Tesoro Comments needed by April 15

Our friends in Anacortes need comments on this proposed terminal. Please see below for talking points and where to submit. I am confident of you, dear reader, to be able to send an effective comment on this. Our experiences with the REG/Imperium will serve us well in this task.
Thank you for all you do!

TESORO’S PROPOSED XYLENE PLANT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT (EIS) SCOPING COMMENT OPPORTUNITY

Online Open House: http://TesoroAnacortesEIS.PublicMeeting.info Scoping Comment Period           Thursday March 17, 2016 – Friday, April 15, 2016 Scoping Meeting & Open House           Thursday, March 31, 4-8 pm          Anacortes High School, 1600 20th St           Gym (Open House) and Brodniak Hall (Scoping Meeting) Submitting Public Comments by Friday April 15, 2016           ONLINE:               http://TesoroAnacortesEIS.PublicMeeting.info            VOICE MAIL:        1-877-685-7356 (toll free) 5 minute time limit for messages           E-MAIL:                comment@TesoroAnacortesEIS.com           HAND DELIVERED: Skagit County Planning & Development Services                                       1800 Continental Place, Mount Vernon, WA                                       Monday - Friday 7:30 am - 4:30 pm           MAIL:                    Tesoro CPUP EIS                                       PO Box 21069                                       Seattle, WA 98111                                       Must be postmarked by April 15, 2016                      FAX:                     (360) 416-1340 BACKGROUND INFORMATION:           For more detailed information about the likely significant adverse impacts created by           Tesoro’s Xylene Plant, please review Evergreen Islands’ Comment Letter, August 2015

Tesoro’s proposed Xylene Plant (about $400 million) will produce up to 15,000 barrels per day of mixed xylene.  The mixed xylene will mainly be exported to Asia and will be used to make polyester fibers and films for clothing, food packaging and beverage containers. Shipping xylene to Asia will also mean an increase in tanker traffic, up to five extra tankers a month entering and exiting Fidalgo Bay

THE XYLENE PROJECT WILL CREATE A MARINE EXPORT TERMINAL!

POTENTIAL FOR CRUDE OIL EXPORT FROM MARCH POINT (TRANSSHIPMENT)

Concurrent with the Xylene Plant proposal, Tesoro is proposing to construct and operate a crude oil transshipment terminal in Vancouver, Wa. Tesoro’s proposed Vancouver crude oil terminal would be capable of receiving an average of 360,000 barrels of crude oil per day by train, storing it onsite, and loading it onto marine vessels.  An average of 28 trains per week would arrive at the proposed Vancouver Facility.  Tesoro’s crude-by-rail goal for March Point is 6 unit trains per week, and Shell’s goal is 7 trains per week – potentially a total of 13 crude oil unit trains per week to the March Point refineries.  Since Tesoro already has a crude oil rail terminal on March Point, the new marine oil terminal affords Tesoro the option to ‘transship’ export crude oil by oil tanker.  Note: Congress lifted the 1975 Crude Oil Export ban late last year. Consequently, the Scope of the EIS for Tesoro’s Xylene Plant should have practically the same scope as the EIS for Tesoro’s proposed crude oil terminal in Vancouver.  The Draft Environment Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Tesoro’s proposed Vancouver project can be reviewed here, which includes a bunch of scoping issues that should be included in the EIS for the Xylene Plant

