No New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure! sign on letter: West Coast Cities People’s Declaration

Dear friends and allies,

On Nov. 12, 2015, Portland, OR, became the first city in the country (and possibly, the world--we're not sure) to pass a resolution opposing all new fossil fuel infrastructure in the city and its adjacent waterways. We in Portland will be spending the remaining 14 months while our mayor is in office making this resolution binding law-- a process we hope will show other cities how to do the same.

On Dec. 11-12, 2015, the mayors of all of the major west coast cities are coming to Portland, OR, to discuss (among other things) climate action by these cities. We are calling on all of these mayors of the major west coast cities who will be coming to Portland (San Diego, LA, San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, Eugene, Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver, B.C. and Honolulu), along with the mayors of smaller cities, and leaders of the Native American and First Nations tribes to oppose all new fossil fuel infrastructure.

We could use your help in the following ways.

1) Review the statement below or here:  and sign on, as an individual or organization.  Bill McKibben, Winona LaDuke, and Tom Goldtooth have been among our first signatories.

2) Share the statement far and wide, especially with friends and allies in west coast cities with the following groups of people in particular:

-- Labor unions

-- Government officials at all levels in all west coast cities

-- Any affiliated groups up and down the west coast of the US and Canada
-- Rising Tide or other groups to help us prepare a brilliant strategic actions in all of the cities and/or in Portland when the mayors come to town on Dec. 11-12.

--Outreach to the climate scientific community to get them on board

--Letters to the editor in small papers up and down the west coats, supporting this call
--Outreach to college campuses in west coast cities to get them on board.

3) If you have any spare funds, we are doing all of this on a shoestring budget, and could use donations! Donations link here

Thank you!

--Daphne Wysham
Sustainable Energy & Economy Network

Center for Sustainable Economy

Climate Action Coalition

West Coast Cities People’ Declaration: NO New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure, Just Transition Now

December 2015

We the undersigned organizations and their members in the states on the West Coast of the United States and the province of British Columbia in Canada call on leaders of the First Nations peoples of Canada and Native Americans of the U.S., Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, President Barack Obama of the United States, the premier of British Columbia, governors of U.S. states, city mayors, and other elected officials, and regulatory agencies to stand up for climate solutions by putting an end to the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure in our cities, our coastal ports, and communities and beginning the just transition to the new clean economy now. 

The scientific community, President Obama and other political and religious leaders have told us very clearly that we have arrived at a critical moment in human history when we either act now or we doom present and future generations to an escalating planetary crisis of catastrophic climate change. They tell us we must leave 80 percent of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground, and leave all unproven reserves untouched.[1] Despite the growing scientific alarm, too many of our elected officials are continuing with business as usual, condoning the expansion of this deadly fossil fuel industry and exacerbating a crisis that the Pentagon has called a “threat multiplier” that could exacerbate terrorism.[2]

Our communities are assaulted every day with ever-increasing volumes of explosive oil and gas cargo close to our homes, our schools and our places of worship; with coal dust clouding our air as mile-long trains cut through our towns; with unaccountable corporations pushing oil and gas pipelines across our land; and with toxic emissions increasing rates of asthma among our children and threatening our elderly when this fossil fuel is burned. The fossil fuel export terminals and pipelines often traverse geologically active areas and earthquake subduction zones, exposing nearby communities to the risk of calamitous explosions and toxic spills should a major quake take place. At the point of extraction, and at every step of the way to our port cities, too often Native American and First Nations treaty rights are being violated in order to facilitate the extraction, transport, storage and export of this dangerous cargo. Too often, it is the poorest that bear the brunt of this pollution. Our water is threatened by regular spills of oil and tar sands, and by toxic mercury emitted when these fossil fuels are burned. Our fish are dying in rivers overheated by rising temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels. And our forests, once a place of refuge for wildlife in the heat, are increasingly going up in flames or succumbing to pests due to increasing temperatures. The oceans are becoming too acidic to support critical links in the food chain. 

