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  Richmond and Berkeley Call to Halt Bakken Crude Oil Transport
March 26, 2014
 
 

Richmond calls on Congress to halt crude oil transport through Bay Area
By Robert Rogers Contra Costa Times
Posted:   03/25/2014 11:38:51 PM PDT1 Comment | Updated:   50 min. ago

Related Stories
·    Mar 25:
·    Berkeley: Council votes to oppose rail shipments of crude oil
RICHMOND -- A unanimous Richmond City Council voted Tuesday to call on Congress to halt rail transport of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota pending new regulations and explore what local measures could be enforced to thwart truck transport of the volatile fuel mix on local streets.
The resolution, proposed by Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, follows revelations in recent days of massive increases in crude-by-rail shipments into Contra Costa County, including at Kinder Morgan in Richmond, the only facility in the Bay Area that receives crude shipped on Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains and transfers it to trucks for transport to Bay Area refineries.
An Amtrak train passes over cars traveling on Macdonald Ave. as it departs the station in Richmond, Calif. on Monday, March 24, 2014. The tracks that carry
An Amtrak train passes over cars traveling on Macdonald Ave. as it departs the station in Richmond, Calif. on Monday, March 24, 2014. The tracks that carry Amtrak Capitol Corridor trains through more than a dozen East Bay and South Bay cities could become a rail superhighway for crude oil transports under a plan by Phillips 66. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)
"There are terrible threats in our midst," McLaughlin said. "Ultimately, we need to ban (Bakken crude) from coming through our community."
The resolution directs city staff to send a letter to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Contra Costa County Hazardous Materials Division Director Randy Sawyer, Congressmen George Miller and Mike Thompson, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, State Senators Loni Hancock and Mark Desaulnier and Assemblymember Nancy Skinner urging them to work on new regulations, including halting the transport of crude near Bay Area communities. Councilman Tom Butt added an amendment directing staff to explore whether the city could use its own regulatory powers to ban transport of Bakken crude on city streets.
Railroad activity is typically beyond the scope of local laws and is regulated at the federal level.
The vote followed a presentation by oil industry author Antonia Juhasz detailing the nationwide increase in accidents associated with rail transport of Bakken crude, which is fracked in North Dakota and is more volatile and susceptible to explosion than heavier crude blends.
The volume of crude transported by rail into Northern California increased by 57 percent during 2013, according to California Energy Commission statistics.
About 85 percent of the crude by rail delivered to Northern California in 2013 came from North Dakota, followed by 12.5 percent from Colorado, according to the commission. Four of the five Northern California oil refineries listed by the commission are in Contra Costa County, with the other in Benicia.
"A whole lot more oil is being spilled by trains," Juhasz said. "It's dramatically worse."
From 1975-2012. 792,600 gallons of oil were spilled in train accidents, Juhasz said. In 2013, 1.3 million gallons were spilled in accidents, more than the combined total of every year since 1975.
Juhasz said the problem centers on three factors: More oil is being harvested and moved within the continent, it's being sent to coastal refineries for processing and export due to higher international prices, and regulation has not kept pace with the rapid changes.
A man crosses the Union Pacific Railroad tracks at Cutting Blvd. in Richmond, Calif. on Monday, March 24, 2014. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)
A man crosses the Union Pacific Railroad tracks at Cutting Blvd. in Richmond, Calif. on Monday, March 24, 2014. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)
"The National Transportation Safety Board said oil spill response planning requirements are practically nonexistent," Juhasz said. "They recommend that you require rerouting to avoid transportation of such hazardous materials through populated and other sensitive areas."
In the past month, critics have hosted town hall meetings in Richmond, Martinez and Pittsburg decrying planned increases in crude-by-rail shipments into the Bay Area. On Tuesday night, the Berkeley City Council passed a resolution directing city staff to oppose efforts to transport Bakken crude through the city.
Juhasz drew specific attention to rising accident numbers, with particular emphasis on a train explosion in July in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where 47 people were killed.
"There is a movement toward more federal regulation," Juhasz said. "This (resolution) would not just be an exercise, it would add to the cacophony of voices making that demand."
Not all residents were convinced.
"I read about your agenda item to encourage to regulate this, now I am hearing ban it," said Don Gosney, a Richmond resident. "That is kind of overregulation isn't it? No one is even asking is there a safe way to transport this crude."
Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia released a statement Tuesday saying he is concerned that "there was no clear communication" between BAAQMD staff members and Kinder Morgan before a permit was issued to the offloading company last September, when Juhasz said it began offloading Bakken crude. He said the issue will be discussed at the next BAAQMD meeting on April 21.
"The dramatic increase in the volume of Bakken shale crude oil being transported by rail through Northern California should be of great concern to local government," Gioia wrote.
Contact Robert Rogers at 510-262-2726 or rrogers@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/SFBaynewsrogers.

Berkeley: Council votes to oppose rail shipments of crude oil
By Doug Oakley
Oakland Tribune
Posted:   03/25/2014 10:52:55 PM PDT1 Comment

Related Stories
·    Mar 25:
·    Richmond calls on Congress to halt crude oil transport through Bay Area
BERKELEY -- The City Council is poised to fight plans by big oil companies to ship millions of gallons of highly flammable Bakken crude oil by rail through the city after a unanimous vote Tuesday night.
The council voted 9-0 to pass a resolution directing the city attorney to join anticipated lawsuits over the plans to transport oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and Canada through the area to refineries in the Bay Area and Southern California. The resolution also says the city will formally oppose any permits or environmental impact reports filed with local agencies where oil refineries plan to expand or begin oil shipments by rail.
The resolution mentions a July explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where 47 people were killed when a train carrying the same kind of oil derailed and crashed. Other derailments and explosions have occurred in the past year in Alabama and North Dakota.
Most pressing for Berkeley is a Phillips 66 plan to send trains carrying 1.8 million to 2.1 million gallons of Bakken crude to its Santa Maria refinery in Nipomo. According to a draft environmental impact report for San Luis Obispo County, which could approve or deny an expansion of the refinery's rail shipments of crude, the trains would either come from the north, passing through Sacramento and the East Bay, or from the south.
Berkeley City Manager Christine Daniel said Berkeley's fire chief, planning manager and city attorney already are working on a plan to fight the proposed rail shipments through Berkeley.
"The planning director has already taken a look at the comments in the draft environmental impact report for San Luis Obispo and there are a number of familiar agencies there we can partner with," Daniel said.
Echoing comments heard in public testimony, council member Max Anderson said the threat of an explosion of 2 million gallons of oil in Berkeley is too large to ignore.
"The movement of this volatile oil through our community represents a threat we can't quite comprehend at this moment," Anderson said. "We're talking about rendering a large swath of our community uninhabitable and toxic in terms of future generations. What we are doing today is a small effort but it can grow."
Phillips 66 Santa Maria Refinery spokesman Dean Acosta said Tuesday the company's "top priority" is transportation safety. The company began modernizing its crude rail fleet in 2012 as a "proactive precautionary measure to safely capture the opportunities of the rapidly changing energy landscape," he said.
"Phillips 66 has one of the most modern crude rail fleets in the industry, consisting of railcars that exceed current regulatory safety requirements," Acosta added.
In any case, Acosta said, Union Pacific Railroad will make the final determination of which route the cars would take.
Union Pacific spokesman Aaron Hunt said a decision on which way the shipments to the Nipomo refinery would go would be "made at a later date." He said the company currently does not move any crude oil through the Bay Area.
Reach Doug Oakley at 925-234-1699. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/douglasoakley.

 

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