Scoping, Sidings, Derailments, Politics and More

Part 13

As reported in James Wells’ August Whatcom Watch article, “Scoping Season: Making Our Voices Heard,” (www.whatcomwatch.org) the environmental issues-scoping process for the Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT) proposal is upon us, and its 120 day period may have commenced by the time this month’s issue arrives in your mailbox. Mr. Wells’ article carefully explains why the scoping process is vitally important to be engaged in, and offers much useful advice about how to most effectively make your individual and collective voices heard and recorded.

Initiative-Free Bellingham?

Filling the news coalbins in July and August has been the current fate of the Coal-Free Bellingham Initiative, which had attracted 10,000 signatures by the time it was presented to the City of Bellingham for supposed inclusion in the November 2012 ballot. For reasons discussed in recent Whatcom Watch issues (July, August 2012), the City Council decided to sue to keep the initiative off the ballot and, aided by BNSF attorneys, convinced Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Charles Snyder to agree with them.

The initiative effort had attracted controversy from its get-go, since it declared that Environmental Impact processes are fundamentally weak and flawed—the tonic for which is the direct democratic setting of policy.

The pros and cons of the city’s recognition or rejection of the initiative are elaborated upon in two lengthy August 2012 Whatcom Watch articles: “Michael Lilliquist Explains His Position on the Proposed City Initiative Prop. 2,” and “Coal-Free Bellingham Responds to Michael Lilliquist’s Letter.”

While the Bellingham City Council promised voters a non-binding referendum for November’s ballot, partly as a consolation prize for its litigation against the Coal-Free Bellingham Initiative, resolve to put this matter on the ballot evaporated over the next few weeks. Mayor Linville and Councilmembers Bornemann and Lehman had opposed such a ballot measure (see John Stark’s coverage at The Bellingham Herald, July 24, 2012).

Over at the August 8th, 2012 Cascadia Weekly, Tim Johnson tries to make sense of the judicial and political outcomes, including the City Council’s decision to not place a non-binding anti-coal advisory measure on the November ballot in his “Gristle” and “Currents” columns. Stay tuned: Coal-Free Bellingham is appealing Judge Snyder’s decision.

Which Siding Are You On?

While BNSF continues to deny that it will need much more than a little siding addition near Cherry Point, critics and analysts continue to assert that the GPT would trigger a massive construction of sidings and extra tracks to accommodate the coal trains. This issue was summarized in Whatcom Watch’s June, 2012, coal update and described as “(T)he siding that swallowed Bellingham.”

Because of BNSF’s denial and GPT’s persistent desire to keep all EIS attention contained within its proposed Cherry Point site, Community Wise Bellingham again reiterated its assertions that the GPT proposal, if built, would lead to a huge expansion of sidings and trackage in and around Bellingham. Its further analysis and explication of existing transportation documents, as well as more assembling of reports on likely GPT impacts on Bellingham, can be found at http://www.communitywisebellingham.org.

Coal Sidings for the Whole Region

Important studies and reports about the plans, proposals and potential for expanding coal exports and creating new coal terminals, along with their deleterious consequences, continue to surface.

In July, 2012, the Western Organization of Resource Councils based in Billings, MT, released “Heavy Traffic Ahead: Rail Impacts of Powder River Basin Coal to Asia by Way of Pacific Northwest Terminals,” which examines existing and proposed coal terminals, the rail lines servicing them and the serious negative consequences and infrastructure stresses that could result for communities and other important regional commodities should there be a large increase in coal traffic.

The report has much important data and interesting analyses and conclusions (download at http://www.heavytrafficahead.org.) The study was also reported on by Ralph Schwartz in The Bellingham Herald, July 11, 2012, and by Floyd McKay at crosscut.com on July 12 — whose article was reprinted in the Cascadia Weekly on July 18, 2012.

Destroy our Region to Satisfy Asian Demand?

More analysis of the underlying dynamics of coal demand continues to emerge. David Lawlor’s July 13, 2012, blog at earthjustice.org/blog examines this issue and references the work of several regional experts such as Sightline Institute’s Eric de Place and coal industry analyst Darren Epps.

Since global demand is cyclical, and overseas coal markets are subject to a variety of factors from transportation costs to local mining situations, there are already examples cited of expensive coal terminal investments that have been abandoned within a few years—coal dust was all that was left behind.

Coal Trains Derailing Them-selves

Without even the slightest bit of effort from so-called “eco-terrorists,” coal trains are derailing themselves across our region and other parts of the U.S. From Mesa, Washington (reported in The Bellingham Herald, July 3, 2012), to Junction City, Kansas, to Chicago, and on to Indiana, back to Kansas again (without Dorothy), down to Texas and over to North Carolina, the wrecks are well described at www.sierraclub.org/coal/wa.

