Environmental Groups Seek to Derail Bakersfield Crude-by-Rail Project

A coalition of environmental groups has filed a lawsuit challenging Kern County’s approval of the first substantial oil-by-rail expansion project at a California refinery, alleging that the comprehensive Environmental Impact Report (EIR) prepared for the project is inadequate under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This appears to be the next front in the ongoing battle over crude-by-rail, as refineries across California seek to expand rail transportation in order to improve access to new crude oil sources in the United States and Canada.

In addition to allowing rail delivery of oil at Alon USA Energy’s Bakersfield refinery, the project will expand capacity and allow upgrades to several units at the refinery to enable processing of light crude, including output from Texas and North Dakota's Bakken shale, as well as equipment to offload undiluted Canadian bitumen. The facility has been shuttered since 2008.

The Kern County Board of Supervisors approved the project at a September 9 hearing over the objections of environmental groups and some members of the community, who—despite the County’s preparation of thousands of pages of environmental documentation—claimed the CEQA analysis for the project was inadequate. While project opponents raised concerns about the safety of transporting oil by rail and potential air impacts of the project, other residents, unions, and economic development leaders support the project and expressed their satisfaction with planned safety measures.

In their suit challenging the project, a coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the Association of Irritated Residents, claim that the EIR for the project failed to adequately analyze and mitigate the project’s adverse environmental impacts. Specifically, they allege that the EIR employed an improper baseline, failed to sufficiently describe the proposed project, and failed to fully analyze and mitigate a wide variety of impacts associated with oil storage and processing.

The challenge to the Alon project follows an April 2014 lawsuit, also relying on CEQA, where environmental groups sought to block the shipment of oil by rail to a Kinder Morgan facility in Richmond, California. That lawsuit was later dismissed as untimely.

The challenge to the Alon project, Association of Irritated Residents et al. v. Kern County Board of Supervisors, is pending in Kern County Superior Court (Case No. S-1500-CV-283166).

--Kathryn Oehlschlager and Chris Jensen

For more information, contact Kathryn Oehlschlager at (415) 228-5458 or klo@bcltlaw.com, or Chris Jensen at (415) 228-5411 or cdj@bcltlaw.com