City announces five-month recirculation of environmental report for Valero proposal first announced in February 2013
The first draft of a lengthly environmental impact report on the proposed Valero Crude-By-Rail Project will be rewritten, and the revised document may be available for public viewing June 30, the city announced in a prepared statement.
The window for commenting on the revised report, once it is released, is 45 days, according to the city.
“After the comment period on the Recirculated DEIR (Draft Environmental Impact Report) closes, the city will complete the Final EIR (Environmental Impact Report) which will include responses to all comments on the original Draft EIR and the Recirculated Draft EIR,” the statement said.
Valero Benicia Refinery originally applied for a use permit for the $30 million project Dec. 20, 2012, submitting additional drawings Feb. 18, 2013, and a project description in March 2013.
The project was publicly announced in February 2013.
The cost of the proposed project triggered the necessity of a Planning Commission public hearing on the permit. Had the endeavor been smaller and less expensive, a city employee could have made the decision over the counter.
The company is asking to extend three Union Pacific Railroad tracks onto its property and make other modifications so it can accept North American crude oil it said would resemble the composition of the oil it currently receives from Alaska and foreign countries by maritime oil tanker. All construction would be on appropriately zoned land.
The refinery has contended the change not only would help it remain competitive, but that the project would reduce dependency on foreign fuel and result in a net reduction of greenhouse gases in the San Francisco Bay Area, since trains produce fewer emissions than tanker ships.
Trains would bring in 70,000 barrels of crude daily, replacing the same volume currently delivered by ship, according to the application. Other elements of the refinery’s operations would not change.
Refinery officials had hoped the permitting process would go smoothly, and that the rail operations would be started well before 2013 ended.
But before the matter got its first public airing, residents and environmental groups began meeting to air their concerns.
Those worries were heightened after a crude-carrying train, left idling and unattended July 6, 2013, in the Quebec, Canada town of Lac-Megantic, became a runaway that derailed and exploded, killing 47 people and destroying a significant portion of the city’s downtown area.
Initially, local meetings focused on pollution blamed on heavy, sour Canadian tar sands oil. Attention soon shifted to the preponderance of trains carrying the sweet North American crude, particularly from the American Bakken fields, and meeting conversations turned to the volatility of the lighter crude and whether federal standards for tanker rail cars are adequate.
Those concerns, and whether plans were adequate to cope with possible rises in water levels, earthquakes, nesting birds and marshland plants and wildlife convinced city officials to seek the more comprehensive EIR to comply with California Environmental Quality Act requirements, instead of the less intense mitigated negative declaration.
That decision was praised by Benicia’s representative in the state Senate, Lois Wolk, a Davis Democrat who called the move “wise.”
The weighty first EIR draft was released June 17, 2014, and the Planning Commission decided July 11, 2014, to give the public additional time — until mid-September of that year — to submit questions and comments. That panel also set aside multiple meetings to accept comments and observations from those who wanted to do so in person.
Among those weighing in were Wolk, who said, “I seriously question whether the EIR has adequately evaluated the true risk of an accident or a spill involved with this project.”
After the formal commentary period had closed, California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Deputy Attorney General Scott J. Lichtig sent an Oct. 2, 2014, letter that said, “Unfortunately, the DEIR for this project fails to properly account for many of the project’s potentially significant impacts.”
The pair wrote that the DEIR “ignores reasonably foreseeable project impacts” by limiting its scope to the 69 miles of rail between Benicia and Roseville, adding that it failed to look at the cumulative impacts of multiple crude-by-rail projects on public safety and the environment.
Supporters of the project, including members of organized labor associations, Valero employees and others, disagreed, particularly at the public meetings.
They reminded the Planning Commission that Valero officials had committed to using reinforced rail cars, and that the refinery continues to earn one of the highest industrial safety designations the Occupational Safety and Health Administration can award. They also noted that Benicia gets a significant portion of its revenue from the refinery, a major local employer, and that the project would add both temporary construction and permanent operations jobs.
The report itself noted the refinery would have to meet requirements of existing rules that govern oil refining, including the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006; and that the project could displace as many as 73 ships annually and trade their 25,550,000 barrels for an equal amount brought by train, which would reduce maritime deliveries by as much as 82 percent.
The project calls for about 8,880 track feet of new railroad, and would realign about 3,580 existing track feet. New rail spurs and parallel storage and departure spurs would be built between the east side of the lower tank farm and the west side of the fence along Sulphur Springs Creek.
