Since November 27, 2013, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has been receiving public comments on Flint Hill Resources’ request to reduce its liability to clean up drinking water at its North Pole refinery that is seriously contaminated with sulfolane, an industrial solvent used in the production containing gasoline.
The DEC issued a “letter of conditional approval for revised human health risk assessment for the Flint Hills North Pole Refinery regarding the alternative cleanup level for sulfolane in local groundwater,” and a public notice allowing for comments. The deadline for public comment is February 10, 2014.
On February 5, Flint Hills Resources Alaska, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, announced that it would be closing its refinery this summer, laying off 80 employees, and leaving Alaska after contaminating the municipal water supply and water wells for more than 300 families. Company officials cited the cost of cleaning up the contaminated water as one reason for closing the refinery.
Last year, the Alaska DEC established a site-specific alternative cleanup level for sulfolane in groundwater of 14 parts per billion (ppb). DEC decided on that level using new toxicity data and on the advice of state and federal agencies.
But Flint Hills wants a lower alternative cleanup level of 362 ppb, leaving 348 ppb of contamination in Alaska’s waters. According to the DEC’s Contaminated Sites program, Alaskans should not drink water if it has over 25 ppb of sulfolane. “If your water well results showed above 25 parts per billion sulfolane, we advise you not drink the water,” cites a warning on its website.
At the National Toxicology Program Board of Scientific Counselors meeting in December 2011, Dr. Chad Blystone of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences reported that sulfolane is a highly polar chemical that is presumed not to break down and is absorbed by plants (your food).
The sulfolane contamination in the North Pole affects more than 300 wells, and the exposure may last up to 20 years, according to the DEC. Contamination from the plume is estimated to be over 2.5 miles wide and three miles long.
Some studies observe symptoms of neurotoxicity: convulsions, seizures, hyper/hypo-activity, and hypothermia. In a sulfolane inhalation study on animals, Dr. Blystone reported 37 days mortality in monkeys, chronic lung inflammation in all animals, chronic liver inflammation in rats after 90 days, and decreased white blood cells and mortality in dogs and monkeys.
Responding to news of the refinery closure, Rep. Don Young said, “We see companies like Flint Hills shuttering their operations due to deteriorating conditions caused by diminished supplies and onerous regulation.”
Onerous regulations, like cleaning up after your mess?
“This is a sad day for the entire Interior region and Alaska as a whole,” said Rep. Pete Higgins, R-Fairbanks. “We will be looking to the governor for his leadership in the coming days, which will hopefully address the Dept. of Environmental Conservation decisions that forced Flint Hills into making this announcement. This will have far-reaching impacts economically to the Interior. The news hit us hard and fast today, and we will be working with the governor and the DEC to alleviate the impact to the families and businesses affected by the shutdown.”
Rep. Steve Thompson, R-Fairbanks, said, “The announcement today regarding Flint Hills shutting its doors came as a shock. We will continue to monitor the situation as to loss of jobs, groundwater contamination, and the economic impact this will have on our community.”
But Mike Wenstrup, Chair of the Alaska Democratic Party, said what a lot of Alaskans are thinking: “Interior Alaska knows actions speak louder than words: The Koch Brothers are closing the refinery and tossing Alaska aside while choosing to invest hundreds of millions in political attacks. It shows how little they care about Alaska and Alaskans.”
Ann Farris, an engineer with Alaska DEC who served as on the multiagency team formed to deal with the sulfolane contamination said, “This is the biggest plume of sulfolane groundwater contamination ever, and it’s the biggest groundwater-contamination plume involving an industrial substance in Alaska.”
I don’t live in North Pole. I am just an Alaskan who would like our land not to be left contaminated by companies that have economically benefitted from our natural resources. It was sad to read many of Alaska’s so-called leaders jumping on the bandwagon to defend Flint Hills Resource Alaska business instead of being outraged by the fact they want to pack their bags, leave our groundwater contaminated, and then expect Alaskans to clean up their mess.
Myrna Gardner is the CEO of 3R Products and the Managing Member of MGM Properties, LLC. She resides in Juneau, Alaska.
Inside a ceremonial longhouse in northern Oregon last September, the sun’s rays spilling between the high-peaked beams, Davis Yellowash Washines was seated in full ceremonial dress — yellow headband, red sash, beaded shoes. A rawhide drum rested in his hand, and to his left sat four teenage boys, each with his own drum and mallet. One wore a black Chevrolet T-shirt. They thumped their instruments and called out native songs as an organized smattering of young children bounced rhythmically counter-clockwise around the dirt floor. Two dozen fellow members of the tribal community, seated in folded metal chairs, looked on.
“This longhouse is used for lots of occasions,” Washines said between songs. “But this one is significant.”
This ceremony aimed to ward off coal.
Celilo Indian Village, Ore., separated from the Columbia River by only a highway and some railroad tracks, is one of many tribal communities that sit in the path of what could soon become America’s coal-export superhighway. If government agencies grant approval to three export terminals proposed for Oregon and Washington, up to 100 million metric tons of coal per year could soon be shuttled in open rail cars from mines in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, along the shores of the Columbia River and the Puget Sound, and through ranches and reservations like this one. The coal would then be loaded onto ships destined for Asia’s proliferating fleet of coal-fired power plants.
