Santa always finds out knows who’s naughty or nice!
Across the Salish Sea from our islands, Phillips 66 Refinery in Ferndale hasn’t been nice. Without a permit or environmental review, they unlawfully modified and expanded their infrastructure.
Our friends at Friends of the San Juans submitted a Code Enforcement Investigation Request to Whatcom County, but no apparent action was taken. The good news is, the county is now requiring an after-the-fact permit application and review through the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA). This means the public (Safe Shippers!) can comment on this project’s potential environmental impacts.
Santa will be checking this SEPA checklist twice! We need to ask Whatcom County to do even better than Santa, because – obviously – Phillips 66 needs to be watched.
Phillips 66 may be pouting about this, but the fact that they built without obtaining permits demonstrates that they are not abiding by the rules without enforcement. We need to ask Whatcom County to ensure that the mitigating conditions for this permit will be explicit, meaningful, and enforceable.
Phillips 66 says this project will not result in an increase in vessel traffic, but how can we trust them? We could be facing yet another project bringing more large vessel traffic carrying fossil fuels in the Salish Sea. Safe Shippers know about the many impacts that would bring to Tribal Treaty Rights and impacts to our endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales due to an increase in noise, air and water pollution, oil spills, and ship strikes.
Let’s make a gift to the Salish Sea by taking action now!
Please write to Whatcom County Planning and Development Services
By 4:00pm Friday, December 22, 2023
Attention: Mark Personius
Email to: MPersoni@co.whatcom.wa.us
Ask for a revised Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance (MDNS) with the following additional enforceable conditions:
1. Explicitly require the Renewable Diesel Infrastructure project to “not increase existing barge or vessel traffic or change the type of vessel traffic already occurring at the facility,” as has been stated by Phillips 66.
2. Require the Phillips 66 Ferndale Refinery to regularly provide publicly accessible documentation showing that the Refinery only receives renewable diesel from tank vessels that are subsequently loaded with products refined at the Ferndale Refinery. This could be achieved by requiring the refinery to report to Whatcom County, and the public, the same Advance Notice of Transfer (ANT) data as is reported to Ecology.
3. The State Environmental Policy Act review must address all the project-related air quality impacts, including the impacts from the vessels’ engine emissions at the dock during the time it takes to unload the renewable diesel.
4. Consult with affected Tribes to identify appropriate mitigating conditions for this permit. If deemed appropriate by affected Tribes, include the requirement for thorough documentation that there was no discovery of archaeological resources and/or human skeletal remains during the construction of this project.
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MORE INFO
Friends of the San Juans Action Alert:
Friends of the San Juans’ comments sent to Whatcom County Planning & Development Services:
https://sanjuans.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Friends_of_the_San_Juans_comments_SEPA2023-00085_12-15-2023.pdf
San Juan Islanders for Safe Shipping 