Also part of the project are crude oil offloading pumps and pipeline, and associated infrastructure, spill containment structures, a firewater pipeline, groundwater wells and a service road. It includes the construction of 4,000 feet of 16-inch crude oil pipeline.
The project, if approved, is expected to take about 25 weeks to complete, and the refinery would eventually be able to accept up to 100 tank cars of crude daily in two 50-car trains, according to the initial report draft.
Those trains would be asked not to cross Park Road during commuter hours, 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m.
Trains would come to Benicia through Roseville, where cars would be assembled into a train, the report said. Uprail communities would experience “significant and unavoidable” air quality impacts as a result, without receiving the benefit of reduced tanker ship deliveries, the report said.
The first draft of the report said such elements as noise generation and likelihood of spills would be less than significant, though any such spill would be “a significant impact,” particularly in the vulnerable Suisun Marsh and other wetlands.
The report said it wouldn’t conflict or obstruct applicable air quality plans, and would comply in particular with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Bay Area 2010 Clean Air Plan.
However, locomotive engine emissions are regulated at the federal level, and Benicia isn’t allowed to impose emissions controls on them, the report noted.
Sharing is caring!
“The Alberta tar sands , according to researchers, contain 360 to 510
billion tons of carbon–more than double that of all oil burned in human history”
More important crude-by-rail news that our “little city” residents and our appointed and elected leaders can use…
From the post below:
“Get Used to It: DOT Predicts Oil Train Derailments Will Be Commonplace Over Next Two Decades”
“Dangerous wrecks expected to average 10 a year, putting large numbers of people at risk, according to Department of Transportation projection reported exclusively by the Associated Press.”
“According to federal authorities’ own predictions, potentially deadly oil train accidents are likely to be commonplace in the United States over the next two decades, with derailments expected to occur an average of 10 times a year, costing billions of dollars in damage, and putting a large number of lives at risk.”
“The grim projection was revealed exclusively by the Associated Press, which cites a previously unreported analysis by the Department of Transportation from last July.”
“The disclosure comes in the wake of two explosive crude-by-rail disasters in the U.S. and Canada this month alone, including wrecks and explosions in West Virginia and Ontario.”
“Any one of the 207 expected derailments, if it occurs near a population center, could kill 200 people and cause $6 billion in damage, according to the reporting. DOT researchers say that they expect crashes to cause at least $4.5 billion in damages over the next twenty years.”
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/23/get-used-it-dot-predicts-oil-train-derailments-will-be-commonplace-over-next-two
About those safer rail cars—
” An honest and scrupulous man in the oil business is so rare as to rank as a museum piece.”
U.S. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, 1936
“Get Used to It: DOT Predicts Oil Train Derailments Will Be Commonplace Over Next Two Decades”
Question: Is this what we really want for our “little city.?”
From the post below: More important crude-by-rail accident news that residents in our “little city” and our appointed and elected leaders can use…
“Oil Train That Caught Fire In Illinois Was Using Supposedly Safer Cars”
“On Thursday afternoon, six cars from a 103-car train loaded with Bakken oil derailed and two caught fire in northern Illinois, according to the Associated Press.”
“Last month’s fiery Bakken oil train derailment in West Virginia involved the supposedly safer, tougher CPC 1232 new model rail cars. Earlier that month another bad oil train derailment in Canada involving the newer, upgraded rail cars caused a fire that burned for six days.”
“BNSF stated that the cars involved in Thursday’s explosion were also the newer CPC 1232 model cars.
Canada’s Transportation Safety Board noted that the derailment in February suggests the new requirements the U.S. and Canada agreed upon last year do not go far enough to ensure the reliable, safe transportation of such a volatile fossil fuel.”
“The only thing more mind-boggling than three such accidents in three weeks is the continued lack of action by the Obama administration to protect us from these dangerous oil trains,” Mollie Matteson, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “The government has the authority to take immediate action to address this crisis — which puts homes, waters and wildlife at risk – and yet it has sat back and watched.”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/03/06/3630622/another-bakken-oil-train-derailment/
About those safer rail cars—
” An honest and scrupulous man in the oil business is so rare as to rank as a museum piece.”
—U.S. Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, 1936
“Get Used to It: DOT Predicts Oil Train Derailments Will Be Commonplace Over Next Two Decades”
Question: Is this what we really want for our “little city.?”
From the post below: yet another “crude-by-rail accident news event” that citizens and our appointed and elected leaders can use…
“Bomb Train Roulette? Latest Derailment in Ontario Is Fourth in Four Weeks–
‘Before one more derailment, fire, oil spill and one more life lost, we need a moratorium on oil trains and we need it now”
“Since February 14, there have been three other fiery oil train derailments in North America, including another in Ontario and two in the U.S., one in West Virginia on February 16 and the other last Thursday in Illinois.”