Many activists currently fighting the plan see the impacts of burning coal on the global climate as their primary motivation. But for the Yakama, Lummi and other tribes, as well as communities in the path of these shipments, it’s the local effects that worry them most. There are the potential traffic delays and disturbances to cultural sites. Then there’s the very real prospect of toxic coal dust wafting off the passing trains, fouling the air, poisoning local waterways and even contaminating key food resources — such as the salmon on which many local tribes, including those living in the tiny Celilo Indian Village, depend.
While the U.S. has seen a steady decline in coal use in recent years thanks to tighter federal regulations and the expanded viability of natural gas and renewable energy, the rise of burgeoning, coal-hungry economies in China, India and other fast-developing nations means the Celilo tribes — like many communities across the Pacific Northwest — now find themselves wedged squarely between a domestic abundance of the combustible rock and its most promising international market.
The potential expansion of coal exports elicits differing opinions among tribes and communities here. What may be an environmental or public health imposition for one is seen as a desperately needed opportunity for another. The coal industry, for example, argues that exports could inject welcome economic activity into struggling Northwest towns and reservations. By itself, the Gateway Pacific Terminal proposed at Cherry Point on the Puget Sound would add approximately 1,250 permanent jobs, including induced jobs such as restaurant and healthcare workers, as well as 4,400 temporary construction jobs, according to an analysis by an industry consultant. Annual local and state tax revenues would amount to about $11 million.
The dispute over the coal trains is playing out in television advertisements, on the streets and inside boardrooms, town halls and courthouses from Washington, D.C., to Seattle. A series of hearings and protests over the last few months have attracted thousands of people — some donning makeshift respirators, others wearing “Beyond Coal” T-shirts, and some even rappelling from a bridge over the Columbia River as a symbolic blockade to the shipments. Still, nowhere are the tensions so acute as on the hardscrabble reservations that either sit atop valuable coal — an estimated 30 percent of U.S. coal reserves west of the Mississippi are located on native lands — or lie in the path of the trains that would haul it to port.
Just outside the walls of the longhouse where Washines and his fellow drummers were singing out in opposition to the coal shipments, a 22-foot totem pole lay on the bed of a white truck. The carving, which depicted five salmon, two kneeling men and a hungry child, was touring towns, churches and reservations across the Pacific Northwest as part of an effort to consolidate tribal opposition to the proposed coal shipments. (The totem’s last stop, in late September, would be across the border in the Tsleil-Waututh Nation of British Columbia, where it now stands erected as a display of solidarity with that tribe’s parallel struggle over a tar sands oil pipeline.)
“Mother Earth doesn’t have a voice,” said Karen Jim Whitford, a tribal elder, as she stepped shoeless into the center of the longhouse floor. A couple of her tears disappeared into the dirt. “So we must speak for her.”
“I vote we stand up,” exclaimed another elder, Lorintha Umtuch, referring to the totem’s symbolic call for Native Americans to get off their knees and “Warrior Up!” for future generations. “Indian people need to stop this, or else corporations will trample us.”
Not all tribes stand on the same side of the coal-export battle line. CJ Stewart, a senator of the Crow Nation, said in a phone interview in October that his tribe desperately needs to develop its coal reserves to improve its economic fortunes and lift its people out of poverty. In November, the Crow Nation signed a joint resolution with the Navajo Nation in support of each other’s coal development. “We rely on coal just as they rely on salmon,” Stewart said, referring to the Yakama and other tribes represented in Celilo. “All tribes share one common enemy, and that enemy is poverty.”
Many tribes along the rail corridor, however, feel it’s not just livelihoods at stake — it’s lives. Jewell Praying Wolf James, the carver of the well-traveled totem and member of the Lummi Nation, expressed sympathy with the coal-dependent tribes during a later stop on the totem’s journey in Olympia, Wash. “We feel bad for the Crow Nation, the Navajo, the Hopi. That’s all they got,” he said. “But we want clean air, clean water. We want salmon restored and our children healthy.”
Davis Yellowash Washines presses his hand against one of the brightly painted salmon encircling the bottom of the totem. “The salmon gave its life for you, just like the tree gave its life for this purpose,” he said. (Paul Anderson)
Dig into Native American history and you will strike coal. As far back as the 1300s, Hopi Indians in what is now the U.S. Southwest used the fossil fuel for cooking, heating and baking clay pottery. In the 1800s, Native Americans made up much of the early mining workforce that would help ignite coal’s long reign as the go-to fuel source for the country’s necessities and luxuries — from transporting goods and running factories to heating homes and powering Playstations.
But King Coal’s grip is slipping. The rise of hydro-fracturing technology in recent years has unleashed torrents of natural gas, a cheaper and cleaner alternative, and left coal-rich states and undiversified coal companies with a serious revenue problem. Many have responded by looking to Asia, where mining local coal, in addition to building wind farms and solar panels, has not created nearly enough energy for the rapidly growing economies there.
