Environment Archives - Page 35 of 106

Inslee Water Quality Plan Too Little, Too Late

Note: Being Frank is the monthly opinion column that was written for many years by the late Billy Frank Jr., NWIFC Chairman. To honor him, the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington will continue to share their perspectives on natural resources management through this column. This month’s writer is Russ Hepfer, Vice Chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and an NWIFC commissioner.

“Being Frank”

Inslee Water Quality Plan Too Little, Too Late

By: Russ Hepfer, Vice Chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe

More delay is about the only thing that any of us who live here in Washington can count on when it comes to a badly needed update of state water quality standards to protect our health.

After decades of foot-dragging by previous governors, Gov. Jay Inslee recently unveiled his plan to revise our state’s ridiculously outdated water quality standards. While the plan offers a small increase in protection from 70 percent of the toxic chemicals regulated by the federal Clean Water Act, it maintains the inadequate status quo for the other 30 percent.

At best Inslee’s plan offers minimal progress in reducing contamination; at worst it provides a tenfold increase in our cancer risk rate.

Water quality standards are based in large part on how much fish and shellfish we eat. The more we eat, the cleaner the water needs to be. Two numbers drive our water quality standards: our fish consumption rate and our cancer risk rate from pollution in our waters.

Inslee’s plan rightly increases our fish consumption rate from the current 6.5 grams per day (about one serving of fish or shellfish per month) to 175 grams per day (at least one meal of fish or shellfish per day).

Support for that amount is a huge concession by tribes. Most tribal members, as well as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders eat far more than 175 grams of fish and shellfish per day. Current studies show daily consumption rates of 236 to 800 grams. Even those numbers represent suppressed rates. If more fish and shellfish were available for harvest, more would be eaten.

While giving a little with one hand, Inslee takes away a lot with the other, increasing our “acceptable” cancer risk rate tenfold, from one in a million to one in 100,000. Do you think anyone who gets cancer from the pollution in our fish and shellfish would find that risk rate acceptable? Would you?

That one in a million rate has protected all of us for the past 20 years. By increasing the cancer risk rate Inslee effectively cancels out most of the health benefits and improved water quality provided by the increased fish consumption rate.

The fish consumption and cancer risk rates are supposed to protect those who need it the most: children, women of childbearing age, Indians, Asian and Pacific Islanders, sport fishermen and anyone who likes to eat local fish and shellfish. When the most vulnerable among us is protected, so is everyone else.

To make up for the loss of protection under the cancer risk rate, Inslee proposes a statewide toxics reduction effort that would require legislative approval and funding. While the idea of a large toxics reduction program is a good one, it is not a substitute for an updated state water quality standards rule that carries the force of law.

No one knows what the Legislature might do, but two things are certain. There will be more delay and more opposition to Inslee’s proposal. Boeing and other opponents to improved water quality rules will likely engage in full-strength lobbying during the session to block any meaningful change, claiming that it will increase their cost of doing business.

The state has a clear duty to protect the environment to ensure that our treaty foods such as fish and shellfish are safe to eat. If not, those rights are meaningless. We will not put our hard-won treaty rights or the health of our children in the hands of the governor or state Legislature.

Our treaty rights already are at risk because most salmon populations continue to decline. The reason is that we are losing salmon habitat faster than it can be restored. What good is restored habitat if it does not include clean water?

Washington could have joined Oregon as a leader in protecting human health and natural resources. Oregon two years ago increased its fish consumption rate to 175 grams per day and kept the one-in-a-million cancer risk rate. Now Oregon has the highest standards of protection in the United States.

Meanwhile, the Oregon economy hasn’t suffered and not one company has gone out of business as a result. Don’t we all deserve the same level of protection as Oregonians?

Any kind of justice that is delayed is justice denied. That includes both social and environmental justice. Further delays and weak water quality standards only worsen the suffering of many. Inslee’s plan is too little, too late.

