June 12, 2013

DEQ: Comment Coal Export

475 NE Bellevue Drive, Suite 110

Bend, Oregon 97701

Oregon Department of Environmental Quality staff:

On behalf of the 1600-plus members of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), we respectfully submit and request inclusion in the public record of these comments on three draft permits recently issued by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for Ambre Energy’s controversial Morrow Pacific Project, to regulate air, water, and storm water quality at the proposed Coyote Island coal export terminal at the Port of Morrow near Boardman.  For the record, we also ask that you integrate with this statement the comments of our allies, Columbia Riverkeeper, Friends of the Columbia Gorge, Sierra Club, Spokane Riverkeeper, and other regional organizations opposing coal export.

WIRT activists are outraged by Ambre Energy’s proposed industrial rampages beyond the geographically limited scope of rushed Oregon hearings and comment periods on these draft air and water pollution permits.  We thus demand that the Oregon DEQ further extend environmental review of this dirty energy scheme.  As DEQ has never before permitted a coal export terminal, it should support and await a more stringent U.S. Army Corps of Engineers mine-to-port programmatic environmental impact statement analysis than the Corps’ current environmental assessment.

Additional 1.5-mile-long, uncovered coal trains, each with 125 cars carrying almost nine million metric tons of strip-mined Montana/Wyoming coal per year across lands and along water bodies in Montana, Idaho, and Washington to the port, would spew toxic coal dust, diesel fumes, derailed loads, and incessant noise, disrupt local transportation, businesses, emergency responses, and economies, and degrade public health, quality of life, property values, and regional identity.  The Morrow Pacific Project open coal transfer dock and storage buildings, covered coal barges through the critical, high quality Columbia River habitat of endangered salmonid species, and exposed Port Westward docks for ocean‐going coal ships – all constructed and/or utilized to transport coal to Asian markets for combustion – would increase river traffic, compromise air and water quality, jeopardize aquatic ecosystems, fisheries, wildlife, and recreation, and significantly exacerbate global climate change.  Substantial taxpayer investments across four states would support the required infrastructure and mitigate the predictable damages of this corporate onslaught.

But the Oregon DEQ draft permits do not adequately address or circumscribe these numerous impacts of the Northwest’s first coal export terminal, sought by an inexperienced, untrustworthy, financially unstable Australian company that has never operated such facilities with unproven technologies [1].  Is DEQ aware that Ambre officials have misled Washington state and Cowlitz County personnel about the size of the proposed Millennium Bulk Logistics coal port near Longview, Washington, while obtaining permits for a much smaller export terminal than its plans for moving 60 million tons of coal per year out of the region?  How will DEQ protect the air, water, lands, wildlife, and communities of four Northwestern states from this disreputable corporation, if Oregon administrators insist on fast-tracking draft state permits before federal decisions on this project, while ignoring its full impacts and waiving their authority over them?  DEQ and the State of Oregon should consider the following contingencies and revisions, prudently require a full, rigorous analysis of coal port impacts (like the Oregon Department of State Lands did), and coordinate their presently piecemeal coal facility permits, before issuing any permits to Ambre Energy. Continue reading →

In solidarity with grassroots organizations across the country, Rising Tide and allied groups throughout the Northwest organized region-wide direct actions for the Fearless Summer Escalating Week of Action during June 24 to 29 [1].  In Coeur d’Alene, Missoula, Portland, Seattle, and Spokane on June 25, 27, and 28, climate activists protested extreme energy extraction, transportation, and combustion through coordinated demonstrations confronting dirty energy industrial projects including Northwest coal mining, hauling, and burning [2-5].

Like citizens in the Northwest and beyond, activists and allies of Occupy Spokane, Spokane Coalition Builders, and Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) take issue with a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) disclosure at a June 18 U.S. House Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing [6].  The federal agency stated that it will not undertake a programmatic environmental impact statement considering the broader climate change impacts and the effects of rail transport of coal in its review of three proposed Northwest coal export terminals [7-9].  The Corps has also unjustifiably fast-tracked its environmental assessment of Ambre Energy’s Morrow Pacific Project plans for the Coyote Island coal export terminal at the Port of Morrow in Boardman, Oregon [10].

On behalf of the health and environment of eastern Washingtonians, Idahoans, and Montanans dismissed by the Corps, about two dozen people staged two demonstrations called Fearless Summer: Coal Export Sacrifice Zone Uprising in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and Spokane, Washington [11-13].  On Thursday, June 27, protesters encountered a deserted Corps regulatory field office in Coeur d’Alene, with a note posted on its door saying that “staff members are working in the field during the afternoon of Thursday, June 27.”  Through photographs, activists nonetheless documented citizen outrage with Corps coal export decisions, before personnel at the private office building expressed their displeasure with their presence.

During evening rush-hour traffic on North Division Street in Spokane on Thursday, June 27, over 20 people gathered for a sign-waving rally denouncing coal export train routes and increased rail traffic through northern Idaho and Spokane.  While most of the participants stood  near the Sprague Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way intersections, two activists walked toward the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railroad bridge over Division Street near Sprague Avenue, to obtain higher traffic visibility for their protest signs juxtaposed to the loaded coal train cars temporarily stopped on the bridge.  BNSF patrols cited Tony Dellwo and “Ziggy” with second degree criminal trespass [14].  Along with supportive fellow coal export opponents, the defendants will appear in Spokane district court for hearings on July 5 and 11. Continue reading →