This destruction is as unnecessary as it is unconscionable. Solutions are available now. There are no insurmountable economic or technological obstacles to a clean energy transition. Our cities are demonstrating the promise of this transition every day, building healthier communities, better buildings, and more efficient and affordable transportation systems while lowering emissions. We are taking our money and power back and investing them in our communities. We can do this. But there’s a reason that we are not doing it fast enough now, a reason that we continue to make the problem worse even as we prove the promise of solutions: the entrenched power of the fossil fuel industry, and their unconscionable campaign of deception that protects that power.

We now know that the fossil fuel industry has been covering up the devastating truth about climate change for almost four decades. Recent reports[3] reveal that Exxon knew as early as the 1970s that climate change would threaten all of us, yet chose to confuse and mislead the public, putting its profits ahead of the planet. The delays caused by these actions by the fossil fuel industry leave us with no time to lose. We must act immediately and decisively. Implementing solutions will take time, but we must stop investing in the problem right away.

New fossil fuel infrastructure locks us into a deadly climate future, making the problem not just worse but insoluble. The transition from present emission levels to safe levels will take decades, but it begins with a simple and firm commitment today: we must stop making it worse with large new capital investments that increase emissions. We don’t have time or money to waste going backwards.[4]

In order to begin to act on climate change, we support and align your jurisdiction’s policy to these two vital commitments: 

1) We must stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure in order to leave at least 80% of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground;

2) We must invest in a “just transition”[5] to a clean economy – a transition that delivers shared prosperity, good, family-supporting jobs, and support for people and communities who bear the brunt of climate impacts and economic dislocation.

It is imperative that the West Coast of the United States does our share to meet these two commitments.

Signed,

your name!      Sign on here

Federal Judge Allows Swinomish Tribe Lawsuit Against Bakken Crude Oil Trains to Proceed

 

Sept. 11, 2015  

Federal Judge Allows Swinomish Tribe Lawsuit Against Bakken Crude Oil Trains to Proceed

Fidalgo Island – U.S. District Judge Robert S. Lasnik today ruled that a lawsuit filed by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community against BNSF Railway will continue in federal court, denying a motion by BNSF to refer key questions to a 3-member board in Washington DC that oversees railroad operations.

“We’re pleased the Court has ruled that it will decide the case, without the delay of a separate and unnecessary proceeding,” said Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby.

“This case is about BNSF living up to its word. Promises matter. We all know the dangers of Bakken Crude. We have an established agreement for working with the railroad on these issues. It’s now up to BNSF to comply with the limitations it agreed to in writing.”

In April, the Tribe sued BNSF for violating the terms of an easement agreement allowing trains to cross its Reservation in Skagit County.

Train tracks running across the northern edge of the Reservation were laid in the late 1800’s, without consent from the Swinomish or federal government. Known as the “Anacortes Spur,” the tracks currently serve two Anacortes refineries at March Point. In 1991, the Tribe and BNSF signed an agreement settling a 1976 lawsuit filed by the Tribe for nearly a century of trespass, and granting BNSF an easement with important conditions: BNSF would regularly update the Tribe on the type of cargo, and only one train of no more than 25 railcars would cross the Reservation in each direction daily. In return, the Tribe agreed not to “arbitrarily withhold permission” if there was a future BNSF request to increase the number of trains or cars.

In late 2012, the Tribe learned from media reports that “unit trains” of 100 railcars or more were beginning to cross the Reservation. Today, BNSF is reportedly running six 100-car “unit trains” per week across the Reservation, more than four times as many railcars daily as permitted by the easement. Each of these trains carry between 2.8 and 3.4 million gallons of Bakken Crude, a particularly dangerous and explosive cargo that has drawn the attention of lawmakers and federal regulators.

The Tribe never granted BNSF permission to increase the number of railcars and repeatedly demanded BNSF to stop violating the easement. So far, BNSF has refused.

In responding to the lawsuit, BNSF asked Judge Lasnik to refer key issues to the Surface Transportation Board (STB), a successor agency to the Interstate Commerce Commission that resolves railroad rate and service disputes and reviews proposed railroad mergers.

BSNF argued that it has a responsibility to provide service, even for hazardous commodities, and that the Easement doesn’t give the Tribe power to “dictate the commodities that BNSF can handle over the line.”