While the causes may vary somewhat, one of the main culprits appears to be the coal dust that escapes from the uncovered coal cars and then damages the tracks and their ballasts. So far the coal mining industry has resisted and defeated efforts by railways, such as BNSF, aimed at reducing such fugitive emissions. After all, what’s a few derailments, including a few fatalities, each month compared to the bigger picture of massive profits for Goldman Sachs, Peabody Energy, and other investors?

Pro-Coalies Seek to Outweigh Enviros

Feeling that they are at an unfair disadvantage relative to environmentalists, a bunch of 99-pound weaklings including coal producers Ambre Energy, Arch Coal, Cloud Peak Energy and Peabody Energy; SSA Marine (read: Goldman Sachs), the Seattle company proposing the Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT) terminal; labor unions that include International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union, Brotherhood of Local Engineers and Trainmen, Oregon Building Trades Council and United Transportation Union; BNSF and Union Pacific railways; Billings Chamber of Commerce, Montana Chamber of Commerce, Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, National Association of Manufacturers, and Association of Washington Business; and the Washington Farm Bureau — Farmers for coal? Of course! — have banded together in the Alliance for Northwest Jobs & Exports “to bring out a little balance in what people are hearing” (see John Stark’s article in The Bellingham Herald, July 29, 2012).

The ‘poor and oppressed’ of the fossil fuels industry have also launched a slick television advertising campaign, as described in Brian Dockstaderat’s “The Coal Industry Wants You in the Dark” at NationofChange.org.

Behind Each Cloud is a Coal Dust Lining?

In John Stark’s July 29, 2012 article (cited above) there is worrisome reporting about a deal made between Cloud Peak Energy of Wyoming and the Crow Nation for the leasing and mining of the tribe’s coal deposit holdings in the Powder River Basin for export to Asia. According to Crow Chairman Cedric Black Eagle, “Partnering with the Cloud Peak Energy will help diversify the tribe’s long-term coal revenue, provide good jobs and potential access to export markets for tribal coal.”

Wetlands Swap for Coal Money?

Much closer to home is an issue to watch and worry about: John Stark’s Bellingham Herald article of Aug. 11, 2012, “Lummi Nation’s wetlands bank could speed up development off the reservation,” describes how the Lummi are putting a large amount of acreage into a “mitigation bank” to benefit “someone who needs to fill in a wetland to build a project is required to build a new wetland, on the site or nearby, to compensate for — or, in government-speak, ‘mitigate’ — the wetland that is lost.”

[Editor’s Note: A construction project that is going to destroy wetland is obligated to create equivalent wetlands elsewhere, specifically in the “mitigation bank,” defined as land set aside for the express purpose of creating new wetlands to replace destroyed wetlands. One might be tempted to ask, “Why did we destroy that wetland in the first place? Why didn’t we just construct that building on non-wetland property?”]

The article notes that “could help…getting development permits for anything from new homes on the tribe’s reservation to larger projects elsewhere in Whatcom County - possibly even the Gateway Pacific Terminal project proposed for Cherry Point.” There might be gold in them there wetlands; according to Stark, “...non-Indian developers may pay $150,000 or more per mitigation credit.”

Pro-Coalies Local PR Campaign

The local GPT-orchestrated pro-coal campaign has manifested itself in a couple interesting ways of late. The local laborers’ union sent out a call for a massive show of force at the July 23 City Council session, where a non-binding November ballot issue about coal, as well as a resolution calling for a broadened environmental study (PEIS) of the GPT proposal’s off-site impacts, were on the agenda. It was no mass of pro-coalies, but only several who showed up in orange tees to greet arriving councilmembers, who also were met by a roughly-equal number of anti-coalies, turned out in response to an email-alert started by Lynne Oulman and friends. While the resolution for a PEIS eventually passed, the non-binding ballot measure was later abandoned, as noted in “Initiative-Free Bellingham?” above.

Coal Bros in the Hood

The GPT proposal has already created a few local jobs, but evidently not for members of the Laborers’ Union. The GPT hirelings’ canvassing of Bellingham neighborhoods “looking for friends in all the wrong places” is described by Jean Melious in her typically-humorous manner in a July 6, 2012, blog posting: “The Nice Young Men From the Gateway Pacific Terminal” at http://getwhatcomplanning.blogspot.com.