3 West Coast governors oppose offshore drilling

By: Associated Press

The governors of California, Oregon and Washington sent a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewel on Thursday to stress that they don’t want the possibility of drilling off of the West Coast.

The Interior Department is developing an updated plan for its Outer Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, and the governors formally stated their opposition to the inclusion of any oil or gas lease sales off the coast as part of any new plan.

Govs. Jay Inslee, of Washington, Jerry Brown, of California, and John Kitzhaber, of Oregon, wrote that their three states “represent the fifth-largest economy in the world” and their ocean-dependent industries contribute billions of dollars to the region each year.

“While new technology reduces the risk of a catastrophic event such as the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, a sizeable spill anywhere along our shared coast would have a devastating impact on our population, recreation, natural resources, and our ocean and coastal dependent economies,” they wrote.

The governors, all Democrats, also stressed a commitment to develop a strategy to combat climate change.

“Oil and gas leasing may be appropriate for regions where there is state support for such development and the impacts can be mitigated,” they wrote. “However, along the West Coast, our states stand ready to work with the Obama Administration to help craft a comprehensive and science-based national energy policy that aligns with the actions we are taking to invest in energy efficiency, Oil and Gas Leasing Program alternative renewable energy sources, and pricing carbon.”

Inslee spokesman David Postman said that while there aren’t any current plans for West Coast leases, the governors want to ensure there aren’t any in the new plan.

Tribes hold vigils for Columbia River salmon

By: Associated Press, August 4, 2014

HOOD RIVER, Ore. (AP) — Native American tribes in the U.S. and Canada are holding vigils along the Columbia River to pray for the return of salmon migration as the two countries prepare to renegotiate a treaty concerning the river.

The treaty, signed in 1964, governs operations of dams and reservoirs that have caused salmon run declines.

Tribes are pushing to include salmon restoration to the upper Columbia, above Grand Coulee Dam in northern Washington State, in the treaty.

In recommendations for potential negotiations, the U.S. says the two countries should study the possibility of restoring fish passage over that dam. But Canada says restoring fish migration and habitat is not a treaty issue.

Seventeen vigils will be held along the length of the river, in Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia.

Jamestown S’Klallam Gathering Steelhead DNA for Database

By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commissions

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe wants to know which age class of steelhead is surviving best within the Dungeness River watershed.

While checking smolt traps and conducting spawning ground surveys this spring, the tribe took tail and scale samples from 500 juvenile steelhead in five creeks between Sequim and Port Angeles: Seibert, McDonald, Matriotti, Bell and Jimmycomelately.

“We’re already counting the adults and juveniles every spring and fall, so why not take DNA samples and develop an age database for steelhead?” said natural resources technician Chris Burns.

Steelhead scales are taken to be analyzed for DNA.

Analyzing the scales will tell biologists how long a steelhead has been in fresh water before out-migrating and how long it spent at sea. The DNA also will show whether the steelhead migrated back out to sea after spawning in fresh water.

Steelhead returns are harder to forecast because of their complex life history. Juvenile steelhead leave fresh water between the first and fourth years of life, but return from salt water in one to five years. Steelhead also are repeat spawners, returning to salt water before coming back to fresh water to spawn again during their lifespan, which can be as long as seven to nine years.

The genetics information would be shared with the state to help develop a larger database.

“By zoning in on steelhead ages, it will help the tribe with fisheries management, resulting in more accurate returns and harvest management decisions,” Burns said.

Puget Sound steelhead were listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in 2007. The primary causes of the decline of the steelhead population include degraded habitat, fish-blocking culverts and unfavorable ocean conditions.

