Blog Post: May 18, 2017
San Francisco Baykeeper is sponsoring a state bill to protect San Francisco Bay from tar sands oil spills. The bill, SB 709, would protect California waterways from spills of tar sands oil and other “non-floating” oils that are particularly difficult to clean up.
Currently, oil spill cleanup...
Blog Post: April 13, 2017
On Friday, April 7, a barge carrying 4,000 gallons of diesel and 300 gallons of oil sank in San Francisco Bay and began leaking fuel. The barge, which is named “Vengeance” and owned by Vortex Marine Construction, Inc., was stationed near Yerba Buena Island for BART tube maintenance, and likely...
Press Release: March 3, 2017
Sacramento -- Today Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) announced a bill to protect California’s waterways from dangerous spills of tar sands oil. California has laws to prevent and prepare for “conventional” oil spills that can be cleaned up from the surface of the water. These laws do not take...
Column: November 1, 2016
More long freight trains of tank cars full of crude oil, chugging along San Francisco Bay’s shore and rumbling through our communities. That’s the oil industry’s vision for the Bay Area.
Baykeeper, along with partner environmental groups and concerned Bay Area residents, has a different vision....
Blog Post: September 30, 2016
In response to pressure from Baykeeper, our partner environmental organizations, and local residents, Benicia’s City Council voted unanimously on September 20th to reject Valero Energy Corporation’s proposal to expand the rail yard at its Benicia refinery. An expansion of the refinery’s rail yard...
Blog Post: September 29, 2016
Last week, two mysterious oily sheens appeared in San Pablo Bay, the northern area of San Francisco Bay. One was around 40 feet wide and a mile long, large enough to cause ferry operators to temporarily halt service. The other surrounded an oil tanker docked at the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo....
Blog Post: June 8, 2016
On June 3, a Union Pacific train with 96 tank cars full of crude oil derailed in Oregon along the Columbia River Gorge. Sixteen tank cars left the rails and four ruptured, spilling oil. A crude oil fire burned for 13 hours, and the accident damaged a sewage treatment plant, which had to be closed....
Blog Post: December 10, 2015
An oil storage and transfer facility proposed for Pittsburg that could have polluted San Francisco Bay won’t be opened. In a victory for the Bay and local communities, the facility developer, WesPac Energy, recently called off the project.
Baykeeper opposed the crude oil facility because it would...
Blog Post: November 13, 2015
Baykeeper recently urged Benicia city leaders to block Valero Energy Corporation’s plan to enlarge the train yard at its Benicia refinery. If Valero gets its way, two 50-car trains per day would carry dirty and explosive crude oil on tracks beside Suisun Bay, a San Francisco Bay inlet and important...
Blog Post: November 10, 2015
Across the nation, more trains are hauling tank cars full of crude oil over rail bridges that are deteriorating and unsafe. That’s the finding of a first-of-its-kind investigative report by the Waterkeeper Alliance, San Francisco Baykeeper’s international alliance of Waterkeeper organizations, and...