Over the past decade the Pacific Northwest has been the object of a lot of interest from the fossil fuel industry for locating export terminals with a number of projects being proposed. Most have fallen by the wayside in a series of victories for local environmental activists in some instances, and in others the business cases no longer supported their financing and construction.
by Katie Herzog
The Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council in Olympia voted to reject a proposed $210 million oil terminal in Vancouver, Washington on Tuesday.
The terminal—which was supported by the oil and rail industries, and opposed by tribes, environmentalists, and Vancouver voters—would move 360,000 barrels of oil from the Bakken Shale fields in North Dakota and Montana to West Coast refineries, where it could then be shipped overseas to more lucrative energy markets. The terminal would occupy nearly 50 acres along the Columbia River, and opponents have been (rightly) concerned about potential derailments and explosion. Crude oil from the Bakken shale is especially flammable, and the trains that transport it, sometimes called "bomb trains," have been involved in high profile accidents, including a 2013 derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 and destroyed the town center.
While the Lac-Mégantic detrailment was the most deadly of its kind in recent history, it was far from the only one. Dozens of derailments and explosionshave occurred across the U.S. and Canada over the past few years, including a 2016 detrailment on the Oregon side of the Columbia near the town of Mosier, which led to an evacuation after multiple cars caught fire.
The biggest fight we now face is across the border in British Columbia to twin the Trans Mountain pipeline turning Vancouver BC into a Tat Sands oil port.