At this year’s big climate rally, most of the people won’t be pale, male, and stale

People’s Climate March

By Ben Adler, Grist

More than 500 organizations are planning a historic event for Sept. 21 in New York City, what they say will be the largest rally for climate action ever. Organizers and ralliers will be calling on world leaders to craft a new international climate treaty, two days before those leaders will convene at a Climate Summit at the United Nations headquarters. Jamie Henn, spokesperson for 350.org, the main convener of the event, declined to offer a precise target for turnout, but the current holder of the largest-climate-rally title, a February 2012 march on the White House, drew around 50,000 people, so organizers are expecting more than that — possibly significantly more.

However many people show up, though, this march will likely be historic for another reason: its diversity and its focus on climate justice. More than 20 labor unions are among the organizations leading in the planning and turnout efforts. On Wednesday morning, representatives of a handful of them gathered in the Midtown Manhattan office of 1199, the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), for a press conference, and then they were joined in Times Square by more unions for a small pep rally to promote the September event. Other groups present included locals from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Transport Workers Union of Greater New York (TWU), and local social- and environmental-justice organizations such as UPROSE and the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance.

woman with sign — People’s Climate March

These locals are larger than they sound. 1199 and 32BJ, another union also affiliated with SEIU, cover multiple large East Coast states including New York, Massachusetts, and Florida. 1199 alone has more than 400,000 members. And they are diverse — 1199 represents health care workers such as nurses, and 32BJ represents custodial workers. These are not like the overwhelmingly white male unions in the construction trades. They are predominantly non-white and largely made up of women. This includes their top leadership, and their representatives at Wednesday’s event.

Speakers at the press conference and the rally focused on the ways low- and middle-income New Yorkers like their members are affected by climate change. Hurricane Sandy loomed large. In the storm’s aftermath, hospital and transportation workers were tasked with trying to save lives and get the city running amid flooded infrastructure and prolonged blackouts. For people who care about being able to provide reliable transportation and health care, the threat of more frequent superstorms, heat waves, and floods is alarming. And the flooding of waterfront industrial districts like the South Bronx and Brooklyn’s Sunset Park caused major disruption for private sector blue-collar workers and nearby working class neighborhoods.

Many of the union members live in public housing, which is often located in waterfront neighborhoods like the Lower East Side, Red Hook, and Far Rockaway. Those low-lying projects were among the worst-hit areas during Sandy. “Twenty percent of public housing in New York City was affected by Sandy,” said Eddie Bautista, executive director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance. “It’s about community health, it’s about jobs, and it’s about justice.”

The unions also see moving to a sustainable clean energy economy, instead of one based on extracting fossil fuels, as a matter of economic self-interest. 1199, unlike some construction unions, opposes approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline because, says spokesperson Chelsea-Lyn Rudder, “We want long-term jobs, not the short-term jobs that Keystone might create.” Cutting down on auto emissions and oil consumption by expanding mass transit, instead of building an oil pipeline, would create permanent jobs driving buses and trains. “Mass transit is green jobs,” noted LaTonya Crisp-Sauray, an official from the TWU.

The concerns for these communities go beyond extreme weather events like Sandy. A custodian from the Bronx who gave her name only as Mary, and was there on behalf of 32BJ, pointed out that asthma could be worsened by climate change, and it is already an epidemic in heavily polluted, lower-income communities like the Bronx. “The Bronx has a 20 percent childhood asthma rate, one of the highest rates in the nation,” she said. “[Combatting climate change] is about saving lives.”

At the little pep rally in Times Square, the group of about 100 was filled with union members sporting their locals’ T-shirts and waving their banners. Even the United Auto Workers had a few members present. And the social-justice groups brought out everyone from older women to teenagers.

The result was a remarkable sight. Here was a rally for addressing climate change — an issue so often dismissed by conservatives as of interest only to out-of-touch affluent elites like Hollywood actors and former vice presidents — where both the speakers and the crowd were mostly black and Latino. These were members of the most affected communities — including Roberto Borrero from the International Indian Treaty Council, which works for indigenous rights throughout the Americas — talking about how the issue affects them.