Attorneys for the Tribe countered that the Tribe is not seeking to regulate BNSF’s operations, but is merely asking the court to cause BNSF to live up to its contractual obligations. The Tribe’s attorneys also noted that, without the Easement Agreement, BNSF had no right to enter onto the Tribe’s lands. And without the limitations contained in the Easement Agreement, the Tribe would not have granted BNSF its consent to use the right-of-way.

According to the Tribe, the case is a “straightforward contract dispute,” and the STB has no jurisdiction over tribal rights under the Indian Right-Of-Way Act of 1948.

“In short, referring this matter to the STB would be futile, inefficient, and a waste of the parties’ resources,” wrote attorneys for the Tribe.

In a 6-page ruling, Judge Lasnik agreed:

“In the context of this case, referral to the STB is neither efficient nor necessary. The preemption issue can be decided by this Court: it is, at base, a legal question that can be resolved without the delay of initiating a separate agency action. Defendant offers no reason to believe that the relevant facts related to its operations are complex or that an intimate knowledge of transportation policy is required to adjudicate the preemption issue.”

“We appreciate Judge Lasnik’s thoughtfulness and wisdom,” said Cladoosby. “This is a contract dispute over the terms of an easement granted under Federal Law related to Tribal rights and we firmly believe it is best resolved by the Federal Court.”

The Right-of-Way is within 100 yards of much of the Tribe’s economic development, including the Swinomish Casino and Lodge, a Chevron station and convenience store, an RV Park and tribal waste treatment and air quality monitoring facilities. Hundreds of guests and employees are present at all times, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This infrastructure serves as the primary source of funding for the Tribe’s essential governmental functions and programs.

The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction prohibiting BNSF from running more than one train of 25 cars in each direction and shipping Bakken Crude across the Reservation. The Tribe also seeks judgements against BNSF for trespass and breach of contract.

Court documents and Information about the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s lawsuit against BNSF can be found at:

http://www.swinomish.org/news/03-17-15-lawsuit-against-bnsf-railway.aspx

 

Contact:

Debra Lekanof 360-391-5296

dlekanof@swinomish.nsn.us

Alex Fryer 206-384-5448

afryer@feareygroup.com

 

Safety risks in crude by rail clear: Local lives in peril

A CSX Corp train burns after derailment in Mount Carbon, West Virginia pictured across the Kanawha River in Boomer, West Virginia February 16, 2015.   Credit: Reuters/Marcus Constantino

Coming off the rails? Safety risks in crude by rail

By John Kemp   LONDON     Reuters     Mar 19, 2015

Trains carrying oil or ethanol have derailed and caught fire at more than a dozen locations across the United States and Canada in the last five years.

Train fires have prompted a fierce debate about the risks of moving large volumes of highly flammable liquids across the rail network and who should be responsible for improving safety....

....investigations focus on why all the safety systems were defeated at the same time, and what it reveals about hidden flaws and risks in the systems.


In the case of train fires, U.S. and Canadian accident investigators have identified human error and broken rails as the main immediate causes of derailments and collisions.

Once accidents occurred, however, they were made worse by the tank cars’ failure to contain their hazardous loads. Leaking tank cars created highly dangerous large pool fires. Design flaws proved to be a hidden safety risk.

And oil proved to be much more flammable than industry or regulators believed. Under hazmat regulations, crude has been treated as a low-risk hazard when it has behaved more like a medium or high risk one.....   more here

 

DOT's Feinberg Wants Energy Industry to Address Bakken Crude Accidents, Fires

David Bradley     NGI Daily    March 18, 2015

The energy industry needs to do more to control the volatility of oil and other fuels transported by the nation's railroads, according to Sarah Feinberg, acting head of the Department of Transportation's (DOT) Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).

Railroads have been pulling their weight in the effort to reduce the number of derailments and other accidents, but FRA is "running out of things that I think we can put on the railroads to do, and there have to be other industries that have skin in the game," Feinberg told reporters last week. She said she has been "calling on the energy industry to do more for weeks, if not months. Quietly for months, much more vocally for weeks." ......    more here

Danger zone: 326,170 Minnesotans live near oil train tracks

By Don Davis    Grand Forks Herald  03/19/15

ST. PAUL -- State officials estimate that 326,170 Minnesotans live within a half mile of railroad tracks that carry crude oil, a distance often known as the danger zone.

People within a half mile of tracks usually will be evacuated if an oil train could explode or catch fire after a derailment.

