Eugene approves 24-7 fuels transfer next to homes; community meeting Oct. 7

Eugene residents hope to prevent another J H Baxter. With the city still lacking public health development standards, Bethel and Trainsong face a new environmental health threat. At the Human Rights Commission Sept. 17:

Councilor Lyndsie Leech (Ward 7): A fuel transloading station that’s proposed to go into the Trainsong neighborhood, very close to Trainsong Park and Opportunity Village—it’s being marketed as a clean fuel distribution, but there will be 24/7, 365-day access for big tanker trucks to be coming in and getting filled up with different types of fuels, right there in a residential area.

[00:00:42] And a residential area that historically is, you know, very working class. It has a long, long history of toxic pollution. And so I’m working with a lot of different entities in the community to see what can be done, at least to mitigate any effects.

[00:01:04] Lin Woodrich (Active Bethel Community): My name is Lin Woodrich. I’m speaking for the Active Bethel Community Board.

[00:01:08] There’s an immediate need for the public health development standards for the Bethel and Trainsong areas. We need to get ahead of heavy industrial permit requests for the Westgate Industrial Park on North Danebo Avenue, and possibly the USD Clean Fuels Rail to Tanker Transfer Facility location in the already-burdened Trainsong neighborhood on Bethel Drive.

[00:01:30] Please hurry with the public health development standards to include at least the Bethel and Trainsong neighborhoods so we won’t be saddled with another JH Baxter-type business in our area.

[00:01:42] Dharmika Henshel:  In June, the City Land Use Analysts approved a go-ahead for USD Clean Fuels to have a fuel transloading facility in the Union Pacific Railroad Yard, by a lease. They would be day and night moving the thousands, tens of thousands of gallons of fuel from train cars into trucks, 40 trucks a day.

[00:02:05] And this decision was based on UTA (Urban Transition Area) Code 9.10703 and it says that this would be solely for the purpose of accommodating track signals and other operative devices and the movement of rolling stock. I don’t think that moving tens of thousands of gallons of fuel fits into that land use compatibility statement justification.

[00:02:28] To me, this private track agreement for the exclusive use of fuel transloading would seem to be a new industrial use for the property.

[00:02:35] I’m all for biofuels, but why would we site this in a residential neighborhood?

[00:02:40] Flammable liquids are heavily regulated by the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Every electrical connection and source of a spark must be grounded and regularly monitored. Well, who’s going to monitor their electrical connections in the middle of the night when there’s just a few people working there?

[00:02:58] And is it just a matter of time until someone messes up and our neighborhood goes boom! They have to deal with volatile organic compounds. And to permit that, they collect it and how much comes out and is released for us to breathe. They say that if the fuel spills, that no fuel would be added to the existing plume of pollution that we already have under our houses from Union Pacific Railroad’s misbehavior years ago.

[00:03:20] There’s a lot of noise concerns, extra trains, extra braking, extra sound with the pumping and all of that, not to mention 40 trucks a day, 28 of them which would be going at night between 6 p.m.and 6 a.m. Yeah, this is supposed to be a 24/7 operation. We’d like to sleep.

[00:03:37] Even if just one truck idles for five minutes, 28 trucks, that’s two hours and 20 minutes of truck idling, not to mention them starting and going.

[00:03:44] Anyway, pollution, traffic, flammable liquids, please reassess this decision and pass the public health development standards.

[00:03:54] Lisa Arkin (Beyond Toxics): My name is Lisa Arkin, and I’m speaking on behalf of Beyond Toxics and for all of our residents in Bethel and Trainsong.

[00:04:03] So it’s only clean fuels if you’re sitting in Houston, Texas, which is where this company is from, and you’re not a resident of Trainsong.

[00:04:12] A company like this can convince the city not to do a traffic analysis. Because those people aren’t the ones watching their child on the front lawn play with a ball a mere few feet from a small city street that will have 80 roundtrips of tanker trucks going up and down, and there’s not even a sidewalk separating those homes from the street. That’s a child’s death waiting to happen.

