Phillips 66 has applied for Air District permission to launch what clearly looks like yet another tar sands project.  There will be another opportunity to comment about the scope and content of the draft Environmental Impact Report in a July 27th meeting scheduled by the Air District for Vallejo, given potential impacts on that city.  A September 2016 oil spill in San Pablo Bay sent 120 Vallejo residents to the hospital and caused 1500 noxious odor complaints.  The BAAQMD subsequently found Phillips 66 and the operator of the leaking oil tanker equally responsible.

You can read the Notice of Preparation here in order to tell the Air District what you think should be covered in an analysis of the impacts of P66’s latest attempt to expand its tar sands refining.  Please weigh in with written comments.

According to the Air District project description, this P66 wharf expansion “would increase the amount of crude and gas oil brought by ship to the Marine Terminal at the Phillips 66 San Francisco Refinery in Rodeo, California.  The refinery processes crude oil delivered by ship from a variety of domestic and foreign sources to the Marine Terminal, as well as crude oil received from central California by pipeline.”

The marine terminal expansion would enable P66 to receive and process higher rates of ship-delivered crude and gas oil, replacing roughly equivalent volumes of pipeline-delivered crudes with shipborne crudes.

Two prior Air District approvals allowed P66 to increase its permitted limits from 30,682 barrels per day (bbl/day) in 2012, to 51,182 bbl/day in 2013.  Now P66 seeks a permit increase of 78,818 bbl/day to 130,000 bbl/day, on an annual rolling average basis.  It also wants to increase crude or gas oil deliveries from 59 ships up to a total of 135 tankers or ships in any 12 consecutive months.

The Notice of Preparation isn’t as heavy a slog as you might think.  Please read it carefully and suggest areas of significant impact that the DEIR must cover.

Here are some useful comments on marine impacts of a tar sands spill:
Baykeeper Comments on Phillips 66 Marine Terminal Permit Revision Project
tar-sands-tanker-threat-ip
tar-sands-health-effects-IB
NAS 2015 Dilbit Study Final
west-coast-tar-sands-threat-report
Green et al. – 2017 – Oil sands and the marine environment current know

COMMUNITY SCOPING MEETING

WHEN
Thursday, July 27, 5:00 – 7:00 PM

WHERE
City Council Chambers
555 Santa Clara St.
Vallejo

SEND EMAIL OR WRITTEN COMMENTS BY 5 PM, AUGUST 28, 2017 TO:

Barry Young, Senior Advanced Projects Advisor
Engineering Division
Bay Area Air Quality Management District
375 Beale St., Ste. 600
San Francisco, CA 94105

Email:  P66MarineTerminalPermit Revision[at]baaqmd.gov

For more information, contact Barry Young: byoung[at]baaqmd.gov.