Asia’s ready market and America’s still plentiful coal could make a convenient marriage. Proving particularly attractive to Asian buyers is Powder River Basin coal, which is cheap to extract and relatively low in polluting sulfur. Yet plenty of obstacles remain in the U.S. and abroad before coal interests can successfully drive their product to northwestern ports for export. There are the vocal environmental advocates, the newly elected local leaders who’ve made clear their opposition to the plans, the big-money investors who’ve withdrawn support for port builders and, of course, the tribes.
In a July letter to the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency tasked with evaluating the two Washington State coal port projects, the Lummi Nation wrote of its “unconditional and unequivocal opposition” to the terminal planned for Cherry Point, near its reservation. The tribe cited among other concerns “significant and unavoidable impacts and damage” to treaty rights reserved in the 19th century to fish at its “usual and accustomed” areas.
Patricia Graesser, a spokeswoman with the Corps, acknowledged the Lummi letter and said her agency was in government-to-government discussions with the tribe. “We have a responsibility to uphold the nation’s treaty with Native American tribes,” she said.
The Chinese government, meanwhile, is responding to a major air pollution crisis sparked largely by rapid development centered on coal-fired power. In December, Shanghai’s air quality fell to a record low and the country’s smog could be seen from space. But even with leaders in China vowing to slow down the growth of coal use, experts predict global coal consumption will jump up another 25 percent by the end of the decade.
Decisions on the Northwest export terminals could significantly influence the future of coal in Asia. “Opening up this main line of cheap American coal is a pretty important signal if you are a Chinese official thinking about how much to invest in what kind of energy infrastructure,” said KC Golden, senior policy adviser for the non-profit Climate Solutions, which has advocated against the proposed ports.
The effects would span the globe. According to estimates by the Sightline Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in Seattle, Pacific Northwest coal exports could create greater national and worldwide environmental impacts, including on climate change, than a Canadian company’s controversial proposal to ferry Albertan tar sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast via the Keystone XL pipeline.
As Jewell Praying Wolf James put it: “Once the coal gets to China, it’s pollution for all of us.”
For more than 11,000 years, Celilo Falls served as the center of trade and commerce for Native Americans of the West. The upwards of 15 million salmon that passed through the mile-long span of rocky chutes in the Columbia River every year functioned as a sort of currency. “Some tribal people call it pre-contact Wall Street,” said Charles Hudson, intergovernmental affairs director with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in Portland, Ore.
Lewis and Clark called it “the great mart.”
But within a few short hours on March 10, 1957, Celilo’s era of plenty came to an abrupt end. Rising floodwaters from a newly completed hydroelectric dam engulfed the rapids. Salmon runs soon shrank to a small fraction of their former numbers.
Davis Yellowash Washines, chief of enforcement for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, was only 5 years old when the Dalles Dam opened and drowned Celilo Falls. “I can still feel its mist. I can still hear its thunder,” he said over dinner the night before the September longhouse ceremony.
Warren Spencer, a Yakama elder, was serving in the military in Germany that year, but he recalled the time-lapse photos of the inundation he received by mail from his mother back home in Celilo Falls. “I sat there on my bunk and cried,” he said.
Now, Spencer is deeply concerned about how this new energy project might affect the futures of his four children, 17 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. The coal push, he said, represents the continued encroachment of the federal government and “white man’s money” on Native American tribes. “It’s turning brother against brother,” he said.
Members of the Lummi Nation bask in the natural light of the Celilo longhouse before the totem pole ceremony in September. (Paul Anderson)
Many of the current and former residents of Celilo belong to the Yakama Nation. Like the Lummi, the tribe put its opposition to the exports on paper. In a November letter to the Army Corps of Engineers and a state official, Yakama chairman Harry Smiskin referenced a “long history of Treaty violations from energy development in the region that permanently and irreparably have harmed my People.” The new energy projects, he said, would add “direct adverse impacts” to the tribe’s treaty rights to fish, hunt and gather food, and do more damage to the already fragile environment, culture and health of his nation.
Dr. Frank James, of the University of Washington School of Public Health, underscored the “disproportionate impacts” of the coal projects facing native people of the Northwest. Much of this vulnerability results, he said, from their traditional dependence on the salmon of the region’s rivers and coastal waters — fish that are now widely listed as threatened or endangered under federal law and could be further spoiled by air and water pollution from mining and transporting the coal, and its burning overseas.
The tribes’ reliance on salmon goes beyond a staple food and a means to make a living. “It is their total way of life,” said James. “Salmon is part of their religion, their culture, their language. To further impact that is an assault on their very existence.”
In a back corner of the Celilo longhouse kitchen, Gloria Jim sat in a folding chair, on a brief break from cooking the ceremony’s Columbia River salmon lunch with other Celilo women. She lamented that they hadn’t had enough salmon to serve for breakfast, too.
