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AP photo
A BNSF train hauling coal to British Columbia heads north out of downtown Seattle. If a Gateway Pacific Terminal near Cherry Point is built, it's estimated 38 to 63 additional trains will pass through our state. (AP/Elaine Thompson photo)

Washington's coal train controversy pulls in to Seattle

December 11, 2012 @ 6:17 pm (Updated: 10:49 am - 12/12/12 )

There are very few issues that rattle people all over Washington State. A proposal to build a $665 million coal terminal near Bellingham is one of them.

Coal, the combustible black sedimentary rock that melted iron in furnaces and generated the steam for locomotive engines hundreds of years ago, is still used today.

It generates nearly 45 percent of the electricity in the U.S. and China is the largest consumer of coal in the world.

Most of the coal in the Western U.S. comes from Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.

You don't need a math story problem to answer the question, if a train loaded with coal from the West is bound for China which state does it likely pass through?

Coal trains are already chugging through Washington.

If a planned Gateway Pacific Terminal near Cherry Point is built, an estimated 38 additional trains will roll through our state each day - including 18 a day in Seattle. Nearly 140 million tons of additional coal will be sent to China and other Asian customers each year.

The Cherry Point area is also home to the largest oil refinery in Washington. It's located northwest of Bellingham on the Strait of Georgia between Birch Bay and Lummi Bay.

"We came up with 22 reasons why this is a really bad idea," says Stoney Bird, a former corporate lawyer and Bellingham environmental activist.

Opponents' reasons range from "very local stuff," he says from noise and health problems for people who live beside the tracks, to impeding emergency vehicles that need to cross tracks, to the further wiping out of the herring stock at Cherry Point.

"There are environmental concerns with freighters which are the largest in the world, twice the size of the oil tankers that are allowed in Puget Sound now," says Bird.

Getting coal from its source, the earth's crust, involves digging large pits.

"The mines are dotting our country," says Bird. "Even greater is the global warming that will result from the burning of the coal."

The process of burning coal "releases a poisonous cocktail of gases into the environment." Carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and small airborne particles of coal are released.

One estimate from opponents of the Cherry Point plant says the amount of carbon dioxide from a single coal plant equates to the same effect as cutting down 161 million trees.

Coal supporters say increasing exports will boost the US economy and create jobs.

Business leaders in Bellingham believe SSA Marine, the project sponsor, has the ability to build the most "environmentally sound" shipping terminal in the world.

Ferndale Mayor Gary Jensen is among those who support the coal terminal. He believes Whatcom County needs more good jobs. In addition, the terminal will be a "good citizen" paying taxes along with wages.

Employment has been an issue in the region since the closure of the Georgia-Pacific pulp mill in Bellingham in 2001, although Whatcom County's unemployment rate - 6.4 percent - is lower than the state average of 8.2 percent. The development could bring up to 4,400 jobs to the region.

The export terminal is expected to generate $74-$92 million in state and local tax revenues.

If the environmental review is approved and the export terminal project gets a green light, Peabody Coal, the nation's largest coal company, would begin shipping 24 million tons of coal a year through the facility. The shipments would be ramped up to 48 million tons.

SSA Marine of Seattle would operate the terminal, while Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway would also benefit with an increase in its hauling business.

While many public hearings are ignored, the meetings to talk about coal have been crowded and contentious.

A meeting scheduled in Seattle last month had so much interest they had to find a bigger venue. That hearing is now set for Thursday, December 13 from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Washington State Convention Center.

Seattle has also been studying the impact of 18 coal trains per day passing through the city.

A study commissioned by the Seattle Department of Transportation found the coal trains would increase delays at railroad crossings by between one and three hours per day by 2026.

Not only would drivers be stuck at crossings longer, according to the Parametrix study, but there could be an increase in police and fire response times for emergencies, particularly in Seattle's SoDo area.

