OPINION: Area-wide assessment of impacts sought for proposed coal terminal
A few months ago more than 124,000 comments by community members including doctors, teachers, business owners, fishers and tribal members flooded the Department of Ecology, Army Corps of Engineers and Whatcom County Planning Department with requests that these regulating agencies assess a broad range of probable impacts associated with the proposed Gateway Pacific coal terminal. Read the full story here.
Coal trains would worsen Marysville’s traffic problem
MARYSVILLE — When it comes to traffic backups from more coal trains, Marysville is Snohomish County’s ground zero. Of 33 street crossings on BNSF Railway’s north-south line in the county, 16 — nearly half — are in Marysville. Many of them already are congested. Read the full story here.
In the Northwest, rising coal exports to Asia stir huge fight
DECKER, Mont. — At Spring Creek Mine, a broad black seam of coal, reaching depths of 80 feet, runs like a subterranean river through arid, sagebrush-covered hills. This is a world-class seam formed from the remnants of ferns, grasses and other plants that flourished here more than 50 million years ago, when this part of Montana was a humid marsh. Read …
In Montana, ranchers line up against coal
COLSTRIP, Mont. — Out in these windy stretches of cottonwood and prairie grass, not far from where Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer ran into problems at Little Bighorn, a new battle is unfolding over what future energy development in the West will look like. Here, rancher Wallace McRae and his son, Clint, run cattle on 31,000 acres along Rosebud Creek, …
New regional alliance opposes coal-export plan from state ports
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn on Monday announced a new alliance of politicians and tribal leaders opposed to exporting Western coal to Asia from Washington ports. “We will stand together … to tell our federal and state leaders that we don’t want the coal trains here in the Pacific Northwest,” McGinn said. Read the full story here.
State should deny coal project permits to protect the Columbia River Gorge: Guest opinion
As elected officials in the Columbia River Gorge, we are frequently asked to weigh in on projects that affect our local quality of life. Few, however, present such potentially adverse economic and environmental effects as the continuing expansion of coal shipments. Only a few trains currently transport coal through the gorge, and already we’re seeing the damage caused by coal …
OPINION: Coal trains are poor policy
A long-view of coal-export facilities weaves together who is paying for what, the spectrum of environmental impacts, and forecasting where the country will be a generation from now. But politics are rarely hitched to a long view of history. Read the full story here.
Northwest Railroads Will Need Improvements To Handle Coal Trains
The five coal export terminals proposed for Washington and Oregon could add dozens of trains a day to Northwest railways. Those trains would mean new business for coal companies, railroad companies and the ports. They would create short-term construction jobs and long-term port and railroad jobs. They would generate tax revenue for the states with the ports. Read the full story here.
Port of Coos Bay coal-export proposal ends after 18 months of work
Another Northwest coal export project has dropped off the boards. The Port of Coos Bay said today that it has ended its exclusive negotiating agreement with Metro Ports of California, which had been exploring a coal export terminal in Coos Bay. Read the full story here.