“That’s how it used to be here,” said Jim, who wore a white shirt printed with a picture of her deceased son, pink stretch pants and running shoes. She recalled the Forest Gump-like menu of her childhood: Salmon, fried or dried, stuffed or baked, or simply salted.
“My mom didn’t believe in food stamps. We lived on what we caught,” she said. “Now we have no choice. We have to go to the grocery store.”
Her people have been warned, she added, that the salmon they do catch and eat may be dangerously polluted. An estimated 17 percent of pregnant Native American women already have mercury levels high enough to disrupt the healthy development of their babies — much higher than other racial groups.
Deposits of the neurotoxic heavy metal, along with arsenic and other contaminants from coal-fired power plants, can accumulate up the food chain and into salmon. Research further suggests that around 25 percent of the mercury in Northwest American waterways and up to 10 percent of the ozone in the region’s skies is carried by wind currents across the Pacific — from power plants in Asia.
Coal exports could pollute the region in other ways. Perhaps most talked about are the risks of heavy metal-laden coal dust and diesel exhaust blown and belched from trains, terminals and ocean-going tankers. Derailments, such as the one that sent seven cars spilling coal into a British Columbia creek last week, raise further fears, as does the possibility of bunker fuel spills once tankers set out to sea through narrow, rough passages.
In November, Dan Jaffe, an environmental scientist at the University of Washington-Bothell, released preliminary results of a study on the environmental insults of existing coal train traffic. His team monitored 450 passing trains — some carrying coal, some not — from two representative sites. They sampled for about 10 days at a spot on the Columbia River Gorge and for about a month near a Seattle home that butts up against railroad tracks currently used by trains en route to Canadian coal ports. Jaffe said he confirmed elevated levels of diesel exhaust there “on par with the dirtiest air in the Seattle area,” as well as a slight increase in large airborne particles — likely coal dust, he said — when coal trains passed by.
The three proposed terminals would dramatically increase rail traffic, bringing some 35 additional mile-plus-long trains in and out of the region every day. Currently, fewer than 10 coal trains come and go.
Jaffe’s crowdfunded research has yet to be peer-reviewed, a point emphasized by Courtney Wallace, a spokeswoman with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, whose lines would host much of the westbound coal. Wallace added that BNSF has spent more than $1 billion on rail cars and locomotives that “achieve the highest EPA standards available,” and result in 69 percent fewer diesel emissions compared to older locomotives.
BNSF has testified that up to 645 pounds of coal dust can escape from each rail car during a 400-mile journey, but Wallace also pointed to findings by the railway that this fugitive dust diminishes as railcars travel farther from the Powder River Basin and toward export terminals.
Several environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, filed a lawsuit in July against BNSF over coal contamination of U.S. waterways. Wallace called the action a “publicity stunt,” but a U.S. District judge denied a motion to dismiss the case this month.
Blown coal dust and other hazards could be particularly dire around Celilo and the rest of the Columbia River Gorge, where train tracks are sometimes just feet from tribal residences, said Hudson, of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. “The winds are reliable and strong — 40, 50, 70 miles per hour,” he said. “There’s a reason it’s the wind-surfing capital of the world.”
Located in rural Montana, the Crow Nation can’t boast a lucrative seafood or wind-surfing tourism market. What they do have is a whole lot of coal. Approximately 9 billion tons of the fossil fuel lie beneath their land, comprising one of the largest coal reserves in the United States.
“Coal is the way we’ve been taking care of our people,” said CJ Stewart, the Crow senator. Yet his people continue to struggle with poverty and an unemployment rate he suggested is upwards of 50 percent. “And the U.S. cries over its 8 percent,” he said.
In June, the U.S. government approved a deal between the Crow and Cloud Peak Energy, a Wyoming company that’s moving to increase its coal exports to Asian markets. The tribe now has the green light to lease its rights to an estimated 1.4 billion tons of coal, more than the U.S. consumes annually. The deal could be worth at least $10 million for the Crow over the first five years. Cloud Peak has also pledged to give preference in hiring, training and promotion to qualified Native Americans, as well as annual scholarships to local native students. A spokesman for Cloud Peak, Rick Curtsinger, said the company is continuing to work through an agreement with the tribe.
Crow Nation chairman Darrin Old Coyote testified in July before the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources that the deal is largely dependent on the fate of coal exports through the Northwest. Such significant coal development, he said, has “unlimited potential to improve the ongoing substandard socioeconomic conditions of the Crow people and the surrounding communities in southeastern Montana.”
“Given our vast mineral resources, the Crow Nation can, and should, be self-sufficient,” he said.
Also in the heart of the Powder River Basin, and also saddled with high unemployment, are the Northern Cheyenne. The tribe has a long history of resisting coal development due to perceived environmental health risks. But like the Crow, the Northern Cheyenne are also recognizing an increasingly tough economic reality.
“We’ve got a lot of coal underneath our land,” said Tom Mexican Cheyenne, director of the Northern Cheyenne’s community health department, who made clear that he did not speak for the tribe. “There’s a split — some on the tribal council are for coal mining and some are against it.”