The environmental movement is often criticized for being mostly white, male, wealthy, and college-educated. As Grist’s Brentin Mock just noted, it is the leaders of environmental organizations who come from that demographic, even though the neighborhoods with the worst pollution are disproportionately low-income and non-white. Sure enough, some of the only white male speakers at Wednesday’s event were the ones from environmental organizations. But at least they recognize the importance of communities of color and blue-collar workers in the movement, and they have successfully partnered with civil-rights, social-justice, and labor organizations.

The images from the march on Sept. 21 probably won’t conform to the snarky stereotypes about Vermont liberals wearing Birkenstocks and driving Volvos. Of course, inconvenient truths have never stopped conservatives from casting unfair aspersions. But even if those conservatives won’t admit it, the movement is diversifying.

Ben Adler covers environmental policy and politics for Grist, with a focus on climate change, energy, and cities. When he isn’t contemplating the world’s end, he also writes about architecture and media. You can follow him on Twitter.

Tester Takes a Hard Look at Disaster Relief in Indian Country

Indian Affairs Committee Assesses Impact of Amendments to the Stafford Act

Source: United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs

U.S. SENATE – At a hearing today on the state of disaster response in Indian Country, Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs had one message: more work needs to be done.

Tester authored changes to the Stafford Act in the last Congress that allow federally-recognized Indian tribes to directly request a Presidential disaster or emergency declaration through Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Before the change, tribes were required to make requests through their State governors.

“After listening to the needs of Indian Country, I changed the Stafford Act to allow tribes to request a disaster declaration directly from the President,” Tester said. “While that was an important step for tribes, there is more work that needs to be done”

Hearing witnesses echoed Tester’s sentiment in their testimony.

Ronda Metcalf of the Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribal Council, sought more coordinated responses among relief agencies, “The tribe understands that on-the-ground personnel in these disaster response situations face significant challenges and pressures. This is all the more reason why FEMA must better coordinate with Indian tribes to provide accurate information and improved delivery of services. FEMA must also provide closer supervision over organizations like the Red Cross to ensure that they are properly carrying out services for which they seek FEMA reimbursement.”

Matt Gregory, Executive Director of Risk Management for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, spoke about concerns many tribes have over the damage threshold for federal support. “The Stafford Act set $1 million in damage as its threshold for applying for a declaration. This may not work well for a tribe like the Choctaw Nation, with small communities spread out over a wide rural area. We are faced with a number of disasters throughout the year, and without quick and specific direction, our new-found Stafford Act authority lacks some practical effect.”

Jake Heflin, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Tribal Emergency Management Association, said, “When a catastrophe strikes, the Federal response to natural disasters in Indian Country is slow, tedious, and in significant need of a comprehensive overhaul. Despite providing pre-disaster support, technical assistance, and planning before a disaster strikes, at the time of the incident, FEMA steps away from tribes until monetary thresholds are met by the disaster. Even when FEMA responds to a disaster, FEMA does not support the tribes operationally.”

One of the many tribes facing the long-term effects of climate change induced disasters is the Santa Clara Pueblo. Their Governor, J. Michael Chavarria said, “Given the realities of life in the Southwestern United States and the increasing effects of climate change, disaster relief policies must be shifted to focus on long-term response such as addressing Santa Clara’s post-fire, periodic flooding, which will remain a great hazard to our well-being for perhaps a decade.”

Mary David, Executive Vice President of Kawerak, Inc., a tribal consortium in the Bering Strait region of Alaska said, “The impacts of global climate change, severe arctic storms and arctic shipping on marine life is of high concern. The Stafford Act is a response when a disaster happens, which is important. But due to changing climate conditions, our communities are in imminent danger and preventative measures are needed.”

Tester concluded that better coordination between FEMA and the tribes must occur. “For this to be an effective partnership, FEMA must understand the unique needs of Indian Country. Based on what I heard today, some progress has been made, but there is a lot more work to be done and we’re going to get it done.”

