TO BENICIA CITY COUNCIL AND BENICIA PLANNING COMMISSION, RE: THE VALERO CRUDE-BY-RAIL PROJECT:
Ladies and gentlemen,
This letter is written in support of the proposed Valero Refinery crude by rail (CBR) project.
I have a unique perspective on the issue, for two reasons:
• I am a board-certified occupational and environmental medicine physician. Having researched, written and taught in the field, I have studied many industries in detail, including railroads and oil refineries. I therefore have first-hand knowledge of both industries.
• I have done a lot of research and writing on the former Benicia Arsenal and the conversion of the Arsenal into a 3,000-acre industrial park.
I have six reasons for supporting the CBR project. They are as follows:
1. The project lies in the middle of a 3,000-acre industrial park.
The proposed project is surrounded by a buffer area of industries and vacant land. The rail lines skirt the city before crossing the Carquinez Strait to the south or the rim of the Suisun Marsh to the northeast.
The land is in an industrial park. When the park was established in 1965, the city officials who created it, James Lemos, John Bohn and Michael FitzGerald, made a promise to the industries and businesses that occupied it that it would continue to be used for industrial purposes. Facilities to handle oil deliveries and refine them was one of the contemplated uses of the park when it was developed.
When the Arsenal closed and before the refinery came into the industrial park, Benicia was in a state of economic disaster. The refinery changed all of that.
2. Valero owns the property and should be allowed to do what is necessary to improve it and benefit their business.
Property ownership rights are an important aspect of our culture in the United States. The refinery is planning to improve their property so as to increase its efficiency, and they should be allowed to do so.
3. The project will not affect the environment.
There will be no change in the through-put of the refinery and no change in the current levels of discharges or production. Discharges of pollutants from transportation will be decreased.
4. The project will be safe.
From my personal knowledge and experience, I know that safety is the primary task of both the refinery and the railroads. I have personally seen that safety is more important than production or profits in both industries. There is a culture of safety in both industries to protect both the workers and the communities they are located in. This culture includes engineering, training, equipment and procedures designed to enhance safety.
The refinery readily admits that there are risks to what they do. They also describe their job as managing risks to produce a product that we all use — a product on which this country is, in fact, dependent. Maybe someday that dependency will change, but not in the near future and certainly not by limiting the refinery’s ability to bring in crude oil by rail.
It is through the culture of safety that these industries manage risk. In addition to safety mechanisms, the refinery and railroad have sophisticated disaster-response teams that in the past have been used to assist the community fire department.
Highly volatile and dangerous materials have been carried on the rails through Benicia and across the bridge to Martinez and beyond for more than a century. The Union Pacific tracks that will be used are “Class A” and must carry anything that a shipper wants to ship. They ship tons of material each day without mishap.
There are risks to everything that is done by every person on every day. To draw a comparison: Every year in this country there are children who are abused by teachers, but that is not a reason to stop sending children to schools. It is, however, a reason to improve the culture of safety in our schools.
A culture of safety is what Valero and Union Pacific have done to make the transportation and refining of products safer.
5. The CBR project makes economic sense for Benicia and for the nation.
The CBR project will give the Valero refinery more versatility in what types of crude it can purchase and more negotiating power in the purchase price. This means a stronger company.
The refinery will hire more workers on both a temporary and permanent basis and will be more competitive in the fuels markets. The improvement in competitiveness and increased profits means that the largest employer and taxpayer in Benicia will remain in Benicia.
On a national basis, the CBR project is another step toward oil independence for America. By purchasing oil from fields in the North America, Valero will decrease dependence on foreign oil and decrease the balance-of-payments problem our country faces. Furthermore, a reduced reliance on overseas oil will reduce our involvement in Middle Eastern politics.
6. The Valero refinery has been a good friend to Benicia.
Refinery employees are engaged in community service projects. Refinery management is very liberal with donations to nonprofit organizations throughout the city and area. Refinery employees, management and owners don’t deserve the criticism leveled at them.
In summary, I recommend a yes vote for the Valero Crude-by-Rail Project.
Kind regards,
James E. Lessenger, MD
Dr. Jim Lessenger is a retired physician and docent at the Benicia Historical Museum. He is the author of several articles on Benicia history as well as the book, “Commanding Officer’s Quarters of the Benicia Arsenal.”