The Northern Cheyenne’s decision on whether or not to harvest their coal may, too, come down to pending verdicts on the Pacific Northwest ports. No train tracks currently run to their reservation’s coal reserves, though rail lines could be expanded with enough demand.
Mexican Cheyenne believes the council is leaning towards development of the coal. “I see a real desperation to help the economy any way they can,” he said.
Wind energy has also been on the table here for years. But impoverished tribes such as the Northern Cheyenne and the Crow often lack the funds necessary for capital investments and opportunities for outside help, such as tax credits.
Debra Lekanoff, a leader with the Swinomish Tribe of Washington, said the tribes need federal support to find alternative ways to benefit from their resources. “We urge the federal government to help our brothers and sisters with funding, capacity-building and sound science to open up the doors to new opportunities,” she said.
She suggested that the “elephant in the room” in the coal development debate is the challenge of “walking in two worlds” and soundly balancing “economic sustainability and environmental protection.”
The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, which includes the Yakama and Lummi, adopted a resolution in September supporting a pilot project proposed by the Crow Nation to convert some of its coal to liquid fuels such as diesel and gasoline for domestic use. The tribe’s plan, which Stewart said illustrates that the Crow are not entirely reliant on coal exports, also gained support from the National Congress of American Indians this fall. It still awaits federal approval.
The official document from the Northwest Indians, however, notes that their blessing does not “supersede, replace, or rescind” a resolution made by the group in May that opposed all proposals to increase transportation through the region of “fossil energy,” including both coal and unrefined crude oil.
About a week after the resolution’s adoption, Jewell Praying Wolf James’s totem pole pulled up in front of the Washington state capitol building in Olympia for another event opposing coal exports. Much like the other stops on the totem’s journey, this ceremony’s songs and speeches pointed to both the despair and hopes of Native Americans and the deeply complex tensions at hand.
A crowd of some 50 people, many representatives of local tribes, stood in the alternating rain and sun in front of the flatbed truck. Flanking the truck was a yard sign that read, “No coal exports. We can do better.”
Creating alternatives, experts agree, is prerequisite to combating climate change and sustaining resources for future generations — and even to passing judgment on any group that chooses to develop its coal, or buy and burn it.
“At the end of the day, we’re not going to stop fossil-fuel dependency if we don’t have an answer for how to create energy and create better lives,” said KC Golden, the Climate Solutions policy adviser. “The Crow and other folks across the world want a fair shot at the relative prosperity we enjoy. We have to have a better answer than digging up half of Montana and burning it in Asia.”
Lawsuit questions whether transport is more good than harm
By George Plaven, East Oregonian
PENDLETON, Ore. — A third and final shipment of massive oil refinery equipment is bound for Canada after departing the Port of Umatilla earlier this week. But while the convoy lumbers south on Highway 395, opponents representing environmental and tribal concerns filed a petition in Marion County Circuit Court that would keep future loads off the road without increased public input.
Petitioners Peter Goodman, with the nonprofit organization Act on Climate, and Carl Sampson, headman-chief of the Walla Walla Tribe, allege the Oregon Department of Transportation didn’t properly consider public interest when permitting the loads hauled by Hillsboro trucking company Omega Morgan.
State law allows ODOT to issue variance permits for oversize loads “if it determines the public interests will be served.” Yet the department declined to hold public hearings, provide notice or allow any opportunity for comments, according to the petition.
If the petitioners succeed, a judge would order ODOT to set aside permits for megaloads until determining actual public interest. Goodman and Sampson are also asking for a permanent injunction against new variance permits until the department establishes rules for public involvement.
Patrick Cooney, ODOT communications director, did not discuss litigation but said the agency issues 100,000 permits every year. In broad terms, public interest is served by allowing movement of freight and commerce across the state, he said.
“We do that in such a manner that there’s no damage caused to the system by oversize loads,” Cooney said.
The petitioners, however, claim it is not enough to find something in the public interest by only examining potential damage to highways. It requires that, overall, more good than harm is done as a result of the loads.
Megaloads will eventually supply the tar sands of Alberta, Canada with machinery necessary to extract and ship oil, Goodman said, leading to global climate change.
“The cargo is so damaging to the environment,” he said. “The end result for climate change is really disastrous.”
At approximately 400 feet long, 22 feet wide and weighing more than 900,000 pounds, the megaloads take up both lanes on two-lane highways and are too big to fit under interstate bridges. The route being used now instead runs indirectly south into the John Day Valley and east toward Homedale, Idaho, before cutting back north through Montana and into Canada.
The loads travel approximately 35 mph, and are not permitted to drive in hazardous weather. Numerous delays have already slowed the first two shipments, which Omega Morgan began moving in December.
Protesters also held several demonstrations throughout the region, resulting in some arrests.
In addition to increased carbon emissions from tar sands oil, members of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation oppose megaloads on their ceded territory.
Sampson — known ceremonially in the Walla Walla Tribe as Peo Peo Mox Mox, or Chief Yellowbird — asked how decades of government-to-government relations can simply be ignored to accommodate these loads in his affidavit to the court.