Background

The President can issue major disaster declarations after a natural disaster to provide certain types of federal disaster assistance depending upon the specific needs of the stricken areas. Such declarations give broad authority to federal agencies to provide supplemental assistance to help state, local, territorial and tribal governments, families and individuals, and certain nonprofit organizations, recover from the incident.

Gov. Inslee’s Wastewater Plant Tour Highlights Sea Rise Woes

Dan Grenet (left), the manager of Seattle's West Point Wastewater Treatment Plant, leads Wash. Gov. Jay Inslee of a tour. The visit was intended to highlight the costs of climate change; in this case, as a result of seawater incursion at the facility. | credit: Ashley Ahear — Dan Grenet (left), the manager of Seattle’s West Point Wastewater Treatment Plant, leads Wash. Gov. Jay Inslee of a tour. The visit was intended to highlight the costs of climate change; in this case, as a result of seawater incursion at the facility. | credit: Ashley Ahear

By: Ashley Ahearn, KUOW

SEATTLE — When Washington Gov. Jay Inslee wanted to show the connection between climate change and an unpleasant and costly consequence for his constituents, he decided to tour a sewage treatment plant.

Inslee’s visit Tuesday to the West Point Wastewater Treatment Plant in Seattle’s Discovery Park was the latest stop on his statewide tour to raise awareness about the costs of climate change.

The problem the governor wanted to highlight: climate change is causing sea levels to rise. And that means homes and buildings that were built a safe distance from the water’s edge are increasingly becoming too close for comfort.

That message was also delivered by the White House Tuesday, when it issued a report that said global sea levels are currently rising at more than an inch per decade — and the rate appears to be increasing.

No one complained about the smell as treatment plant workers and managers led Inslee and other visitors through the facility. But there was a lot of talk about the problems with rising sea level.

Dan Grenet, the manager of the facility, showed Inslee some photographs hanging in the lobby. Waves crash over a cement wall.

“This is a photograph of Puget Sound coming into our facility – causes big problems in our pumps and piping systems and also, it’s a biological process here,” Grenet told the governor. “It doesn’t do well with salt water. Causes big problems.”

READ: What We Can Learn From The Bay Area’s Sea Rise

Saltwater intrusion could cost King and other shoreline counties tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades.

But during this visit, as with other stops on his climate change tour, the governor emphasized that the costs of climate change will hit from all directions.

“We’ve had $50 million in costs for fighting fires. Tens of millions of dollars of damage to the oyster industry,” Inslee said. “And here we don’t have an estimate at West Point but we know it’s significant because we know it’s not just this point its all these ancillary pumping stations that are going to have to be if not rebuilt, refortified to deal with sea water intrusion.”

Inslee’s latest task force on climate change has been charged with developing a plan to put a price on CO2 emissions. The plan is expected be presented to the state Legislature this fall.

NEAR LA CONNER: Swinomish tribe, State Parks open preserve

The Bellingham Herald

Staff report: June 29, 2014

The Kukutali Preserve is the first to be jointly managed by an Indian tribe, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, and another agency, in this case Washington State Parks. The preserve is located near La Conner.Photo: WASHINGTON STATE PARKS — The Kukutali Preserve is the first to be jointly managed by an Indian tribe, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, and another agency, in this case Washington State Parks. The preserve is located near La Conner.
*Photo: WASHINGTON STATE PARKS*

The Kukutali Preserve in Similk Bay near La Conner has opened through a partnership between Washington State Parks and the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.

The preserve opened to the public during a ceremony June 16.

State and tribal officials said the preserve is believed to be the first park in the United States to be co-owned and co-managed by a tribe and another government, such as a state. Management of the preserve will focus on conservation and research, public education and limited recreational use, according to a State Parks news release.

“It’s a great day to be making history,” Swinomish tribal Chairman Brian Cladoosby said during his keynote address at the opening ceremony.

“It’s going to be great for visitors to witness and see the beauty that we’ve seen here forever,” Cladoosby said in the release. “This wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of people coming together to make sure this dream became a reality.”