By LINDA THOMAS

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Comments (35)


  • Add A Comment

  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    If we want to create jobs, build liquifaction plants
    December 12, 2012 8:45 am
    Turn the coal into a liquid, very near where it is mined, and then send it by pipeline to Bellingham. Coal liquifaction is proven science, developed about 100 years ago. It was a primary means by which Nazi Germany produced motor fuels during WWII.
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  • HLC wrote...
    Lets see.
    December 12, 2012 9:24 am
    Twenty two reasons against, 4400 reasons for. Pretty much a no brainer for me. Your right CH because the right to work states will have the jobs. The union shills will see to it.
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  • messiah101 wrote...
    HLC
    December 12, 2012 9:42 am
    As usual you fail to grasp the obvious which is that the Train and Coal companies hire PR companies to sell the project to nitwits like you.Remember that when your sitting by the tracks waiting for that 200 car coal train to pass by
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  • maplefish wrote...
    Like a 200 car train
    December 12, 2012 10:42 am
    Is gonna make any difference in the lousy traffic around here... And speaking of trains, don't we already have trains in the Pacific Northwest? Geeeeesh Messy, do you argue with everybody just to argue? Do you ave any idea how stupid you sound ( more than usual) today? Every once in a while I think there's a glimmer of hope for you, today? Not so much...LOL. This is a no brainier. I guess that's why you disagree. You have no brain....I am on a roll.....LOL
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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    Selling ourselves into bondage....oh, well, at least some private company is making a buck from the highest bidder....
    December 12, 2012 9:59 am
    Let there be no more propaganda from the right about "expanding" the domestic production of coal, oil, and other fuel sources in the United States.

    We could use that coal to just about eliminate petroleum imports and remove the sandals of the oil sheiks from our collective necks. Do we? Will we? Hell(o) no we won't. We'll sell the raw materials to one of our global rivals, (and recent adversaries), while buying replacement raw materials from still other rivals and adversaries. The more we produce locally, the more we will export to the highest bidder. What fools we are, to measure costs and profits only from an immediate dollar standpoint. That's why our great grandchildren will be studying Mandarin in kindergarten.

    We cannot expect to remain a free people unless we can determine our own destiny, energy wise.

    Alas,there's now a higher principle in the United States than personal freedom or independence from foreign tyrants. That principle seems to be the pursuit of private profits (by BIGOIL) even as the process works directly *against* the larger public interest.

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  • maplefish wrote...
    Uhmmmm, Chuck
    December 12, 2012 10:45 am
    You may want to talk to Barak Obama about working against the larger public interest and personal freedom. His class warfare agenda does both.
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  • Chuck Gould wrote...
    woodfish....???
    December 12, 2012 11:43 am
    Where did that come from. Can't you guys discuss any topic without dredging up Obama? Our screwed up energy policy of drilling and mining resources here in the US, selling the oil, coal, etc overseas, and then buying replacement materials at higher prices from still other overseas interests certainly predates Barack Obama. Four years from now, when Republican head-in-the-sand-of-the-50's -and-60's ensures the *next* Democrat president takes over, [or when the Republicans have finally been slapped awake and they get with the program again and retake the WH], be sure that same policy will continue under the next president as well.
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  • eastcoastexpat74 wrote...
    Coal Terminal in Aberdeen
    December 12, 2012 10:11 am
    What about the proposal to bulid a coal terminal in Aberdeen? If I have ever seen an area that needs jobs around here it is Aberdeen and Gray's Harbor. The rail line to there would need a little upgrading work to handle the traffic but it goes through lightly populated areas.
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  • maplefish wrote...
    Eastcoasttex....
    December 12, 2012 10:39 am
    Man that is the truth. That area is in bad shape. They could really use the jobs. Good idea.
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  • Forrest wrote...
    High paying jobs and a trade deficit with China.
    December 12, 2012 12:04 pm
    Seems like a no brainer to me.
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  • messiah101 wrote...
    Interesting
    December 12, 2012 12:43 pm
    How the normal cast of Far Righty posters have absolutely no ideas on making the trains easier to deal with for those of us on the more populated west side of our state. No one has insinuated that the trains should be blocked but alternatives have been given to ease the extra 30 miles of trains a day that the coal companies want to route to Cherry Point.I can only believe that its a pure $$$ decision on the part of the train and coal companies.However their profits should not be on the back of the citizens who will be inconvienced by this huge jump in train traffic.
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