Category Archives: Valero Crude By Rail

California State Water Project, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Environmental review, Feather River, Feather River Canyon, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Letter from the Mayor of Oroville opposes Valero-Benicia oil trains

By Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent, December 18, 2015

City of Oroville, California – and others – oppose Valero Crude By Rail

Late this afternoon, the City of Benicia posted yet another batch of letters opposing Valero Crude By Rail.

The first letter in this document is significant: it comes from the mayor of the City of Oroville, CA, which is located near the Feather River Canyon and at the head of the California State Water Project.  The letter concludes with

The Oroville City Council and the citizens of the City of Oroville ask Valero to reconsider their proposal to deliver North American crude oil by railcar “uprail” from the Nevada border and down through Roseville to the Benicia refinery due to the potential devastation of California wildlife, water resources, and air quality.

The remaining 12 letters are CREDO Action letters from individuals all over California, also opposing Valero CBR. (These 12 can be added to the previous 2,062 similar letters sent by CREDO supporters.)  I don’t have an exact count, but there were also a LOT of letters generated by the Center for Biological Diversity and by ForestEthics.  We aren’t alone here in Benicia!

For these letters and many others, see our Project Review page.

Benicia Planning Commission, Crude By Rail, Final Draft Environmental Impact Report (FEIR), Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

LATEST: Valero Crude By Rail FINAL Environmental Impact Report likely to be released early January

By Roger Straw, The Benicia Independent, December 18, 2015

Latest: Valero Crude By Rail FINAL Environmental Impact Report likely to be released early January

Benicia, California

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.

For more information, see:

Crude By Rail, Public Comment, Revised Draft EIR (RDEIR), Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

City of Benicia posts new comments on Valero Crude By Rail

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.)

Public Comments October 31 – December 2, 2015

Index to comments 31-10-15 - 2-12-15
Index, Oct 31 – Dec 2

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:

(Here is the original Part 4, Public Comments October 24- October 30, 2015 Part 4, missing the individual identical letters)

Air Quality, Crude By Rail, donner, Electronically controlled pneumatic braking (ECP), Emergency Readiness & Response, Explosion, Noise pollution, Oil stabilization, Oil storage, Positive Train Control, Revised Draft EIR, Valero Benicia Refinery, Valero Crude By Rail

Davis Enterprise Editorial: Benicia washes its hands of us

Repost from the Davis Enterprise

Our view: Benicia washes its hands of us

By Our View | November 15, 2015

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.