Fossil fuel shipments could nearly quadruple at the Phillips 66 Marine Oil Terminal at Berths 148-151, if a proposed project is approved as currently planned, in direct contradiction to the state’s plans to phase out fossil fuel use. The number of tanker calls would more than quadruple — from 17 to 75, which could last for 40 years. An earlier attempt to rush the project via a minimal review known as a “minimal negative declaration” [MND] was met with fierce public opposition, resulting in the decision to do a full environmental impact report, starting with an Initial Study/Notice of Preparation. The comment period for that closed on April 10, and several commenting parties drew attention to the dramatic, lengthy expansion. Environmental attorney Hannah Bentley put it most bluntly, on behalf of a newly formed environmental group, Karass.
“Under the Project, the lease for Berths 148-151 could be extended until at least 2063, well after the point (2045) by which the State is to have achieved carbon neutrality,” Bentley wrote. “It appears that the Harbor Department has not considered this fact at all.” After citing specific 2045 energy and greenhouse gas targets from the California Air Resources Board’s 2022 Scoping Plan, she wrote, “This means the State will, and must, severely reduce its petroleum fuel consumption. Neither the Port nor Phillips 66 seem to be taking these considerations into account.”
In contrast, an astonishing 34 virtually word-for-word identical comments supporting the project misleadingly — if not falsely — claim to recognize “that this modernization is not an expansion of either the existing Marine Oil Terminal or the Los Angeles Refinery itself,” as if quadrupling tanker calls would not constitute expansion. One of them — Darrow’s New Orleans Grill — even failed to insert their own name in the two spaces marked “[Organization name].” Assemblymember Mike Gipson submitted one such comment, as did the Grand Vision Foundation, the Pacific Battleship Center and numerous industry associates. The LA Maritime Institute submitted one of nine additional comments with varying degrees of modifications.
But the Wilmington Neighborhood Council, which opposed the project, flatly rejected the “not an expansion” claim: “Phillips said that this project is not about expansion but it is because you will be able to accommodate larger vessels upon completion of this project. Phillip’s terms for expansion are different than ours. It means that larger vessels will need more trucks.” In addition to increased truck traffic, WNC cited a long list of remediation concerns, noting, for example that “contaminated soil will be distributed by repairs and replacement of pipelines and tanks,” and pointing out that, “If this were a building in our community and it did not meet the earthquake safety standards and was completely contaminated and built in 1919, it would be demolished!”
“The primary objective of the proposed Project is to comply with the State of California’s Marine Oil Terminal Engineering and Maintenance Standards (MOTEMS)” the Port of LA said in a one-paragraph overview in the initial study/notice of preparation (IS/NOP), which mentioned the lease only at the end, almost as an afterthought, and did not mention the increased fossil fuel shipments at all.
“[I]t is not at all clear why improvements in the Phillips 66 marine terminal need to be associated with a 40-year lease and huge increases in throughput,” senior attorney David Pettit wrote on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Because of this, the EIR’s [environmental impact report] discussion of project alternatives should include scenarios in which (a) the current marine terminal is abandoned or repurposed, and (b) in which the terminal is improved but there is no expansion of throughput.”
The IS/NOP “Project Description” identifies “three primary elements”: “Berths 148-149 Improvements,” “Berths 150-151 Improvements,” and “Marine Oil Terminal Topside and Landside Improvements.” But as Bentley points out, the project involves two other elements: “significantly expanded operations” (almost a fourfold increase in throughput) and “a new 20-year lease” with two options for another 10 years each. “The NOP fails to include these last two most environmentally damaging and threatening elements of the Project in its Project Description (section 2.2) at all,” she notes, adding, “We fear these omissions foreshadow an EIR that will fail to address the most significant impacts of the Project in any honesty or detail.”
Similarly, Pettit noted, “[T]he EIR should include both upstream [production] and downstream [combustion] emissions associated with the commodities to be handled by the Phillips 66 project.” Specifically, he added that hydrocarbon combustion in transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas in the state, “and the Project’s contribution to that problem cannot be ignored.”
Pettit and Bentley both cited a range of other concerns, as is common with such projects. And there were comments from the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the state Native American Heritage Commission focused on highlighting procedural concerns, rather than specific project elements, which will presumably come to the fore during EIR comments.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife reaffirmed its comments previously submitted in response to the MND. The Coalition For A Safe Environment, along with a dozen other groups, submitted extensive comments with a long list of requested mitigations, including the required use of zero-emission tanker ships, tug boats, pilot boats and heavy duty trucks, along with other zero emission technology.
The port offered no time-frame for when the next phase — the draft environmental impact report — will be completed. But sometime between one and two years seems likely. And the pressure to conform with the state’s future zero-emission targets will only grow stronger by then.