A proposed expansion of a tar sands oil pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia has erupted into the largest controversy Canada has seen in years. The project’s proponents want to increase production and export of tar sands for world markets, including — even featuring — California.
It raises the question: Could the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion lead to Canada’s tar sands oil poisoning the Bay Area? The answer is yes.
Tar sands is one of the dirtiest crude oils on the planet. It’s high in sulfur and heavy metals. Extracting and refining it creates an outsize climate impact. Tar sands is so thick when it comes out of the ground that it can only be moved through a pipeline after dilution with toxic chemicals.
These same toxic chemicals also make it unsafe to approach a tar sands spill until the chemicals have evaporated. This means that in the event of a spill in San Francisco Bay, the heavy portions of tar sands will have the chance to sink while first-responders wait for the toxic, and explosive, chemicals to disperse. And with high amounts of sulfur present in tar sands, the chances increase for a refinery explosion like the 2012 disaster at Chevron in Richmond.
It’s ironic that even while Californians, including climate-conscious Bay Area residents, lead the country in getting off oil, those same communities may well be exposed to increased risks from the transport and refining of tar sands.
Bay Area residents are no stranger to refinery emissions and explosions, or to oil spills like Phillips 66’s in the Carquinez Strait in 2016 and the Cosco Busan disaster in 2007. A major spill of tar sands could be much worse.
A 2014 study of the economic impacts of an oil spill in Washington’s Puget Sound estimated that a major spill of conventional floating crude oil could cost the state 165,000 jobs and $10.8 billion in annual economic activity. What would a similar size spill of an even more difficult to clean up crude like tar sands mean for San Francisco Bay?
It’s true that Canada has shipped crude oil to California for years. According to a 2018 Greenpeace report, over the last five years, two-thirds of tankers loaded with crude oil from the existing Trans Mountain pipeline went to California. But that was only a few dozen tankers a year. If the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is built, seven times more tankers would depart from British Columbia. Most of those tankers would be carrying tar sands, and many would be headed to refineries in the Bay Area and Long Beach.
Bay Area residents need to take notice because this is not an abstract threat: Phillips 66’s San Francisco Refinery in Rodeo is seeking permits to bring in and refine more heavy crude oil like tar sands. The refinery is working to expand its ability to process heavy crude oil, and to more than double the number of tankers allowed at its marine terminal — all in anticipation of the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.
Communities up and down the West Coast have successfully fought dozens of fossil fuel expansion proposals, from oil train terminals proposed in Benicia, San Luis Obispo and Pittsburg, to North America’s two largest coal terminals proposed in Washington state.
Phillips 66 doesn’t yet have all the permits it needs to be able to process more tar sands and bring in more tankers. The public has a say in the permitting process for the Rodeo refinery’s proposal to more than double the number of tankers it receives, with a draft environmental review likely open for public comment in early 2019.
The threats to Bay Area residents from Canada’s proposed Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion are tangible and toxic. They must say no to any more expansion of the fossil fuel industry, starting with Phillips 66’s refinery expansion in Rodeo.
Matt Krogh is a campaign director at Stand.earth, an environmental organization located in the traditional Chochenyo and Karkin Ohlone lands of the San Francisco Bay Area.