“Help me understand why we, the people of this land, have not had voice on such an important matter,” Sampson said. “The simple passage of these loads alone is an affront to the traditional values and ecological integrity of the lands I have been stood up by my people to protect. We have a strong tribal culture that will suffer irreparable damage if the megaload is not stopped.”
Omega Morgan project manager Erik Zander has said there is no plan to use the route as a long-term industrial corridor through Oregon. Goodman said they remain concerned about the possibility, especially as oil sands deposits are developed in Utah.
That’s why the public needs a voice in the ODOT permitting process, he said.
“We feel the citizens of Oregon should have a say,” Goodman said. “It is not worth risking planetary climate chaos for profit for relatively few people.”
_ Read more on eastoregonian.com. Contact George Plaven at gplaven@eastoregonian.com or 541-564-4547.
VALE—With the last of three Omega Morgan megaloads poised at the Port of Umatilla, waiting out winter weather before beginning its crawl across the state, several agencies have filed a court action seeking to halt it.
Peo Peo Mox Mox Chief — Headman of the Walla Walla Tribe Carl Sampson and ActOnClimate’s Peter Goodman filed a “petition for review of agency decision” Tuesday, alleging that the Oregon Department of Transportation failed to meet what they say is a legal obligation to determine whether the permit it issued last week for the megaload’s travel “serves the public interest.”
“The position of Sampson and Goodman is that these megaloads are not ordinary vehicles to be permitted on Oregon scenic highways using routine practices established for normal oversize loads, but that they are extraordinarily large industrial loads (longer than a football field and weighing up to 900,000 pounds), causing substantial harm to the citizens of Oregon and therefore not in the public interest,” reads a press release describing the action. “At the very least, they argue, ODOT should not be making a unilateral decision without a process for hearing public comments on whether these megaloads are in the ‘Public Interests.’”
ODOT spokesman Tom Strandberg said he sent out news releases about the megaloads, and ODOT visited the Umatilla Tribe. But he said he was not sure what else was done as far as outreach. He said public hearings are not part of the permitting process. But according to Monte Grove, ODOT’s Region 5 manager, ODOT is rethinking its process for public involvement in regards to permitting megaloads because they are getting bigger and bigger.
“And now here we are, in the middle of winter, with no formal notification, no Tribal consultation, no information to our Tribal members at our monthly council meetings that not one, but three monster megaloads are coming onto our ceded boundary lands,” Sampson wrote in a statement.
“Why did the Oregon Department of Transportation allow a variance permit of such magnitude on our sovereign and inherent Treaty rights, allowing interruption into our ceremonial, cultural, social and spiritual homelands without regard to the importance to our people?”
Omega Morgan adjusted its shipping route last year after a court ruling prohibited the Hillsboro-based shipping company from using Idaho’s Wild and Scenic River Corridor for megaload transport. Its circuitous route takes it from Umatilla to Pendleton, south on U.S. Highway 395 to Mount Vernon and east on U.S. 26 to Vale where it turns onto Clark Boulevard. It proceeds south to Highway 201 into Idaho near Homedale, then through Montana and into Canada, where its loads are bound for the tar sands oil fields in Alberta.
Christina Marfice is a news reporter at The Argus Observer. She can be reached at (541) 823-4822 or by emailing christinam@argusobserver.com. To comment on this story, go to www.argusobserver.com.
A mile-long coal train waits south of Blaine, Friday morning, Oct. 11, 2013, to cross the border and unload in Canada. PHILIP A. DWYER — THE BELLINGHAM HERALD
By Phuong Lee, Associated Press
SEATTLE — State and local regulators said Wednesday they’ll consider a sweeping environmental review of the effects of a proposed terminal along the Columbia River in Washington that would export millions of tons of coal to Asia.
The review of the nearly $650 million Millennium Bulk Terminals project will consider impacts that extend well beyond the site, including global-warming effects from burning the exported coal in Asia and rail impacts as coal is shipped by train from the Rockies throughout the state.
The announcement represents a victory for project opponents, who said the decision ensures that concerns over coal dust, greenhouse gas emissions and rail traffic are addressed.
“It’s appropriate for such a massive project,” said Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of the Columbia Riverkeeper. “It’s encouraging to see the agencies take to heart the deep public interest in protecting our communities.”
Some national and local business and labor groups criticized the broad scope, saying “cradle to grave” permitting isn’t justified and would have a chilling effect on trade and economic development.
Ken Miller, president and CEO of Millennium Bulk Terminals-Longview, said in a statement Wednesday that the company had hoped to be hiring workers now, two years after submitting permits, but was pleased the agencies are moving forward. A spokesman for Miller said he would not be available for an interview.
The National Association of Manufacturers, the attorney generals of North Dakota and Montana and others had argued for a narrower focus, saying there’s no precedent for such a far-reaching analysis.
“This decision sets an unnecessary precedent for manufacturers that could make it harder to obtain approvals for almost every product we export, from grains to airplanes,” Ross Eisenberg with the National Association of Manufacturers said in a statement Wednesday.
