These stories regarding coal exports end up being “experts” throwing “stuff” at a wall and hoping something sticks. They are driving me crazy. There are viable arguments regarding burning coal and allowing China to burn our coal. To address the problem in an intelligent manner would involve presenting China’s pollution issues and the effects on our health, which there are several, to Congress along with our fellow citizens and have Congress prohibit coal export from the US. Otherwise, Powder River coal will be exported from somewhere and the root problem will not be addressed. Moreover, people quit listening to the arguments when stories like these keep being repeated.

Quit spreading hysteria. I desire long term, clearly thought out questions and answers.

As we speak Port of Seattle is eagerly seeking customers for its container ship unloading operations. These containers are shipped by diesel trucks to a variety of transfer points around the Seattle/Kent/Tacoma area. Generally, these efforts by the Port are applauded here but maybe not by doctors who really know the health risks that we are incurring by
living near a major port. I think seattlelifer says it well; if the diesel fumes are truly a big problem then we have to also look critically at more places than Bellingham.

Most drs don"t care as long as you have medical isurance

Would that be a cashectomy?

There are plenty of good reasons not to put a coal port in Whatcom county but this may not be one of them.

The diseases and health problems from coal have been well documented. Somehow the industry seems to be OK with this, children are especially vulnerable. This company lied (a lot) about how many tons of coal would travel through the area. I don't think I am going to trust their numbers on air pollution. It also seems they are using figures based on air quality right now, not after they have wormed their way into Bellingham.

The emissions from existing rail traffic are not relevant. The emissions that will be generated by the vastly increased traffic to haul the coal and return empty trains is what needs to be analyzed. Similarly, the emissions from other sources (i.e. woodstoves) are only relevant insofar as the additional emissions from exporting the coal to asia increases the cumulative effect. Of course, woodstoves also produce a benefit to the people being warmed by them, whereas the claimed benefits of coal export overwhelmingly accrue to people who do not suffer the impacts. And to add to the cumulative effects, pollutants from burning the coal in asia will blow across the Pacific back to here. And that's ignoring the impact of the greenhouse gases.

A final comment. SSA's position that only the impacts on site need to be analyzed is a throw-away. Unless they have the stupidest lawyers in the northern hemisphere, this is long settled law. The impact that will be cutting edge in terms of the upcoming litigation is the greenhouse gas impacts. Since the litigation will be pursuant to the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) and not the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), federal pre-emption may not apply. In other words, defending failure to consider the impacts of the greenhouse gas emissions from burning the coal based on it being up to Congress may be a non-starter.

It is a bit frightening that this group of doctors would publish statements that are so clearly at odds with the facts or so clearly outside the context of reality. The critical issue about additional trains and air quality can only be determined by the overall composition of all pollutants in the airshed. If it is true, as stated above, that wood stoves are 35 percent the particulates and rail emissions less than one percent, then why aren't they demanding the end of wood burning? Not to mention trucks, boats, generators, and building heating systems? They should read the Puget Sound Air Emissions Inventory published a while back which clearly shows where the bad stuff in the air comes from, and it isn't trains. The way to answer this issue is to place monitors along the rail tracks and see what happens.
It is also disturbing to see many "experts" reporting that Canadian coal facilities cannot handle coal from the Powder River Basin, these arguments offered in response to the points made that trains carrying coal are now heading to Canada and will contnue to do so whether or not this Gateway terminal is built. Sources are being quoted stating that there will not be more coal trains running north through Washington state. This is somewhat astonishing because if you Google Westshore Terminal in Canada you will learn they can increase capacity from 29 million tons to 33 million tons and much more than that once the Port of Vancouver expands Roberts Bank. It is even more astonishing when it is reported that Ridley Island in Prince Rupert can "only" double its capacity from 12 to 24 million tons. The arguments being made are that all the Canadian terminals together cannot export the tonnage that Gateway might handle and therefore don't worry, if Gateway isn't built then the coal trains won't go north. However, if you Google Ridley Terminals you will learn that they are today doubling their terminal to 24 million tons, but even more important if you look at a map of Ridley Island you will see that the potential area for industrial expansion is almost 1,000 acres and the current coal terminal occupies less than 200 acres. The berths are already built there for ships as big as 350,000 tons; the train tracks are there, the utilities are there. If the demand is there that island could expand capacity to 48 - 72 - even 100 million tons very very fast indeed.
All of this is to state that the misinformation is increasing, not decreasing, and unfortunately it is being offered by people whose training and professional standards should know better. In the end, ALL of these issues will be examined by the EIS process and we'd all do well to take a deep breath, relax, and let the process take its course. In the end either this project will have impacts that are too burdensome to bear, and the project will be stopped, or the impacts will be mitigated and the project will proceed. And as mentioned earlier, if the issue is diesel from trucks and trains, or the actual mining of coal, then the battle needs to be joined at the Federal level, not Whatcom County.