The estimate, released this morning after state officials could not answer a Forum News Service question about the issue last week, is the first time Minnesotans had an idea about the number of people that state transportation and public safety officials say could be in danger of oil train explosions like those seen elsewhere in the United States and Canada.,,,,   more here

 

Towns launch 'David and Goliath' challenges to crude-by-rail traffic

Blake Sobczak,  E&E Publishing     EnergyWire:    March 19, 2015

..... city leaders who challenge railroads can be hamstrung by eminent domain laws, federally pre-emptive regulations and other legal realities that favor interstate commerce.

"This is their property through our cities, and they intend to use it," noted hazardous materials consultant and rail safety advocate Fred Millar. "The railroads are going to be very careful not to give away anything that intrudes on their overall sovereignty."

In Crystal, Adams said he is not contesting the rail business or even crude shipments. Instead, he's calling on federal transportation regulators to require a full environmental assessment of BNSF's rail spur, a step he expects will highlight safety problems posed by blocked crossings. The Federal Railroad Safety Act of 1970 gives some leeway to regulate railroads outside the federal level if "necessary to eliminate or reduce an essentially local safety or security hazard."

Adams said his town likely couldn't dissuade BNSF from the project if the Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary pitched a legal battle.

"We know we're dealing with someone who's got more power than we have, and we're just doing pretty much everything that we can," he said.....    more here

 

League of California Cities: Policy & Advocacy on Oil by Rail

March 17, 2015   Roger Straw    Benicia Independent

 

Repost from The League of California Cities

Oil by Rail

Since summer 2014, the League of California Cities has been carefully monitoring transport of crude oil and other hazardous materials by rail. Staff has researched this issue as part of an ongoing effort to educate our members, and to better advocate for improved rail safety.
To that end, the League has taken the following actions on this issue:

1. September 2014: Hosted a meeting on Oil by Rail, as part of the proceedings of the League’s Annual Conference in Los Angeles, to update members on recent state legislative and budgetary actions geared toward improving rail safety and improving first responder capability to address derailments involving hazardous materials
2. September 2014: Issued a Comment Letter to the Department of Transportation on the pending federal rulemaking on rail safety improvements. In that letter, the League called for improved information flow to, and improved training for, first responders, as well as requiring improved safety features for tank cars transporting crude oil, which had already been recommended by federal regulatory agencies.
3. October-November 2014: Held a series of educational webinars for League members (see links below). The goals of these webinars were to enhance members’ understanding of the transport of hazardous materials by rail generally, the extent of federal pre-emption of rail safety regulations, and the narrow remainder in which local governments are allowed to regulate.  Finally, staff shared with League members the League’s draft policy for safety recommendations to help guide local advocacy efforts on this issue with federal agencies and the relevant federal representatives.
4. February 2015: Featured in Western City, the League’s monthly magazine, a cover article on this issue, entitled “A Growing Risk: Oil Trains Raise Concerns” by Cory Golden.
5. February 20, 2015: The League Board of Directors approved the draft Recommendations for Improved Rail Safety as the League’s official policy.  These recommendations were based on common themes that arose in multiple state regulatory entities’ comment letters, including the Office of Emergency Services, the California Interagency Rail Safety Working Group, and the California Public Utilities Commission.
6. March 6, 2015: League of California Cities Executive Director Chris McKenzie issued a letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, submitting ten key recommendations for improving rail safety based on the League’s newly adopted policy, and requested expedited action on their implementation. The letter emphasized that the requested changes be implemented as mandates, rather than recommendations to the relevant industries, that they be accompanied by hard deadlines, and finally, that they be included in the final rule for the Safe Transportation of Crude Oil and Flammable Materials currently under consideration by federal authorities.

Below are links to many of the items referred to above, as well as a sample letter for local jurisdictions to use in advocating to their federal elected officials and to Transportation Secretary Foxx.

