January 22, 2016

Sonia Bumpus, EFS Specialist, & EFSEC Members

Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC)

State of Washington

1300 S. Evergreen Park Drive SW

P.O. Box 43172

Olympia, Washington 98504-3172

sbumpus@utc.wa.gov

Sent via email and attachment

WIRT Comments on Tesoro Savage Vancouver Energy Project Draft Environmental Impact Statement

Members of the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council,

On behalf of over 3200 members, friends, and allies of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), including potentially impacted, concerned north Idaho residents near the proposed and existing rail routes affected by this proposal, I respectfully offer and request inclusion in the public record of these comments regarding the Tesoro Savage Vancouver Energy Project draft environmental impact statement (DEIS), during the public agency and citizen review period from November 24, 2015, until January 22, 2016 [1]. WIRT and associates collectively object to state permitting of the Tesoro Savage oil train terminal planned for the Port of Vancouver, Washington, which would impart myriad, significant risks and only marginal rewards for communities along the rail tracks and bridges, rivers, and lakes of Tesoro’s and Savage’s profitable thoroughfare to crude oil export.  In support of this official letter of resistance to Washington state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) approval of this application and resulting, destructive, implementation activities, we thoroughly concur with, contribute toward, and incorporate the concerns, oral testimony, and comments of all project opponents.

The Tesoro and Savage corporations intend to build the biggest crude-oil-by-rail terminal in the U.S. at the Port of Vancouver, potentially transferring an estimated 360,000 barrels per day of explosive Bakken shale oil and volatile Alberta diluted bitumen (tar sands) to tank farms across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, and to huge, ocean-going oil tankers shipping it to West Coast refineries and the world market [2]. Inevitable, disastrous, consequent oil spills into river, lake, or sea waters along rail and ocean routes, especially releases of thick tar sands oil that sinks to the bottom of waterways, would devastate local and regional waters and environments, fisheries, tribal lifeways, communities, and economies.

While moving enormous volumes of oil that ultimately impact our shared global climate, the Tesoro Savage facility would also increase the risk of fiery oil train accidents in countless communities along Northwest rail lines, from the Hi-Line around U.S. Highway 2 in Montana, to U.S. Highway 95 corridor towns from Bonners Ferry to Rathdrum in northern Idaho, to the dangerously elevated bridge and track funnels through the Sandpoint, Idaho area and downtown Spokane, Washington, to the Columbia River Gorge between eastern Oregon and Washington, to Vancouver [3, 4]. Every day, the huge oil terminal would bring four or more 100-car, mile-long trains toward the West Coast, hauling flammable cargo through climate-change-drying forests, increasingly dense cities, and ever more precious water bodies.  Public officials and emergency responders across the Northwest have raised concerns about the severe threats of oil train derailments, explosions, and pollution, as such incidents continually proliferate [5-7].

Many WIRT and allied group members who carpooled from Moscow and Sandpoint, Idaho, and Pullman, Washington, participated in the regional community rally of terminal opponents and orally testified at the public hearing on the project’s DEIS, hosted by EFSEC on Thursday evening, January 14, 2016, in Spokane Valley, Washington [8-10]. These activists spoke against the Tesoro Savage proposal, the deficiencies of its DEIS findings, greater hazards imposed by this massive project of significant oil spills, air pollution, loaded train derailments, explosions, fires, and accidents causing numerous injuries and deaths, increased rail and waterway traffic of oil tankers, harm to federally protected salmonids and aquatic species, detrimental effects on tribal treaties, cultures, and resources, susceptibility of the facility to earthquakes, more and longer vehicle delays at railroad crossings, and overall exacerbation of climate change [11].  These myriad, significant, environmental, social, and human health harms cannot be fully mitigated by the project proponents or local, state, and federal agencies.  Moreover, the project DEIS does not even consider the predictable potential impacts of this oil terminal beyond Washington state. Continue reading →