No Coal for Hoquiam

The pro-coalies as well as those sitting on the fence of the GPT issue should take a lesson from recent events around a coal terminal proposed for Hoquiam, WA. According to an AP article printed in the August 14, 2012 Bellingham Herald, the proposal for a coal storage and export facility at the Port of Gray’s Harbor Hoquiam terminal was being withdrawn by RailAmerica because “The company now believes there are other uses for the terminal that are more likely to generate jobs, tax revenues and business for the port and for the company.”

Congressman McDermott’s

“True Cost of Coal”

While Second District Congressional Representative Rick Larsen continues to extol the virtues of the GPT proposed terminal, his Republican challenger Dan Matthews tries to distinguish himself from the incumbent by pointing to the many problems posed by the proposal that would require extensive and costly mitigation (Bellingham Herald July 23, 2012).

At the opposite end of the spectrum from Larsen’s boosting is his Seattle area colleague Cong. Jim McDermott who, on July 25, 2012, introduced “The True Cost of Coal Act of 2012” to address the growing concern over proposals that would bring nearly 175 million tons of coal through the Pacific Northwest by rail. It “…would require rail companies to suppress coal dust by covering or spraying freight rail cars carrying coal – coal trains release coal dust into the air, which harms the environment, degrades air quality and exposes nearby communities to significant health risks.”

McDermott’s press release continues: “To ensure that taxpayers aren’t saddled with the additional costs of dealing with these coal trains, this small tax could generate an estimated $115 billion over 10 years for affected states (through a tax of $10 per ton of extracted coal),” said McDermott, who is a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee — the U.S. House’s tax-writing committee. “Keep in mind, if the coal export proposals are approved, Washington and Oregon could see up to 175 million tons of coal transported through the two states by 2022 — currently Washington exports about 5 million tons. This huge increase will create enormous problems that states and localities will have to pay for with higher taxes, unless my bill or something similar to it is enacted into law.” (http://mcdermott.house.gov search of July 25, 2012)

To date, Congressman Rick Larsen has not signed on as a co-sponsor of this bill.

Anti-Coal Leadership Stays South of Bellingham

On July 23, 2012, the Bellingham City Council passed “A Resolution requesting that certain potential on and off-site impacts associated with the Gateway Pacific Terminal be analyzed as part of the SEPA and NEPA processes ….”

One might have expected that, in addition to passing a resolution, the professed progressive officials of Bellingham and Whatcom County, ground zero for the proposed coal terminal and its dozens more of daily coal trains, might have been the leaders of a broader movement to derail the proposal before its impacts could be felt.

One might have expected that officials elected to be leaders demonstrate leadership by hosting an anti-coal regional potlatch, serving our delicious reefnetted salmon garnished with local berries, plotting a regional strategy fueled by great local wines and applauded by the legions of local citizens energized on this issue.

But Herzzoner Linville and City Council members prefer to wring their hands and rhetorically ask: “What more can we realistically do besides urging the public to get involved,” rather than to take leadership in what is ultimately a political as well as legal-environmental battle.

Meanwhile the San Juan Islands (www.sanjuanjournal.com July 5, 2012) and Vancouver, WA, a jurisdiction not generally distinguished by environmental concerns, (www.columbian.com for July 16, 2012) have joined the multitude of communities from Montana westward that have joined in expressing their concerns and formally calling for broader environmental studies.

Farewell for Now

For the past eighteen months I have been writing regularly about the GPT issue but this is the last Coal Update I will be writing for Whatcom Watch. I will be away from Bellingham for much of the next few months and I won’t be able to give this issue the attention it deserves from a great distance, regardless of Internet resources, etc. I hope that a motivated and informed person will come forward to continue the effort of synthesizing and collating the most important items of the GPT and coal train issues. I will be making periodic, but not time-sensitive, contributions to Whatcom Watch on this issue and on the issues nearest and dearest to my experience: transportation in and around Bellingham.

General Information, Studies and Relevant Reports and Writings

• Check out www.coaltrainfacts.org/ for several regional news items

• American Prospect (prospect.org); Jason Mark’s July 11, 2012, “Digging for China: A Fight against planned coal-export terminals in the Pacific Northwest is becoming the next big climate battle.”

• “UPS professor taking measure of Tacoma train emissions” July 13, 2012 by Stacia Glenn of Tacoma’s News Tribune reprinted in The Bellingham Herald.

• A new report from the European environmental organization Transport & Environment: “’Diesel emissions cause cancer’: The World Health Organization says exposure to exhaust emissions from diesel engines definitely increases the possibility of tumours. The WHO has previously said diesel exhausts were ‘probably’ carcinogenic, but now a WHO body, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, says it is definitely a cause of lung and possibly of bladder tumours …” (www.transportenvironment.org/news/diesel-emissions-cause-cancer)