[00:04:46] A company like this can convince the city there’s no impact from these 80 round trips because they’re not the ones trying to sleep at three in the morning when these trucks are rumbling through and the trains are being built and clacking and crashing and the trucks are idling. Meaning they’re not the ones needing their sleep.

[00:05:09] The staff pretty much rubber-stamped the city’s response to the USD Biofuels application. And why? Because the city has not adopted a public health development standard to give you the authority to make a different kind of decision. The proverbial can has been kicked down the road for a year since this wonderful group of leaders voted unanimously to move forward with the public health development standards.

[00:05:39] But nothing has happened since then other than the repeated promise of ‘No more J. H. Baxters.’

[00:05:45] Please don’t fail our poorest, most diverse and heavily impacted community. Don’t leave Trainsong open for more harm.

[00:05:59] Starry White: I’m here to represent Bethel. I don’t have anything written up. I’m just going to talk to you just, like, from the heart. Okay, first of all, I bought a house in the Trainsong neighborhood. But unfortunately, here’s the thing. When we allow these biodiesel plants to make the decisions for the rest of us, when you guys, council members, you guys allow this to happen, it’s on you. What’s going to happen is that they’re, they are going to regulate themselves. There’s no oversight on this. Right there by Trainsong and it’s not a kid playing next to some toxic stuff. It’s kaboom. It’s a wipeout. That is my house.

[00:06:42] I am a mother. I’m watching people die left and right because from even from the time of Kitty Piercy, Baxter has been there when I first moved into my house, when I first bought my house for my kid. No, we are not poor people. We are educated. We are thoughtful. We are loving wonderful people that all live in this neighborhood

[00:07:05] You know, the Eugene City Council, all, everybody said, ‘Oh, Baxter’s closed down. They’re not operational. They’re not operational.’ You know what? Nothing was done when we said over and over and over and over again, ‘It’s three o’clock in the morning and the sky is neon green, it smells like cabbage. What is going on here? Somebody do something about it.’

[00:07:23] And you know who did do something about it? Oregon Public Broadcasting. Not the city of Eugene, not the state of Oregon. It was Oregon OPB that did something about it. They went out and did the soil testing for contaminations, and you know what is in those contaminations? Do you know? Dioxins. Do you know what dioxins are? Agent Orange. That is the stuff that they’ve been spewing into our land with our kids. If this passes, if you guys allow this neighborhood to go through more suffering, my faith in humanity is finished. That’s it.

[00:07:59] Mervyn Duddy: Hi, thank you for the opportunity to speak about the renewable fuels depot in the Bethel neighborhood. I just don’t understand why it had to be right in next to the residential area. There are industrial areas further up the road. Could have been sited there. I just don’t understand why it was placed in a place where it caused most disruption and danger to the community.

[00:08:27] Mayor Lucy Vinis: Trainsong and Bethel, yes, this USD Fuels refueling is alarming and upsetting, and I know there’s a big public meeting on Oct. 7, so very anxious to see what pathways we can pursue that would prevent this from having what I agree is a frightening impact on the neighborhood.

[00:08:45] So thank you for your activism, thank you for keeping it going, thank you for testifying.

[00:08:53] Councilor Lyndsie Leech (Ward 7): I also wanted to echo my frustration with the USD clean fuels proposed project. Train song has definitely been subject to enough toxic polluting elements over the last many, many years.

[00:09:11] And I just want to say, thank you to all of those that did come and speak to that and work is being done. And we will do what we can to work with this company and hopefully make some changes.

[00:09:25] Like Mayor said, there is a community meeting on the seventh, and I encourage everyone to reach out and get information and come.

[00:09:32] John Q: A community meeting Oct. 7 at 6 p.m., 2600 Wood Ave. It’s hosted by Beyond Toxics and Active Bethel Community. For more, contact Zack Mulholland.