Background Materials

• Sample Oil-by-Rail letter for cities to Secretary Foxx
• League of California Cities Oil-by-Rail letter to Secretary Foxx
• League Comment Letter to US Department of Transportation: Proposed Rulemaking on Tank Car Standards

Additional Resources

• A Growing Risk: Oil Trains Raise Safety and Environmental Concerns, Western City magazine, February 2015
• Webinar slides: Oil-by-Rail: Formulating Advocacy – Nov. 6, 2014
• Webinar slides with audio: Oil-by-Rail: Formulating Advocacy – Nov. 6, 2014
• Webinar slides: Oil-by-Rail: A Primer, Part II, Federal – Oct. 22, 2014
• Webinar slides with audio: Oil-by-Rail: A Primer, Part II, Federal – Oct. 22, 2014
• Webinar slides: Oil-by-Rail: A Primer, Part I – Oct. 14, 2014
• Webinar slides with audio: Oil-by-Rail: A Primer, Part I – Oct. 14, 2014

Please share!

Bakken Towns Push Back Against Increasing Train Traffic

Municipalities in the Bakken Push Back Against Increasing Train Traffic

By Alexander Obrecht      January 13, 2015   No. America Shale Blog
 

.....Frustrated with delays caused by idle trains, two North Dakota towns have taken action to limit the time trains may block railroad crossings.[2] One town—Enderlin—passed an ordinance to that effect in October 2014.[3] Last week, the Enderlin City Council repealed its ordinance in response to a lawsuit and pending preliminary injunction motion filed by Canadian Pacific.[4]

The other town—Berthold—chose a different route. Berthold ordered its police chief to ticket railroads for blocking both the town’s crossings for more than 20 minutes.[5] Rather than pass its own ordinance, Berthold relies on a seemingly little enforced provision of the North Dakota Century Code.[6] Now, BNSF Railway engineers face a penalty of up to 30 days in jail and up to a $1,500 fine under state law for blocking railroad crossings in Berthold.[7]

While Enderlin backed down from its ordinance in the face of Canadian Pacific’s lawsuit, Berthold’s action presents a different hurdle. If BNSF files a lawsuit, BNSF will not be suing a small municipality with limited financial means for extraneous litigation costs. Rather, BNSF must challenge the validity of a state statute, which likely requires the North Dakota Attorney General to defend that law.[8] And unlike the Enderlin City Council quickly repealing its ordinance, the North Dakota Legislature is unlikely to take any action related to the lawsuit.

Although the towns’ actions directly target railroads, if validated by a court, similar ordinances and state laws could induce further delay into a railroad infrastructure already overburdened with record traffic. Furthermore, additional North Dakota municipalities—and potentially towns in other states with similar laws—may begin enforcing the railroad crossing prohibition.....    more here

Links:

Feds delay final rules for oil tank cars     now May 12th

Derailed train removed from Stoney Creek Bridge     BC

Exploding oil and methanol fuelled Sydney factory fire inferno     video at site

Firefighters extinguish propane, oil tank fire near Lybrook      NM

Two oil field fires extinguished in Eddy County      NM

Major Oil Companies Slash Jobs

 

How Reagan and Clinton Made Oil Trains Less Safe

How Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton Made Oil Trains Less Safe

Are lives worth more than oil-by-rail industry costs?

Eric de Place    January 5, 2015   Sightline Institute

Oil trains are not safe—a string of cinematic explosions has made that clear—and they’re not nearly as tightly regulated as they should be. This regulatory lapse isn’t just a one-off failure of the federal agencies charged with oversight; we’re in a jam that’s been decades in the making. Since Ronald Reagan, in fact.

When the feds released draft rules for oil trains this past July, they also published a draft Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA). Though it’s technical and often-overlooked, the RIA is a hugely important document that weighs the benefits to the public against the costs to the private sector....

.... nowadays agencies must quantify the anticipated present and future benefits and costs as accurately as possible—and then proceed with a new rule only if the benefits justify the costs. All of which may sound sensible enough, but consider this: that means the benefit of you being alive is evaluated in the same equation that measures the oil industry’s profit margin. And with exploding trains, that’s not just hyperbole.

You may think it is essential to avoid an American city repeat of the Lac-Mégantic disaster that killed 47 innocent people. But in the federal regulatory world, the merits of preventing this sort of “high-consequence event” are reduced to an accounting question. Safer oil trains have costs (to the private sector) that must be entered in the ledger opposite the benefits of saving people, property, and the environment......   