Located entirely within the Swinomish Reservation, the preserve includes 84 upland acres on Kiket Island and Flagstaff Point and 9 upland acres on Fidalgo Island. It includes more than 2 miles of nearly intact shoreline, with native eelgrass beds, multiple fish species and shellfish.

Numerous endangered or threatened species make their home in the preserve’s diverse habitats, which include old-growth trees.

Among the preserve’s unique features is a rare type of environment called a “rocky bald,” according to State Park officials. Found on Flagstaff Point, west of Kiket Island, this area has fragile, thin soil that hosts a unique community of native plants and nesting waterfowl. To protect that ecosystem, access to Flagstaff Point is prohibited.

The preserve also contains cultural resources important to the Swinomish tribe.

Right now, there are 2 miles of walking trails with plans to add an ADA-accessible boardwalk, another trail and amenities such as a picnic shelter, picnic sites, interpretive information and two vault restrooms, according to the release.

The preserve is open daily for day use only, from dawn to dusk. Vehicles will be limited to the parking lot, and the remainder of the site is accessible only by foot. The parking lot is at the northwest corner of Snee-Oosh and Kiket Island roads, west of La Conner. A Discover Pass is required to park at the preserve

State Parks, with the help of the Trust for Public Land, acquired the upland portion of the property in June 2010 after it had been owned privately for almost 100 years.

Learn more

More information and background on the Kukutali Preserve management and master plan available at parks.wa.gov/299/Kukutali-Preserve.

Bizarre News About the Bee Czar

Steve Russell, 7/29/14, Indian Country Today

Last year, there was an emergency around a public housing project in the medium-sized suburb of Austin, Texas, where I reside. A swarm of honeybees had ensconced itself in a tool shed and the residents, mostly elders, were scared. One had an allergy to bee stings, and so for him a mishap could be fatal.

The Fire Department was called, Animal Control was called, and eventually the bees were dispatched with insecticide. Lots of people questioned that action at the time. Time had published a cover story back in 2013 warning that nearly one third of US honeybee colonies had died or disappeared since Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) broke out in 2004. Most people who pay attention to the news have by now heard of CCD, even though the causes of it are still hotly departed.

More is at stake here than tradition, but indigenous peoples have plenty of tradition on the line. The Spanish entrada led by Hernando De Soto recorded finding honey in a Cherokee village in 1540. There is an old Cherokee tale about how Bee got a stinger that involves humans trying to steal so much honey that the bees did not have enough left to subsist.

With the coming of CCD, farmers have been threatened with loss of bees to pollinate a long list of crops that human beings enjoy consuming and the price of renting bees for pollination of crops has skyrocketed. When the bees started to die off in 2004, California almond growers paid about $45-$54 for the one colony per acre they needed. The prices spiked sharply, going well over copy50 before easing back to remain at that approximate level. Most fruits and vegetables do not require as much time for the bees to do their work, so the prices are accordingly lower, but still higher than farmers were used to paying before CCD.

Pollination of food crops by bees is necessary to humans, but ever since Bee got a stinger, most humans are a little bit afraid our buzzing buddies. A feral swarm is seen as a threat and the common remedy is insecticide.

A nonprofit organization has gotten started in Central Texas with a solution that could travel to other locations. The American Honey Bee Protection Agency & Central Texas Bee Rescue has taken on the protection of feral bees. The nonprofit survives with donations, with taking in small fees for bee removal, and, of course, with sales of honey. If somebody feels threatened by a swarm and cannot afford the fee, they are asked to pay what they can afford, but the bees are “rescued.”

This organization is the brainchild of a beekeeper named Walter Schumacher, who is currently employed by Prairie View A&M University to develop a master bee-handling course. Schumacher calls himself the “Bee Czar.” The Bee Czar has found one colony a home on top of the luxurious W Hotel in downtown Austin, where the bees pollinate the rooftop garden and the hotel uses the honey in their restaurant and in spa treatments.