Project Application Materials “Tesoro Anacortes Refinery: Clean Products Upgrade Project, Project Description,” Skagit Planning & Development website. http://skagitcounty.net/Departments/PlanningAndPermit/tesoroclean.htm SEPA Determination of Significance – March 17, 2016 Determination Of Significance and Request for Comments on Scope of Environmental Impact Statement http://skagitcounty.net/PlanningAndPermit/Documents/Tesoro/Tesoro CPU DS and Request for Scoping Comments.pdf Shoreline Substantial Development Application – June 22, 2015 http://skagitcounty.net/PlanningAndPermit/Documents/Tesoro/CPUP SSDP App (Jun-2015).pdf Notice of Development Application - July 9, 2015 http://skagitcounty.net/PlanningAndPermit/Documents/Tesoro/NODA.pdf SEPA Checklist – June 22, 2015 http://skagitcounty.net/PlanningAndPermit/Documents/Tesoro/CPUP_SEPA_Jun_2015.pdf Joint Aquatic Resources Permit Application – June 22, 2015 http://skagitcounty.net/PlanningAndPermit/Documents/Tesoro/CPUP_JARPA_6-22-15.pdf Site Plans and Diagrams – June 22, 2015 http://skagitcounty.net/PlanningAndPermit/Documents/Tesoro/CPUP_SitePlan_Dwgs (2015-05-22).pdf Department of Army, jurisdictional determination – June 1, 2015 http://skagitcounty.net/PlanningAndPermit/Documents/Tesoro/4_JD_Letter_USACE_1June2015.pdf Washington Department of Ecology, Wetland Findings for Tesoro Clean product Upgrade – July 2, 2015 http://skagitcounty.net/PlanningAndPermit/Documents/Tesoro/4_JD_Letter_USACE_1June2015.pdf Tesoro Clean Products Upgrade Project Cultural Resources Technical Memorandum – May 22, 2015 http://skagitcounty.net/PlanningAndPermit/Documents/Tesoro/4_JD_Letter_USACE_1June2015.pdf Overview drawings http://skagitcounty.net/PlanningAndPermit/Documents/Tesoro/CPUP_Overview_Dwgs (2015-05-22).pdf

Big Oil, Coal Target NW Communities and Planet

Speak up about Shell's new rail loop proposal to accept 

more oil trains.

Shell Oil has big plans to bring more explosive oil trains to Washington — and if we don’t act quickly, we will not get a say in the matter. 

Shell is proposing to build a new rail loop at its refinery in Anacortes, just a hundred feet from the shore of Puget Sound. If Shell succeeds, six more trains per week would be added carrying dangerous, explosive crude oil through the Pacific Northwest. Each of these trains has 100 tank cars!

Right now, the Department of Ecology and the Skagit County commissioners are deciding how much time to give the public to weigh in on Shell’s proposal. Tell them to give us the longest public comment period possible to weigh in on this proposal that risks our safety, our environment, and our way of life.

Shell has been fighting to avoid any additional public scrutiny of this project from the beginning. Now, it’s doing everything it can to make to make the public comment period for this project short and sweet when the impact is anything but. The public deserves time to weigh in on Shell’s proposal to bring more volatile crude through Washington communities - plain and simple.

Tell decision makers to give the public the longest comment period possible so that our voices can be heard!

Once the comment period for Shell’s proposal is set, you’ll be hearing from us again with next steps and updates.

 

Crow Tribe Inks Partnership to Develop Washington State Coal Port

via Indian Country Today

The Crow Tribe of Montana has inked a partnership with Cloud Peak Energy and SSA Marine for a five percent share of Gateway Pacific Terminal, the coal export terminal proposed in northernwestern Washington State near the Canadian border. 

The tribe's buy-in cost will be decided if and when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grants approval to the export project, reported billingsgazette.com.

The Crow Tribal Legislature additionally needs to sign off on the agreement made by Crow Tribal Chairman Darren Old Coyote when its members convene in October.

Proponents estimate the terminal could open in five years and ship roughly 48 million metric tons of coal annually to international markets, reported bellinghamherald.com.

Big Oil Knew. Big Oil Lied. And Planet Earth Got Fried.

Published on

Thursday, July 09, 2015

by

Common Dreams

They knew. They lied. And the planet and its people are now paying the ultimate price.

It's no secret that the fossil fuel industry—the set of companies and corporate interests which profit most from the burning of coal, oil, and gas—have been the largest purveyors and funders of climate change denialism in the world.

