H-20 Correspondence – Janet Bernabe
From: Janet Bernabe [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 4, 2022 4:00 PM
To: CityClerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Public Comment: Item 26 Appeal
-EXTERNAL-
Good evening, name is Janet Bernabe and I am the Organizing Director for the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice CCAEJ. I am writing my comment here to express our strong opposition to the negative declaration approach (the no impact conclusion)for the World Oil Project. The potentially significant environmental impacts from this project require robust environmental review under an environmental impact report to assess appropriate mitigation and alternatives to this project.
Continued oil storage expansion in our region is out of sync with the rhetoric of the Port and Long Beach Mayor about advancing clean technologies and addressing pollution burdens. The negative declaration for this project 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 public health and safety and the environment. • We urge you to stand up to this powerful industry by not allowing storage tank projects to be rubber-stamped without robust environmental review.