The applicant of an oil storage project at Pier C near the LA River has voluntarily agreed to conduct an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on the project after receiving two appeals from environmental groups.
The World Oil Tank Installation Project is a petroleum storage facility that will create two new, 60-foot diameter and 56-foot-tall petroleum tanks each able to hold 25,000 barrels of oil.
The project includes foundations, pumps and 40 feet of piping to connect to existing pipelines to “increase the efficiency” of World Oil’s operations.
The two tanks would replace two larger, “currently underutilized” tanks at the World Oil refinery in South Gate. The two larger tanks would then be leased out for others to store fuel.
The Board of Harbor Commissioners approved a Negative Declaration for the project, which states that “no substantial evidence exists” to show a significant environmental impact stemming from a project.
SAFER CA and The Coalition, who filed an appeal shortly after the decision, say otherwise.
“A Negative Declaration for this project just did not make any sense, because there’s a lot of impacts that would come from this project,” said Whitney Amaya with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. “My community and a lot of other communities surrounding this area were already impacted by so much.”
SAFER CA is an advocacy group for safe processes at California refineries and fuel transport with a particular focus on environmental laws. The Coalition is a group of environmental justice groups made up of Earthjustice, the Coalition for Clean Air, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Communities for a Better Environment, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Los Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club.
In summary, the appellants asserted that, though World Oil provided analyses of potential environmental impacts associated with the project, the analyses were not as thorough as a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR).
Though World Oil responded to many of the public and appellants’ questions regarding the project, they did not respond in detail to “multiple other studies” they presented, the appeal said. Nor did they adequately address impacts to air quality or whether the project would withstand natural disasters, the appellants asserted.
“I just really want to emphasize the need for frontline communities that are dealing with heavy cumulative impacts, including refineries, oil drilling and heavy diesel traffic to be considered in the many impacts that we’re dealing with,” Ashley Hernandez with Communities for a Better Environment said.
Under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), applicants are not required to respond to comments on a proposed Negative Declaration, such as the one approved by the Board of Harbor Commissioners for the World Oil project.
The hearing for the appeal was initially scheduled on Jan. 4, but delayed to give more members of the public the opportunity to speak, according to council comments at the time.
At the Tuesday, Jan. 18 Long Beach City Council meeting, World Oil voluntarily agreed to conduct an Environmental Impact Report on the project before the appeal was heard.
“Industry in our communities really has a severe impact on community health,” said Sylvia Arredondo with Communities for a Better Environment. “[Volatile organic compounds] are one thing that I’m always talking about with folks because of the health harms that are related to VOCs.”
The project will go back to the Port of Long Beach for further research and then return to the Board of Harbor Commissioners.