State Department of Ecology officials challenged the notion that this review sets a precedent for others, saying that projects are evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Ecology’s Sally Toteff also noted that the state and county has just started the study and haven’t reached any conclusions.
“How much of a concern are impacts from greenhouse gas emissions or vessel or rail transport? We don’t know yet. How might this affect permitting decisions? We don’t know yet. That is the point of the study,” she said.
The project, planned by Ambre Energy Ltd. and Arch Coal Inc., would handle up to 44 million metric tons of coal from the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming at a terminal near Longview.
It’s one of three coal-export docks proposed in the Northwest. The other projects are near Bellingham, Wash., and Boardman, Ore.
On Tuesday, Oregon regulators issued three key permits for another Ambre Energy project in Boardman but threw up a new hurdle. The state Department of Environmental Quality said it would require the project to seek a water-quality certification sought by opponents.
The proposal, known as the Morrow Pacific project, would bring up to 8.8 million tons of coal a year by train from Montana or Wyoming. The coal would be loaded onto enclosed barges at the terminal and then shipped down the Columbia River, where it would be loaded onto Asia-bound ships in Port Westward in Clatskanie.
That project still needs permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Oregon Department of State Lands.
An Army Corps spokesman said a permitting decision is expected this spring.
The coal-export issue has been a hotly debated topic with people and groups weighing in from across the region, including Montana ranchers, Northwest tribes and local city officials and labor groups.
Washington state regulators said they received more than 215,000 comments on the proposed Longview terminal. A bulk of them submitted as part of massive public comment campaigns organized by various groups.
Toteff said the environmental review will look at the amount greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the project on-site and when coal is burned in Asia, but it won’t look at impacts within any country that imports the coal.
The study could take years. It’s required before many local, state and federal permits can be approved. The county and state are conducting one review, while the Army Corps of Engineers is doing a separate one.
Last July, Ecology and Whatcom County officials also said they would consider a broad scope when reviewing the Gateway Pacific terminal coal-export dock proposed near Bellingham. The corps decided to take a narrower review of that Cherry Point project.
Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2014/02/12/2980321/sweeping-review-for-sw-wash-coal.html#storylink=cpy
Tribes on both sides of the border intervene in proceeding to address tanker traffic and oil spill risks
A boy pulls salmon from a net. Photo Courtesy of Tulalip Tribes
Press Release, Office of Public Affairs, Tulalip Tribes, Earth Justice
Seattle, WA; Vancouver, BC — Opposition to Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain proposed pipeline project ramped up today as Coast Salish peoples on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border vowed to oppose the project as intervenors before Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB). Coast Salish intervenors include the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Tulalip Tribes, Lummi Nation, and Suquamish Tribe in Washington state, and the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations in British Columbia. The deadline for application to participate in the NEB process was last night at midnight.
“Over the last 100 years, our most sacred site, the Salish Sea, has been deeply impacted by our pollution-based economy,” said Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby. “Every kind of pollution ends up in the Salish Sea. We have decided no more and we are stepping forward. It is up to this generation and future generations to restore and protect the precious waters of the Salish Sea.”
“Our people are bound together by our deep connection to Burrard Inlet and the Salish Sea. We are the ‘People of the Inlet’ and we are united in our resolve to protect our land, water and air from this risky project,” said Chief Maureen Thomas of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. “We will use all lawful means to oppose it. This is why we have applied to intervene in the NEB hearing process.”
In December, Kinder Morgan filed an application with the NEB to build a new pipeline to bring tar sands oil from Alberta to Vancouver, B.C. The NEB is the Canadian federal agency that regulates interprovincial energy infrastructure. It is responsible for reviewing, recommending and regulating major energy projects, such as the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.
If approved, the proposal would see the transport of tar sands oil expanded from its present level of approximately 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day. With an almost seven-fold increase in oil tankers moving through the shared waters of the Salish Sea, an increase in groundings, accidents, incidents, leaks and oil spills is inevitable.
Experts have acknowledged that a serious oil spill would devastate an already-stressed marine environment and likely lead to collapses in the remaining salmon stocks and further contamination of shellfish beds, wiping out Indigenous fishing rights.
“The fishing grounds of the Salish Sea are the lifeblood of our peoples. We cannot sit idly by while these waters are threatened by reckless increases in oil tanker traffic and increased risk of catastrophic oil spill,” said Mel Sheldon, Chairman of the Tulalip Tribes.
The proposed tar sands pipeline expansion is one of several projects that would dramatically increase the passage of tankers, bulk carriers, and other vessels through Salish Sea shipping routes and adjacent waters on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. In addition to oil, regulators in both countries are reviewing controversial proposals to export huge quantities of U.S. coal. Taken together, these projects would greatly increase the risk of oil spills and other accidents that threaten the Coast Salish economies and cultures.
“Today we are taking a stand to honour our ancient connection to the Salish Sea. The threat of oil spills and industrial pollution continue to threaten our way of life.” said Chief Ian Campbell of the Squamish Nation. “We stand in unity with all who care about the health of the Salish Sea and defend it for future generations.”