If SSA Marine’s spokesperson Mr. Smith of the PR firm Smith and Stark in Seattle had read the materials on particulate matter from Department of Ecology as thoroughly as he and his partner Mr Stark should have, then they would also be familiar with these two quotes:

1. The Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) has identified diesel exhaust as the air pollutant most harmful to public health in Washington State. Seventy percent of the cancer risk from airborne pollutants is from diesel exhaust.

2. Diesel PM2.5 poses the most serious risk from diesel exhaust because of its toxicity. PM2.5 from diesel exhaust is more toxic than other forms of PM2.5, such as wood smoke.

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/air/pdfs/dieselexecutivesummary[dot]pdf

They and posters like "the truth" above are spreading a massive amount of misinformation which strongly correlates both with the amount of profits at stake for the corporations involved (SSA Marine, Goldman Sachs, BNSF, and Peabody Energy)and the amount of damage that will be done to public health, shared resources, and quality of life.

Thank you Whatcom DOCs for taking the time to research these issues and to be a voice for public health in the face of "the slings and arrows" of corporate spin and meanness. Welcome to the fray.

Bob Ferris
Executive Director
RE Sources for Sustainable Communities

It is true that diesel exhaust is considered harmful to health. It is also true that fuels for diesel engines are getting much better all the time such that emissions from truck engines built today are about one hundredth what they were fifteen years ago. More importantly, all diesel engines, trucks, ships, and trains, are required under various national and international laws to become much cleaner in the years ahead. The statement above by Mr. Ferris is an excellent example of the misinformation he accuses others of - he states that diesel is toxic and expects us then to believe that diesel from trains is the root of air quality problems. It is true that diesel pollutants are bad. What Mr. Ferris (and others) does not share or explain is the critical question of which diesel sources produce how much relative harm. The Puget Sound Maritime Air Emission Inventory is a good start, as this shows which sources contribute which percentages of diesel emissions. This is not to say that trains are clean - they are not - but in the broad scheme of a diesel engine powered society trains are a tiny portion of the diesel emissions in this airshed. The trains are also an even tinier percentage of particulates in the airshed. On the basis that you handle the biggest offenders first, it would be trucks and diesel cars, not trains, that are the major producers. On the basis of particulates, it would be wood stoves, not trains, yet we do not hear people calling for the outlawing of all stoves, or trucks and cars. It is true that diesel engines on trains produce more diesel emissions than a truck engine, for example, but four engines pulling one train in no way equal the many thousands of trucks running in and around our cities and on our interstates. Look at that emissions inventory, prepared for the entire Puget Sound airshed, and you will see where trains fit in in the picture. Their contribution may surprise you. This study was done by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency and can be found at http://www.pscleanair.org/programs/dieselsolutions/diesel_downloads/PugetSound_MaritimeAirEmissionsInventory.pdf

These points in no way are designed to support or protect the companies seeking to build a cargo terminal. Those companies have the right to apply to build a facility, do they not? They must follow a legally required process which begins with a detailed and independent and fact based EIS (paid by the applicant). This work should surface the impacts possible and projected. This work has not yet started. There are a host of real and legitimate concerns about a development like this but let's stay with the real not the imagined. In the meantime sweeping statements that diesel is very toxic and therefore by assumption any diesel train is a huge contributor to health problems , when known facts and data indicate that the health issues if any result from a host of other stationary and mobile sources, only serve to misinform, raise the emotional pitch, and stand in the face of data and facts. We have clean air agencies in this region. They have data about particulate and pollutant sources. Look to the data. It is tempting to claim that coal trains are huge purveyors of dust and health damage, but if that is true then why, in a nation where over 30 percent of all railcars are filled with coal, going everywhere in the United States, hasn't there been an outcry for years throughout the nation? Why if there have been coal trains running through Washington for years have there not been air quality and health issues reported to the various regulatory authorities? Before we all get too excited about our various positions find out first what the current situation is with this airshed, what sorts of pollution exist, and its sources.

Those quotes are not mine, but come from Washington Department of Ecology. Please see the link. The PR firm that works for SSA was trying via their statements to make it seems that wood smoke is a much more serious problem, i.e., don't look at us, look at wood smoke.

As to trains and their relative contribution. First, that will literally change with this project. This represents a doubling of the train traffic in certain areas. The other thing is that trains often run through populated areas--that is very true for Bellingham--so impact on some communities will exceed it overall all relative contribution.