I live in the Pacific Northwest, home to wildlife and landscape that can’t be found anywhere else, but now, our way of life is threatened by the specter of coal.
Wyoming is a coal state, Montana is a coal state, North Dakota is a fracturing technology state, the gulf of Mexico and the Alaskan Peninsula are endangered by oil and liquid natural gas extraction, and now the Pacific Northwest is falling under the gavel in the quest for more environmentally dangerous practices, leading to climate change with a proposed coal terminal.
This project is known as the Gateway Terminal, incorporating wharves that would move up to 48 million tons of coal a year. For perspective, that is enough to cover 80 acres in 5 open stockpiles, by water, each 2,100 feet long and up to 70 feet high, accomplished by utilizing ships, many nearly 3 football fields long and bound mostly for Asia and setting sail every 18 hours.
Cherry Point is already home to oil refineries that produce 140,000 barrels of oil a day, providing the west coast with most of its oil and gas supply, and now, is under threat of expansion for additional pipelines that could produce up to 800,000 barrels of oil a day. It also has an aluminum smelting plant, leading to more pollution of an already endangered oceanic gateway. The proposed expansion of the Gateway Terminal would make it the fourth largest terminal in the country and lead to environmental degradation and an encroachment on tribal treaty rites.
Cherry Point is the home of five treaty protected Washington tribes, with the land and fishing rights they encompass, as well as the home to a state aquatic reserve that has state and federally mandated endangered species, some that are only found in the waters of the Pacific.
The coal would be transported by rail with as many as 9 trains a day traveling to and from the terminal, all the way from Montana and Wyoming and would lead to an increase in coal use at a time when we need to be divesting in dirty energy and embracing clean technology.
Only by doing so can we adhere to our agreement to make 1.5 Celsius the acceptable climate regulation, honoring our part of the accord struck last January in Paris.
The proposal to open the Gateway Terminal at Cherry Point to increased coal transport would increase Asia’s dependence on coal and would disavow our commitment to follow the dictates of the Paris Accord. China already has the worst air conditions of any industrialized country and we would be contributing to their hazardous air pollution and promoting a reliance on outdated dirty technology.
Coal mining is a dirty, political endeavor, with miners becoming sick with the black death from coal dust and increasing health care costs and devastation to themselves and their families. Coal miners could become part of a federal program to retrain them into clean technology. Wyoming is one of the largest coal producing states in the country with zero percent clean energy and yet could be one of the nations leaders in wind technology leading the way to an energy future that we must embrace in order to keep future generations from devastating climate catastrophe.
Cherry Point stands as an opportunity to take control of our future and lead the way to energy freedom by incorporating new green technology and replacing outdated methods of production and refusing to permit future generations from inheriting our wreckage.