H-20 Correspondence – Wendy Rosales
From: Wendy Rosales [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 5:24 PM
To: CityClerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Public Comment for Agenda Item No. 20 for 1/18/22 City Council Meeting
-EXTERNAL-
My name is Wendy Rosales and I am a member of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice and resident of Long Beach. I’m here to express our strong opposition to the negative declaration approach (the no impact conclusion) for the World Oil Project. This massive new oil storage facility requires robust environmental review to assess appropriate mitigation and alternatives to this project.
The negative declaration for this oil storage facility ignores the reality on the ground in overburdened communities and the very real harmful impacts of this expansion. The World Oil Project would have a range of harmful impacts on surrounding communities, including:
• Project would add to World Oil’s existing oil storage capacity of 502,000 barrels • Project would produce 15,000 barrels of hazardous sludge over its lifetime • Project would free up to 188,000 barrels of oil storage for use by nearby refineries
• Project will emit hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic air pollution over its lifetime
• Project would be about half a mile from two elementary schools, parks, and neighborhoods
The Long Beach City Council must demonstrate leadership and show their commitment to impacted residents and environmental justice.
• We urge the Council to require the Port to prepare an environmental impact report for this project to protect our health and safety. • We hope you have the courage to stand up to this powerful industry by not allowing new oil infrastructure projects to be rubber-stamped without meaningful environmental review.