..... (By the way, the overseeing federal agency estimates that the US could experience one mega derailment and nine “high consequence events” over 20 years.)....   more here

 

Crude oil moved by rail drawing scrutiny

Aurora and Barrington [Illinois] leaders are among local officials who have pushed U.S. regulators to restrict use of older tank cars.

BY CURTIS TATE        THonline.com  01/05/15

...."Between the two, the number of trains on a daily basis that are carrying something flammable is probably more in the 15-20 range, at least," [Aurora Mayor Tom] Weisner said....

.... Weisner and Karen Darch, the village president of Barrington, about 35 miles north, formed a coalition five years ago to push the rail industry's federal regulators to pay attention to the effects of increased train traffic on their communities....

... Albany County [NY] Executive Daniel McCoy was alarmed at the rapid increase and its implications for public safety and the environment.... so he issued an executive order imposing a moratorium on the expansion of the rail-to-barge operations sought by Global Partners, an oil industry transportation logistics and marketing company....

...Some of the most vocal opponents of expanded oil-train terminals are in the San Francisco Bay Area and northwest Washington state, regions well-known for their environmental activism. Both have recently become major destinations for crude-oil trains.

But the most unlikely success for opponents of crude by rail came in the heart of the Louisiana Gulf Coast petrochemical complex.

In October, the St. James Parish Council voted to deny a permit to Wolverine Terminals, which sought to build a $30 million crude-by-rail facility about 45 miles west of New Orleans that would be able to receive and store oil from U.S. and Canadian sources.....     more here

Concern Grows Over Urban Crude-by-Rail Routes

Darrin Radermacher-  A fireball shoots up at the site of a train derailment near the North Dakota town of Casselton, Dec. 30, 2013.

Gov’t Data Sharpens Focus on Crude-Oil Train Routes

A ProPublica analysis of federal government data adds new details to what’s known about the routes taken by trains carrying crude oil. Local governments are often unaware of the potential dangers they face.

by Isaiah Thompson, special to ProPublica, Nov. 25, 2014

The oil boom underway in North Dakota has delivered jobs to local economies and helped bring the United States to the brink of being a net energy exporter for the first time in generations.

But moving that oil to the few refineries with the capacity to process it is presenting a new danger to towns and cities nationwide — a danger many appear only dimly aware of and are ill-equipped to handle.

Much of North Dakota's oil is being transported by rail, rather than through pipelines, which are the safest way to move crude. Tank carloads of crude are up 50 percent this year from last. Using rail networks has saved the oil and gas industry the time and capital it takes to build new pipelines, but the trade-off is greater risk: Researchers estimates that trains are three and a half times as likely as pipelines to suffer safety lapses....

.... since 2012, when petroleum crude oil first began moving by rail in large quantities, there have been eight major accidents involving trains carrying crude in North America....

See our interactive map of the crude-oil train data.
In those and other cases, local emergency responders were overwhelmed by the conflagrations resulting from these accidents. Residents often had no idea that such a dangerous cargo, and in such volume, was being transported through their towns....  read more here

San Jose council member urges rejection of Central California refinery's crude-by-rail project

By Tom Lochner   Oakland Tribune    11/25/14   insidebayarea.com

 

BERKELEY -- As the deadline arrived for comments to an environmental report on a Central California crude-by-rail project, a San Jose City councilman got the early jump, announcing his opposition in a news release Monday afternoon. 

The Phillips 66 Company Rail Spur Extension Project would bring as many as 250 unit trains a year with 80 tank cars plus locomotives and supporting cars to a new crude oil unloading facility in Santa Maria from the north or from the south along tracks owned by the Union Pacific Railroad.

 

 

Likely itineraries for the crude oil supplies coming from out-of-state include the Union Pacific Railroad tracks along the eastern shore of San Pablo and San Francisco bays that also carry Amtrak's Capitol Corridor and Coast Starlight trains.

 

 

"This will allow mile-long oil trains carrying millions of gallons of explosive, toxic crude oil in unsafe tank cars to travel through California every day," reads a news release from San Jose City Councilman Ash Kalra. "These trains will travel through the Bay Area passing neighborhoods in San Jose, including Kalra's District 2 in south San Jose. This proposed plan threatens the residents and families along the rail routes and also threatens the environment and local water supplies." ....

read more here