Get oil trains outta here 

I can hardly bring myself to look at the constant news about species going extinct and climate havoc. It’s no longer enough to go tooling around in my Prius. When I saw a letter to the editor mentioning the Citizens’ Climate Lobby meetings monthly, the first Saturday of each month at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in SLO, I marked my calendar and attended. A former federal regulator gave a presentation that was a real eye-opener. He gave us a reality picture of what will be involved if the Phillips 66 refinery’s rail spur extension is allowed on the Nipomo Mesa.

I believe that wherever there are train tracks in our county, there will be weekly runs of 30 diesel locomotives carrying flammable crude oil from the Canadian tar sands. The diesel exhaust which will be expelled from these trains could be the most dangerous air pollutant there is.

The tar-sands oil will go right through the middle of our towns. In February, multiple tanker rail cars carrying crude oil, equipped with the newest safety features, derailed in West Virginia, triggering explosions and 100-yard-high flames in a residential subdivision.

Do we really want these end-to-end trains endangering our communities? Sign a petition against the rail-spur project at protectslo.org.

-- Debbie Highfill - Morro Bay