“As with at least three of the four latest rerailments, the cars involved in Saturday’s crash were all confirmed by a company spokesperson to be the supposedly safer, newer model—known as CPC-1232—which Canada’s transportation administration recently ordered to be a requirement for all new tank cars constructed to carry flammable liquids.”
“Compared with the previous “legacy” Class 111 tank cars, which were involved in the Lac-Mégantic disaster, those built to the CPC-1232 standard have enhancements including half-head shields, improved top and bottom fitting protection and normalized steel, according to the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which is investigating the latest Gogama derailment.”
“However, the TSB has sounded the alarm that the new CPC-1232 standard is still not enough to prevent ruptures and oil spills during derailments.”
‘http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/08/bomb-train-roulette-latest-derailment-ontario-fourth-four-weeks
Who are you gonna trust? Boots on the ground i.e. those railway tracks or the suits in the suites
From the post below: more detailed news and information on crude-by-rail for our citizens and our appointed and elected leaders to seriously contemplate…
“Listen to the Workers”
“Exploding Trains and Crude Oil”
“On the eve of the first conference bringing together rail workers and environmentalists in Richmond, California, we’ve had one oil train after another go off the tracks and explode. The latest was in Ontario, Canada. According to a news report, “Ontario Provincial Police said the derailment happened near Gogama, Ont., around 2:45 a.m. Saturday morning, with some of the cars catching fire and others falling into the Mattagami River.”
“As a retired railroad machinist, I have long been aware of the dangerous cargoes that travel by rail. I still remember the propane car that blew up near my shop while I was working, that propelled by the explosion, jetted a mile down the track through the departure yard, thankfully without killing anyone.”
“Nothing freight-wise from those years I spent on, under and over locomotives compare, however, to the vast quantities of explosive crude now running down a track probably not too far from you.”
“When multiple cars loaded with sloshing liquids are handled with dynamic braking and throttle modulation instead of lightly stretching them, their lading takes on a harmonic effect thereby producing “waves” of slack action which adversely affect track alignment and the resultant derailments. ”
And suffice to say, that other engineers in this discussion thread agreed with him. I realize that the railroad lingo in Brown’s remarks might confuse some people. There are two ways to apply brakes on a train, the air brakes that run the entire length of the train and dynamic braking, which reverses the locomotive traction motors, turning them into generators, which slows the locomotives down and as a result causes the cars to bunch up (slack action). Air brakes, on the other hand, are applied on the locomotives and the cars together. With the entire train slowed down by the air brakes, obviously more fuel will be needed to get back to speed. Hence the railroad’s current directives, with the results that Brown explains. 100 car oil trains are incredibly heavy, compared to mixed freight or intermodal trains.”
“So its not just oil company and carrier greed for cash generating cargo like fracked oil to blame for the current disasters, you can also chalk up the railroad’s desire to save just a little more fuel, at the expense of safety, for the mess we are in. Lets hope environmentalists listen to the rail workers, starting at the conference next week, for more insights like those of Bubba Brown.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/09/exploding-trains-and-crude-oil/
News Bulletin:
“The Future of Railroads: Safety, Workers, Community & the Environment”
“In recent months, public attention has focused on the railroad. In the wake of Lac-Mégantic and other derailments, the public is alarmed about oil trains and the movement of trains in general through their communities. Environmental activists are up-in-arms about the amounts of fossil fuels moving by rail. Farmers and other shippers are concerned about the congestion that has occurred in recent months, but in part to the oil boom.”
“The public generally has no idea what goes on daily on America’s railroads. Chronic crew fatigue, single employee train crews, excessively long and heavy trains, draconian availability policies, short staffing, limited time off work create challenging safety issues of concern not just to railroaders, but to the entire populations.”
“Please join us at this cutting edge conference that brings railroad workers, environmentalists, community activists and concerned citizens together in order to build the movement for a safer and greener railroad, on that is more responsive to the needs of workers, trackside communities, citizens in general, and society as a whole.”
See more details for this conference in Richmond, California–On March 14th, 2015, below.
Question: Will our local newspaper cover this important meeting? Will members of the Planning Commission, City Council, Board of Supervisors and Fire Department attend?
http://www.railroadconference.org
Maybe we should just build a pipeline.
That would be a keystone foundation to a great idea ….
Oops … I guess that wouldn’t work either … My bad.
LOL