Local grocery stores carry wild honey harvested from feral bees as well as honey sold under the Honey Co-op brand, produced by cooperating apiaries that split the profits with the bee rescue group. Products made of beeswax will be forthcoming.

Central Texas Bee Rescue has created a model for a self-funding non-profit organization dedicated to seeing that bees scaring humans with their natural swarming behavior will not receive an automatic death sentence. The bees will, instead, help pay for their own preservation. Preserving the bees preserves many fruits and vegetables humans depend on, so Bee of Cherokee lore would be proud that we finally learned to live together.

M’ville mayor wants to bridge gap if coal trains come through town

By: Steve Powell, Arlington Times

MARYSVILLE — Mayor Jon Nehring has a love-hate relationship with the proposal for a new coal terminal in Cherry Point.

What he wouldn’t like would be increased train traffic in town. What he would like is federal and state money to build more bridges over the railroad to improve traffic flow with fewer delays waiting for trains.

Nehring said he’s been fighting the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal north of Bellingham for 3 1/2 years.

“They were trying to slide that through with no comments,” Nehring said.

But he and others met with then-governor Chris Gregoire, who slowed down the process.

“There’s so much opposition now” to it going to Ferndale. “It’s hard to predict” where it might end up, although he said Longview might be a good choice.

The City Council passed a resolution against the terminal in May of 2012.

A survey published July 24 by the Puget Sound Regional Council showed that a new coal terminal north of Marysville would bring up to 18 new trains per day through town. That would slow down commercial and commuter traffic, emergency response times, and ultimately have an economic impact of $1.65 million per year in Marysville alone, the report says.

“The beauty of this is it brings attention to our railroad problems outside of Snohomish County,” Nehring said of the publicity surrounding the survey.

Currently the only routes that bypass the train tracks to get in and out of the city are north and south of town. But if you live, work and/or need business services from 4th to 116th streets, “You have to wait the trains out,” the mayor said.

The mayor and council favor on- and off-ramps at Interstate 5 and 4th Street in a $50 million project.

Nehring said increased coal train traffic wouldn’t bring much help to Marysville. He said Ferndale would see all of the job growth.

The mayor also said the city will see an increase in train traffic no matter what. The report, prepared by a team of consulting firms, points out that freight rail traffic in Washington by 2035 is expected to grow 130 percent to 238 million tons of cargo, even without the new coal terminal. Rail freight already has increased 81 percent from 1991 to 2012, from 64 to 116 millions tons.

Marysville has 16 at-grade crossings on public streets along the north-south rail line. Long trains frequently create backups in town, often clogging the off-ramps from I-5. Wait times at crossings, which range from a total of 22 minutes to an hour and a half per day, could increase by as much as 147 percent per day within Marysville.

The trains are expected to be about 1.6 miles long. One report Marysville commissioned in 2011 noted that a single long train could simultaneously block all the railroad crossings between First Street and NE 88th Street.

Train noise and vibration, vehicle circulation and access impacts, and safety concerns, along with lower property values, are key concerns about increased railroad usage.

The mayor also said he’d like to city BNSF pay more for mitigation of increased train traffic. Federal law limits its cost to 5 percent, about what Wal Mart paid for traffic mitigation for its new store at Highway 529, the mayor noted.

Seattle-based SSA Marine’s Gateway Pacific Terminal project is in the planning stages and isn’t expected to be operating at full capacity until 2019.

City leaders in Marysville have studied their rail problems for years and recently hired a consultant to research alternatives to the city’s multiple at-grade crossings. The new PSRC report estimates that mitigation projects would cost $50 million to $200 million each. Two environmental impact statements are expected in mid-2015, at which time a public comment period will begin.

If the terminal does end up at Cherry Point, Nehring just wants government to mitigate the impacts.

“Just don’t clog our city down,” Nehring said.