As expected, the Sierra Club and Delaware Audubon Society filed appeals on Friday with the Environmental Appeals Board and the Coastal Zone Industrial Control Board for allegedly violating the state’s Coastal Zone Act by constructing a rail site near the Delaware City Refinery.
The issue popped up in a recent public hearing over a new operating permit for the refinery.
The Sierra Club and Delaware Audubon are represented in these appeals by the Widener School of Law’s Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic.
The refinery built and now operates a loop track that unloads oil from North Dakota and tar sands crude from Canada. The company has spent more than $50 million on the facility. Train traffic to and from the refinery has brought complaints from area residents. The appeal states that crude oil could be shipped by barge from Delaware City to other refineries, including the PBF refinery in Paulsboro, N.J.
The appeal claims the track was constructed outside of the refinery’s footprint of non-conforming use, a boundary established by the original Coastal Zone Act for industries already operating in the area.
The issue made the front page of the News Journal on Sunday on a story based on reports that state attorneys had questions about the legality of the rail facility.
The newspaper had earlier reported that the state had hired special counsel with knowledge of the Coastal Zone Act.
The Coastal Zone Act, signed into Delaware law in 1971 by Gov. Russell Peterson, restricts industrial development in an area that extends 150-miles long and 2-miles inland and specifically prohibits bulk product transfer facilities, according to a release from the Sierra Club. The legislation came in response to proposals for a Shell refinery east of Dover. In granting the permit, Collin O’Mara, secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, ruled the facility amounted to transportation infrastructure for the refinery, similar to a road.
Should the rail unloading facility be barred, it could jeopardize the future of the refinery and like other manufacturing sites generates a large number of spin-off jobs from suppliers.
The refinery was reopened in 2011 after former owner Valero closed the site after suffering losses of $1 million a day. A number of other East Coast refineries remain closed. O’Mara has stated that under the new operators emissions have declined by 20 to 30 percent from previous levels.
One report estimated that the refinery is responsible for 2,000 jobs and $100 million a year in state and local tax revenue.
The refinery has used the rail transportation as the equivalent of a pipeline so it can buy crude from the North Dakota and Canadian sources. The areas do not have sufficient pipeline capacity to transport crude oil.
The proposed Keystone Pipeline would transport Canadian crude from the controversial tar sands sites to terminals in the U.S.
That pipeline is being fought by environmental groups. The Delaware City Refinery had traditionally been supplied by crude oil brought in via tanker from overseas.
The Audubon Society, Sierra Club and the Green Party have claimed they do not want to shut down the refinery, although a few critics have said reopening the site was a mistake. Those supporting the refinery say the goal of some foes is to shutter the site.
Of late, critics have targeted the paychecks of PBF Energy executives. That information become public after a public stock offering by PBF.
