Seeking a broader range of crude oil to process Phillips 66 refinery in Santa Maria seeks to add rail capacity at its Santa Maria refinery site. Expansion of the Phillips 66 refinery near Nipomo will require a 2.7 mile rail spur extension the company says.But the public would get a 1.5 mile long 30ft wide pedestrian and bike trail through the dunes close to the coast.
More refiners are seeking to get oil by rail as cheaper varieties become availabe.
The county will hold a scoping meeting on the project July 29, 2013, 6:00 to 8:00 P.M.at the Blacklake Golf Resort Banquet Room, 1490 Golf Course Lane, Nipomo.
The scoping meeting discussion will focus on environmental issues, feasible ways in which project impacts may be minimized, and potential alternatives to the project. Additional information about the project and EIR is posted on the SLO Planning website: www.slocounty.ca.gov/planning under “Environmental Impact Reports” then “Environmental Impact Reports and Major Projects…”, under “Santa Maria Refinery Rail Project”.
Rail Spur Extension. The proposed rail spur extension includes a request by Phillips 66 Company for a Development Plan/Coastal Development Permit to allow for the extension of an existing rail spur at the Santa Maria Refinery and construction of a railcar off-loading facility, above-ground conveyance pipeline, restroom facility, and an unpaved emergency vehicle access road from the end of the proposed rail spur to State Route 1. Development of the extension would include approximately 1.3 miles of new rail (with a construction width of 270 feet), 0.7 miles of new above-ground pipeline, and a 0.7-mile-long emergency access road. The rail spur extension would include up to five parallel ladder tracks, each long enough to accommodate a train of approximately 80 tank cars, with associated locomotives and supporting cars. The project would also include work within the existing refinery, connecting and upgrading existing infrastructure. The extension is intended to allow the Santa Maria Refinery to access a wider range of competitively priced crude oil.
The total area of disturbance would be approximately 48.9 acres; however, almost half of the proposed disturbance would occur within the existing refinery or coke storage areas, with the remaining portion being constructed in an area currently used for grazing and other open/undisturbed areas within the existing refinery area. This project component will be analyzed on a project-specific basis in the EIR.
Coastal Access. The project also includes a conceptual plan for provision of vertical Coastal Access through the project site located to the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area. As part of a separate permit issued for the project site, initiated by Phillips 66 in 2008 and approved by the County Board of Supervisors in February 2013, Phillips 66 may be required to construct vertical public access from State Route 1 to their western property line to comply with the coastal access provisions of the County’s Coastal Zone Land Use Ordinance. Although the provision of coastal access is not integral to, and has independent utility from, the Rail Spur Extension project, it is appropriate to include an analysis of the potential environmental impacts of the accessway because of the shared environmental setting and regulatory framework of the two adjoining components. The size and alignment of the coastal accessway, as well as the appropriateness of access at this location based on the environmental setting, public safety concerns, and current land uses in the area, is currently under consideration by the California Coastal Commission.
The Coastal Access component of the project will be analyzed in a separate section of the EIR and at a programmatic level to help inform the decision makers on potential impacts associated with development of a public accessway at this location.
The project is located in southwest San Luis Obispo County, approximately 1 mile southwest of State Route 1, and 3.5 miles west of the community of Nipomo, in the South County Coastal planning area. The rail spur extension would be located entirely on the Phillips 66 property lying east of the Union Pacific Railroad and zoned for industrial use, at the site of the existing Santa Maria Refinery. The proposed coastal access trail would cross this portion of the project site and also extend into open space lands west of the railroad.