You know those “Stop Oil Trains” picket signs you keep seeing around your neighborhood? Well, we’ve got some news.
The San Luis Obispo County Planning Commission voted on Oct. 5 to deny the Phillips 66 rail spur project—in other words, the commission voted to “stop oil trains.” Last week’s meeting was the eighth since the commission began hearing public opinion on the project proposal in February.
Hundreds of protesters filed into county headquarters for each of the eight meetings to oppose the oil train project, which would have allowed Phillips 66 to transport more than 7 million gallons of crude oil by train to the company’s Santa Maria refinery. The proposal garnered opposition because oil trains pose potential dangers to both the environment and people’s health.
As Paso Robles High School student Gabby Davis famously said at one of the February hearings, “Let’s face it: Oil trains are dinosaurs, and dinosaurs belong in a museum.”
SLO County Planning Department staff apparently agreed, recommending in February that the commission deny the project because it would significantly impact air quality and the environment, and because a derailed train could lead to spills, fires, and explosions.
The Environmental Defense Center (EDC) issued a news release supporting staff’s recommendation, saying that the project would have allowed for the transport of tar sands crude, which is particularly dangerous.
“Tar sands crude, when prepared for transport, is thinned with an unstable blend of chemicals [which] have been known to explode in derailment incidents, which have become increasingly frequent in recent years,” the EDC news release said. It cited 10 oil train explosions in the U.S. over the past two years.
Still, it took eight months for the commission to follow staff’s recommendation to deny the Phillips 66 project, and interest groups have said they expect the company to appeal the commission’s decision.
This article appears in Oct 13-20, 2016.