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No one could have said it better Dr. Lessenger. I am with yoy 100%. Thank you.
The highly volatile and flammable crude oil that is under consideration for the Benicia Valero refinery won’t magically appear at the refinery. It matters not that the refinery is surrounded by an industrial park, this dirty and deadly oil must still be transported thousands of miles from the Bakken fracking fields or from tar sands.
On the anniversary of the Lac Magenta train explosion that incinerated 44 people and left a Canadian town devoid of its downtown, it is negligent to disregard the dangers of transporting this murderous cargo. The trains that will carry this unstable brew will travel over the Sierras where our water comes from, down through Roseville, Sacramento, Davis (where I live), over parts of the Delta and along Highway 80, passing many other communities on its way to Benicia and then China and other world markets. The trains will use portions of track used by Amtrak to carry passengers up and down the corridor. All of these communities and resources will take the risks but none will benefit from this crude by rail. Who will be liable for that next train derailment and explosion?
The only economy that this oil is good for is Valero’s. The fossil fuel industry is literally a dying industry. The risks are too great and the benefits too small. It’s time to change course and invest in renewable energy. We could save lives and the planet as well.
Elizabeth Lasensky
Davis, CA
Beyond business as usual—
From the above article:
TO BENICIA CITY COUNCIL AND BENICIA PLANNING COMMISSION, RE: THE VALERO CRUDE-BY-RAIL PROJECT:
Ladies and gentlemen,
From the post below more information for our community to consider and not forget….
Lac Megantic One Year Later: What Has Been Done to Prevent Another Tragedy?
“Rail lines cut through the hearts of our communities right across the country and the amount of oil they carry is skyrocketing, rising from 500 carloads per year in 2009 to 500 carloads per day by the end of 2013.”
“The math is pretty simple: the more oil that is on the rails, the greater the chance of an accident. And whereas there used to be a few carloads of crude oil mixed into a train carrying other goods, we now have mile-long trains carrying nothing but oil so that if there is a derailment, there can be a chain reaction.”
“You would think that the 47 deaths in Lac Megantic would bring about big changes in rail safety. But the federal government – the only level of government that can regulate what moves on rail lines – has treated this primarily as a public relations problem rather than a public safety problem.”
“The real choice, however, is between clean and dirty energy. Rather than irresponsibly ramping up production in the tar sands, we should be investing in livable cities, great public transit and transitioning to efficient, electric vehicles that together will break our addiction to oil.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/07/06-1
Will you are not on top of things.
Beyond business as usual—
From the above article:
TO BENICIA CITY COUNCIL AND BENICIA PLANNING COMMISSION, RE: THE VALERO CRUDE-BY-RAIL PROJECT:
Ladies and gentlemen,
From the post below more information for (you) our appointed and elected representatives and our community to consider and not forget….
“One Year After Lac-Mégantic Disaster: Delay in Safety Regs, Groups Bring Oil Train Data to Communities”
“According to some, the surge in rail transport of petroleum products has outpaced regulatory oversight. Lax oversight may have contributed to the devastation at Lac-Mégantic, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).”
“In an October 2013 report, author Bruce Campbell, the CCPA’s executive director, wrote, “In my view, the evidence points to a fundamentally flawed regulatory system, cost-cutting corporate behaviour that jeopardized public safety and the environment, and responsibility extending to the highest levels of corporate management and government policy making.”
“There was an evident lack of preparation at all levels,” Galvez-Cloutier said recently in a Science Media Centre of Canada webinar reviewing the events at Lac-Mégantic. “Prevention measures, preparedness and emergency plans need to urgently be updated.”
“I think there was a panic and there was a lack of co-ordination,” she said.
“At the time of the incident, firefighters were cooling oil tankers without having subdued the fire, Galvez-Cloutier recounted, adding the emergency response personnel did not know what the composition of the burning oil was.”
http://desmog.ca/2014/07/06/one-year-after-lac-m-gantic-disaster-delay-safety-regs-groups-bring-oil-train-data-communities
Beyond business as usual— Another “unique perspective.”
