening.
“Although the consequences of such a release are potentially severe, the likelihood of such a release is very low,” the report said.
Emlen disagreed that the accident risks associated with the crude-by-rail proposal are “less than significant” without mitigation.
Valero plans to use a type of tank car designated as CPC-1232 to transport oil between Roseville and Benicia and there will be a 40 mph speed limit through federally designated “high-threat urban areas,” including cities along the route, according to the draft report.
Emlen said it appears Valero’s use of the CPC-1232 tank cars is voluntary, rather than mandatory. He also pointed out that the federal designation for high-threat urban areas extends only 10 miles east of Vallejo and 10 miles west of Sacramento, which leaves out most of Solano County.
Emlen cited a derailment and spill that took place in Virginia with a train using CPC-1232 tank cars and traveling 23 mph.
“Therefore, the use of CPC-1232 tank cars at low speeds does not alone mitigate the potential impact from a train derailment,” he said.
Other cities that submitted a written response on the revised draft included Davis, Albany, Gridley and Briggs. Other counties that responded included Yolo, Placer and Nevada counties.
An original draft EIR was issued for the project in June 2014. Benicia said it issued the revised draft EIR in response to requests made in that original report. The city released the revised document Aug. 31 for a 45-day review period. It later extended the deadline for submitting written comments from Oct. 16 to Oct. 30.
The Benicia Planning Commission also gathered public input on the revised document at a Sept. 29 meeting.
The Valero project involves the installation of a new railcar unloading rack, rail track spurs, pumps, pipeline and associated infrastructure at the refinery, according to a city report. The crude would originate at sites in North America.
Union Pacific Railroad would transport it using existing rail lines to Roseville, and from there to the refinery, the city said.
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