Inland Waters Receive
Protection from Oil Spills
An LA Waterkeeper Blog
The California legislature approved the 2014-15 state budget, and with it were provisions for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Office of Spill Prevention
and Response (OSPR) regarding inland oil spills – a huge step towards protecting all
inland bodies of water like creeks, rivers, ponds, lakes, and wetlands in California
from rail, pipeline, and truck spills (for news, click here).
OSPR is responsible for preventing, preparing for, and responding to oil spills. In the
recent past, OSPR’s program of prevention and response was limited in scope to oil
spills in marine waters, and did not extend inland. There was no dedicated funding
for OSPR emergency response to inland oil spills. Since 1991, oil tankers offshore
and oil marine terminals on the coast have had to prepare for response to oil spills;
but during that same time there has been no similar inland program. Los Angeles
Waterkeeper staff and volunteers strongly pushed for this statewide program: creating a petition, engaging other environmental organizations, producing sign-on letters,
testifying at budget committee meetings, and working with OSPR staff to ensure
that the Best Achievable Protection of ALL waters and natural resources of the state
are now enforceable by California regulations in the Lempert-Keene-Seastrand Act.
There was no sense in the coastal edge of LA County being protected while the rest
of Los Angeles’ rivers, creeks, and drinking water reservoirs were not (read new regs
in trailer bill here)
The statewide program being implemented July 1st, 2014 is funded by maintaining
the current established marine oil fee of $.065 cents per barrel, and also applies it to
all oil entering a refinery in the state. This allows important staffing improvements
as well as the expansion inland and on-going financial stability of the Oiled Wildlife
Care Network, which is a 30 facility network that OSPR and U.C. Davis co-manage
to rapidly respond to and treat wildlife that have been affected by spills.
This is all needed because the U.S. is on the cusp of dramatic changes in how oil is
transported. In 2012, about 70% of oil imported by California refineries came through
marine terminals; only 1 million barrels or 0.3% came by rail. In 2013, crude oil
imports by rail jumped 506% to 6.3 million barrels, or about 1% of total imports.
Many experts, including the California Energy Commission, project that this number
could increase by up to 150 million barrels, or 25% of total imports, by 2016. We
have already seen some disastrous rail crashes, from 40 people dead in Lac-Megantic,
Canada, to an oil spill in Alabama wetlands, to a river on fire in Virginia, and more.
By
Brian Meux