Saturday, March 29, 2008

Denial for zone change recommended for bulk fuel truck terminal

Julia M. Dendinger News-Bulletin Staff Writer; jdendinger@news-bulletin.com

A zone change request to allow for the operation of a bulk refined fuel truck terminal in San Clemente was met with much resistance from residents of that rural area west of Los Lunas.

After three-and-a-half hours of testimony, the Valencia County Planning and Zoning Commission ultimately voted unanimously to recommend denial of the zone change request Wednesday evening.

Nearly 40 people from the San Clemente area, 20 or more of whom were with the San Clemente Neighborhood Association, attended the commission meeting to hear and speak out about a proposal submitted by Plains Marketing L.P. to amend the zone map from outland district (OD) to heavy industrial (I-3).

If the zone change were granted, the 30 acres in question would become the location of a bulk fueling station. Larry Guggino, attorney for the applicant Plains Marketing L.P., said the station was akin to a "very large gas station" and not a refinery at all. Tanker trucks would be filled at the station and then transport the fuel to smaller service stations in the Los Lunas-Albuquerque metro area, he said.

While P&Z recommended denial, the matter will now move on to a public hearing in front of the county commission. Regional planner James Aranda said that the planning and zoning commission acts only as an advisory board to the county commission.

"The county commission has the final say as to whether the zone is changed or not," he said.

Because of that, P&Z Commissioner Preston Roberts strongly urged the citizens who spoke out against the change to attend the public hearing in front of the commission. "Either you or your representative need to be there," he said. "We've made the recommendation but they (the county commission) can do what they want."

Guggino asked that the matter be removed from the county commission's April 9 agenda, the next public hearing for that body, in order to gather more information including the traffic impact study that will be completed in the next four to five weeks and was not available for the P&Z meeting.

Aranda said Thursday during a telephone interview that he was waiting to hear from the applicant on when to put the request on the county commission's agenda for public hearing. The county commission holds public hearings the second Wednesday of every month.

That missing report was one of the reasons the P&Z commissioners recommended denial of the request, Roberts said in his second to Commissioner's Jim Lane motion for denial.

"We were left short on a lot of information both from the applicant and staff," Roberts said. "I think the applicant could have produced more information, and the traffic study should have already been done. I would almost rather not have had this meeting if all the information wasn't available."

County ode enforcement director Ruben Chavez said that the P&Z commissioners did not have information from county staff and department heads because they had nothing to review and issue opinions on.

"It is unfair to ask us to issue opinions on information we don't have," he told the commissioners. "It is unfair to ask staff to collect information in this public forum and respond to you. You don't have anything because we don't have anything."

Allen Schaffer, the division operations manager for Plains Marketing, said because the facility was so early in the development process a lot of the "nuts and bolts" weren't done.

During his initial presentation of information to the commission, Guggino said the I-3 designation might not be necessary, but instead an I-2 medium industry zoning with a conditional use permit might be more appropriate.

However, after hearing from nine citizens who objected to the zone change and being faced with a full gallery, Chairman Steve Otero said he didn't believe the zoning was the central issue. "I don't think it matters if it is I-3, I-2 or R-1. It's not the zone that people are objecting to; it's what is going to be put there," he said.

The positives that could be realized by the county were both financial and safety oriented, Guggino said. If built, the facility would not rely on industrial revenue bonds and would generate between $270,000 and $300,000 in estimated property taxes per year.

It could also generate an additional $1.8 million in gross receipts taxes during the construction of the approximately $30 million facility. Guggino went on to say that the facility would be located west of Los Lunas south of N.M. 6 on Dalies Road. The site is approximately 1.3 miles from the village's solid waste station on the west mesa.

"This gives us good access to both I-25 and I-40," he said. "Dalies doesn't appear to be a heavily traveled road." However, without the traffic impact study being completed, there wasn't any data available on how many trips are made on that road by existing residents.

Plains Marketing estimated that approximately 185 trucks per day would visit the fuel terminal.

Guggino pointed out that the company already had a presence in Valencia County in the form of two underground pipes. "There is a six-inch, high pressure pipe that runs north and south through Meadow Lake," he said. "A second eight-inch line T's off of that and runs west through Belen, over the river and into the railroad terminal." That pipe currently runs under a Belen elementary school.

The establishment of the terminal would afford Plains with the opportunity to close off the eight-inch pipe and remove the segment that now crosses the river, Guggino said.

Instead a 10-inch pipe would be built completely within the railroad's right-of-way, running west and north up to the property of the land now owned by Plains Marketing. A rail spur off the main line will bring the pipe up to the property boundary. The railroad requires that the piping be at a depth of five feet.

The facility would have its own on-site fire suppression system. In the event of a fire, an alarm would be triggered at Plains' Texas headquarters and the pipeline would be manually shut down.

During his presentation, senior project engineer Gregory Staff said the intervention of local fire agencies would not be required in the event of an incident. Schaffer said facilities such as this one traditionally use AFFF fire-suppressant foam.

Regardless of the on-site system, County Fire Chief Charles Eaton said he still had concerns, especially about the local entities being able to respond. "The closest station in Los Chavez. We would have to come down 314 and through Los Lunas on Highway 6," he said. "That means coming through traffic and school zones."

Otero said he felt confident that Los Lunas fire services would respond in the event of a call. "They aren't just going to sit there and let it burn," he said. Eaton said that would be true if the village's department had the availability and wasn't tied up on another call.

"When we've requested mutual aid, I'd say 80 percent of the time they are already on a call," the chief said. Eaton went on to point out that the size of the tanks was still an unknown.

While the preliminary site plan submitted by the applicant shows three large gasoline tanks, one small tank, two diesel containers, one for ethanol and one for transmix, there are no dimensions indicating height, diameter or volume of the tanks.

Eaton said that if a department were called upon to assist with a fire at the facility, the chemical suppressant required is very expensive for the county. "The AFFF runs about $72 per five-gallon container," he said. "It would be very expensive for us to be able to provide a volume that would be effective."

There was only one member of the public who spoke in favor of the company's request for the zone change. The San Clemente resident said she had grown up around gasoline facilities in Oklahoma and had never seen any catastrophic incidents. "A Mach 3 tornado came through the area," she said. "Nothing exploded; the pumpjacks were still standing there. I'm not opposed to this at all."

One of the citizens who spoke in opposition to the application was Virginia Smith, who said she had worked for approximately 30 years in the environmental field.

"Beyond catastrophic accidents, just in the routine day-to-day operations of a facility like this, there are always some air emissions and spills," she said. "No one ever intends to build an environmentally unsafe facility, but accidents do happen."

Through research on the Environmental Protection Agency's Web site, Smith said she was able to find three incidents since 2001 where spills had occurred at Plains facilities.

"Now these spills weren't huge. They weren't catastrophic," she said. "But they are not as uncommon as you all would like them to be. I just don't think this facility is compatible with the lifestyle in the area."

Janice Klinger, sectary of the San Clemente Neighborhood Association, presented a petition to the commission with the signatures of 129 people within a five-mile radius of the property opposed to the project.

Klinger said the association was concerned that if the county allowed the property to be zoned for heavy industry, it would create a way in for more I-3 zoning.

"There are other areas in the county that are better suited for heavy industry," she said. "There are already industrial parks where this kind of facility can go."

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