I am currently employed as a safety coordinator at the Phillips 66 Santa Maria Refinery. I have been employed at the refinery for nearly 14 years. I was recently elected as the president of United Steelworkers Local 534, which represents 69 members of the workforce at the refinery. I have been a resident of the Central Coast since 1988 and have raised three children here. I am an avid cyclist and have much respect for the beauty of this area and of the need to protect our environment.
I am also a pragmatist in realizing that I would never have been able to stay on the Central Coast and raise my family here without a good paying job, which the refinery provided. Prior to my employment at the refinery I spent 22 years working on liquefied natural gas tankers. During those years there was much fear that LNG tankers were time bombs that would explode and kill thousands. This fear mongering never materialized. Our ships sailed for 22 years and delivered millions of tons of LNG without incident. Similarly, the railways deliver millions of gallons of crude oil and chemicals throughout the nation with very few incidents.
I have attended several of the public meetings on the proposed rail spur project. The concerns of the groups that oppose the rail spur may seem logical to the general public, but they are also deceiving and full of fear mongering. The fact is that the Bakken crude that has been involved in high-profile rail accidents in recent years will not be transported to the refinery since this refinery cannot process this type of crude oil. The public needs to understand that crude and chemicals are already being transported safely through our county. There is inherent risk in any enterprise. There is more risk in driving your car down the 101 than there is from the trains that come through our county.
At a recent Grover Beach City Council meeting, one opponent stated she felt she would have to move because she was in the “blast zone” of a potential derailment. I couldn’t help but think that I was also in the “blast zone,” and then I thought that I am also in the Diablo Canyon evacuation zone, and I also live near earthquake fault lines. I also thought that if there was a tsunami that my home would be flooded. Maybe I should move away from this terribly dangerous area. I think not. Life is full of choices and risks. No one wants a disaster to occur. Mitigation of risk and safety are our primary concerns. Common sense tells us that we need to balance the needs of the people and the safety of the community.
As a representative of the hard working people of the refinery who live here, raise their families here, and spend their hard-earned money here, I support the rail spur project.
Lionel Senes is the president of USW Local 534 and has worked at the Santa Maria Refinery for the past 14 years. Send comments to interim Editor Camillia Lanham at clanham@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 4-11, 2015.