From the above article:
TO BENICIA CITY COUNCIL AND BENICIA PLANNING COMMISSION, RE: THE VALERO CRUDE-BY-RAIL PROJECT:
Ladies and gentlemen,
From the post below more information for (you) our appointed and elected representatives and our community to consider …
“Inside the Big Oil Playbook
Strategies and Tactics used in the Industry’s Battle to Ship Tar Sands Oil Out of Casco Bay”
“Big Oil’s campaign to defeat the South Portland ballot initiative, the Waterfront Protection Ordinance, is a case study of the tools and tactics Big Oil has already used, and can be expected to use in the future, to keep alive the possibility of shipping tar sands oil through Maine, other U.S. states, and large swaths of Canada.”
“As citizens and decision-makers consider tar sands projects in Maine, and throughout the United States and Canada, it is imperative to understand the tactics the oil industry is using to advance its interests in the Alberta tar sands.”
“Big Oil’s campaign to defeat the Waterfront Protection Ordinance used four main strategies.”
1) Spend big to defeat the ordinance.
2) Downplay the role of Big Oil.
3) Deny the existence of any plans to bring tar sands to Maine.
4) Manufacture and play up economic fears.
http://www.environmentmaine.org/reports/mee/inside-big-oil-playbook
Beyond business as usual —
From the above article:
TO BENICIA CITY COUNCIL AND BENICIA PLANNING COMMISSION, RE: THE VALERO CRUDE-BY-RAIL PROJECT:
Ladies and gentlemen,
From the post below more extremely valuable information for (you) our appointed and elected representatives and our community to consider …
“Fox Guarding Henhouse: Oil-By-Rail Standards Led by American Petroleum Institute”
“How did it get missed for the last ten years?”
“That was the question Deborah Hersman, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), posed to a panel of industry representatives back in April about how the rail industry had missed the fact that Bakken oil is more explosive than traditional crude oil.”
Key Question:
What role did the rail industry, the American Petroleum Institute and Bill Clinton play in essentially privatizing the development of regulatory standards in transporting crude oil?
Read the article posted below for the answer.
A brief excerpt to entice the reader:
“Chair Hersman resigned shortly after the forum in April, ending her 10-year career with the NTSB. At the time she told the AP she had, “seen a lot of difficulty when it comes to safety rules being implemented if we don’t have a high enough body count. That is a tombstone mentality. We know the steps that will prevent or mitigate these accidents. What is missing is the will to require people to do so.”
“If the current process regarding new oil-by-rail regulations in the U.S. is any indication, apparently we haven’t achieved a high enough body count yet.”
http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/07/09/oil-rail-classification-standards-being-driven-american-petroleum-institute
Unfortunately there are many holes in the authors pro-project commentary. Many aspects seem to be fully ignored.
Dr. Lessinger stated: The Valero refinery has been a good friend to Benicia.
That statement alone will cause some in town to recoil in horror, like a nosferatu before a cross,
Excellent comments, Dr. Lessinger.
DDL, You’ll always have a segment of the public that believes everything an environmental group say’s and everything an oil company say’s is a lie. I’ve experienced false claims by an environmental group years ago and trying to explain things to them is like talking to a wall. There faces were so filled with hate and distrust that I started laughing. I was totally honest with them and tried to explain how impossible their claim was but It was a fruitless discussion.
The problem is they will make a false claim, run with it, and much of the public will believe them.
Is not the objective in everything we do is to make it safe, clean, healthy and at the same time productive for all. The oil company’s want clean air and safety. The drillers also want clean air and safety. So now we have rail cars being made safer, rail lines being made safer. All emergency issues are being addressed and resolved. At the same time I have always said that science and high tech along with the proponents and the opponents can resolve all these issues. That is not what the local small group of Enviro Greenies want. Just stop it in its tracks. Well guess what , yes that could solve the immediate concern. But what about long term issues. They are all being addressed and will be solved. But the local EG’s want nothing to do with solutions. I would not expect Valero to just pack up and leave but do not tempt them. E G’s listen to reason and work with Valero, rail lines and all safety and health issues. Your constant scare tactics are now falling on closed ears as the company , city, state and federal government are working to resolve all issues. Your tactic of flooding the comment section, meeting places, LTTE and OP ED’s for review are just the same thing over and over again. All by the same two or three people. We got your message. Just watch the Thursday turnout at the Planning meeting. Flooded with the same folks with the same questions that will not listen to answers. Your tactic is not working. Start listening and stop your worn out tactics.