Now, a new set of documents and a report released by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) answers the age-old question always asked when it comes to crimes of corruption, cover-up, and moral defiance: What did they know and when did they know it?

As it turns out, "The Climate Deception Dossiers" shows that leading oil giants such as ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell—just like tobacco companies who buried and denied the threat of cancer for smokers—knew about the dangers of global warming and the role of carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions long before the public received warning from the broader scientific community. And what's worse, of course, is not only that they knew—but how they have spent the last nearly thirty years actively denying the damage they were causing to the planet and its inhabitants.

How One Tribe Could Slow the Rate of "Bomb Trains" Through Seattle

How One Tribe Could Slow the Rate of "Bomb Trains" Through Seattle

Worried About Increased Crude-by-Rail Shipments, the Swinomish People Are Going to Court

by Sydney Brownstone   The Stranger     04/15/15

 

 In 1889, the acting commissioner of Indian Affairs heard about a new railroad construction project that was under way, laying track on Swinomish land about 70 miles north of the city, without permission. He fired off a telegram to a federal employee in Seattle, but it was too late. A subsequent telegram from the federal agent shows that the railway company had already built 1,130 yards. The telegram couldn't halt the railway's construction, but it was stored away by the tribe until a tribal historian dug it up decades later. And now its concerns are being renewed in a legal fight that could slow crude-oil trains through Seattle.

According to Swinomish chairman Brian Cladoosby, the telegram shows how the Swinomish people have the right to limit the trains that run across Swinomish property on their way to a refinery near Anacortes (after running beneath Seattle and up to Burlington). "No authority for railroad to cross Swinomish reservation present," the message reads. The telegram, and railway construction that followed despite its warning, illuminates a fundamental disagreement that's now in a different form, 126 years later. "[The telegram] said they were building this railroad across our reservation without our permission," Cladoosby said.

The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community couldn't have known that more than a century later, crude-oil trains would be rattling along that very route—and across reservation land—carrying with them a well-established risk of derailing and exploding. In fact, the only way today's Swinomish people knew that trains full of crude oil were passing through their land was from media reports in 2012. They're not alone. As it stands, railroads still don't have to disclose crude-by-rail routes.

But if the Swinomish can stop the crude-oil trains with a lawsuit that echoes the concerns in this telegram, and tries to assert their rights under a rare agreement the tribe has with the railway company, then this one tribe's stand could also begin to check a runaway industry that mayors, governors, firefighters, senators, and federal regulators have been failing to rein in. It's a story that goes back hundreds and thousands of years, back to a time before anyone had even thought of taking oil from beneath the ground.....    more here

Coast Guard detains oil tanker headed to Anacortes

Coast Guard detains oil tanker headed to Anacortes

San Juan Islander

Overseas Jademar, an oil tanker headed to Anacortes to offload cargo, was detained in Port Angeles Monday, February 9 after the Coast Guard found numerous safety violations.

The deficiencies found onboard included non-functioning distress signaling equipment and fire safety systems.

Port State Control officers, from Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound, discovered several significant safety violations during a port state control exam of the Marshall Island-flagged tanker. It will remain detained in Sector Puget Sound's Captain of the Port zone until the safety violations are corrected.

The electronic position indicating radio beacon, an essential piece of distress equipment that notifies authorities of the crew's location in the event of an emergency, was found non-functional.

After examining multiple fire hose stations, it was discovered that many gaskets between the hoses and nozzles had deteriorated, limiting the crew's ability to combat any possible fires.

The PSC officers also discovered fire doors that did not automatically close, which when functioning properly, would help contain flames and smoke in the event of a fire and allow the crew more time to combat the fire or abandon ship.

"This case illustrates the importance of the Port State Control program to hold foreign flagged vessel to international safety standards and ensure the safety of life at sea," said Cmdr. Matt Edwards, Sector Puget Sound prevention department head. "We are continuing to monitor the Overseas Jademar and work with the crew and Marshall Islands representatives to correct these deficiencies."