Chairman Timothy Ballew III of the Lummi Nation stated, “I am a fisherman, a father and a member of the great Lummi Nation. As the northernmost Washington Treaty Tribe of the Boldt Decision, we are the stewards the Salish Sea and will not allow the Kinder Morgan proposal along our waterways that will threaten our harvesting areas and further the detrimental impacts to the environment and natural resources.”
BILLINGS, Mont. — Yellowstone National Park transferred 20 bison to a Montana Indian tribe for slaughter on Wednesday, marking the first such action this winter under a plan to drastically reduce the size of the largest genetically pure bison population in the U.S.
The transfer was first disclosed by the Buffalo Field Campaign, a wildlife advocacy group, and confirmed by park officials.
Five more bison that had been captured were to be turned over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday for use in an experimental animal contraception program, said park spokesman Al Nash.
Yellowstone administrators plan to slaughter up to 600 bison this winter if harsh weather conditions inside the 2.2-million-acre park spur a large migration of the animals to lower elevations in Montana. It’s part of a multiyear plan to reduce the population from an estimated 4,600 animals to about 3,000, under an agreement between federal and state officials signed in 2000.
Tens of millions of bison once roamed the North American Plains before overhunting drove them to near extinction by the early 1900s. Yellowstone is one of the few places where they survive in the wild.
James Holt, a member of Idaho’s Nez Perce tribe and board member for the Buffalo Field Campaign, said the park’s population target was an arbitrary number that threatens to infringe on treaty hunting rights held by his and other tribes. Members of those tribes travel hundreds of miles every winter for the chance to harvest bison.
Holt said many tribes have a sacred, spiritual connection with the animals because American Indians historically depended on them for food and clothing.
“We’re talking about the last free-roaming herd here,” he said. “It does them a disservice and is a disrespect to them that they are being treated in this manner.”
But Montana’s livestock industry has little tolerance for bison because of concerns over disease and competition with cattle for grass.
Steps taken by former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer to give bison more room to roam outside the park have yielded mixed results, with ranchers and local officials pushing back.
The last major bison slaughter occurred in the winter of 2008, when 1,600 were killed. Schweitzer later placed a temporary moratorium on the practice that has since expired.
The latest group of bison destined for slaughter was transferred to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes.
Nash said hundreds more bison remain clustered near the park’s northern boundary, where the 25 animals were captured Friday after they wandered into a holding facility. That sets the stage for potentially more shipments to slaughter in coming days and weeks if more bison start to move into Montana.
“We’re set up and ready to go should we see bison come down in significant numbers,” Nash said.
Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2014/02/12/2980929/yellowstone-bison-slaughter-begins.html#storylink=cpy
The Navy is blaming a failed pump for its spill of nearly 2,000 gallons of oily wastewater into Puget Sound.
Tom Danaher, spokesman for Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, said the Navy was using a pumping system on one of its piers to remove oily bilge water from a vessel late Monday.
An electrical ground prevented the pump from automatically shutting off when a 4,000 holding tank was filled –- and because the operation was not attended, it took about 20-30 minutes before naval staff realized that oil-contaminated waste-water was pouring into the sound, Danaher said in an interview Wednesday.
“So the pumps did not get the signal that the tank was full. The tank overflowed,” he said. “When the people on the pier saw the overflow, we stopped all pumping and started our cleanup.”
The cleanup expanded Wednesday to include the deployment of surveyors who are walking the beaches around Puget Sound’s Hood Canal where the spill occurred, Danaher said.
Mark Toy, a spokesman for the Washington Department of Health, said his agency is continuing to advise against shellfish harvesting in the area affected by the spill
“While at this time there’s not any evidence that shellfish have been affected, we’ve taken the precaution of advising against harvesting from the area,” he said.
Initially, the Navy had indicated the spill involved 150-200 gallons but since then, the unified spill command – including the Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Washington Department of Ecology – have agreed the spill involved nearly 2,000 gallons.
Containing the spill has involved the use of booms to absorb the oily sheen. Danaher said the cleanup has been “like chasing a ghost.”
“Because it’s oily waste, it’s about 95 percent water and that makes it very difficult to absorb and it moves very fast because it’s so light,” he said.
Initially, Navy personnel were skeptical about Washington Department of Ecology reports that the spill had traveled about 10 miles to the Hood Canal Bridge. But then they looked at the state agency’s aerial photographs of the sheen on the water surrounding the bridge.
Danaher described his own reaction to seeing the photos this way:
“Well, there’s good chance it’s probably related to this spill. I wouldn’t know what else to say. I wouldn’t say well, no, that wasn’t it. Some guy dumped his motor boat oil.”
WASHINGTON – Restore America’s Estuaries has released the findings of a groundbreaking study that confirms the climate mitigation benefits of restoring tidal wetland habitat in the Snohomish Estuary, located within the nation’s second largest estuary: Puget Sound. The study, the first of its kind, finds major climate mitigation benefits from wetland restoration and provides a much needed approach for assessing carbon fluxes for historic drained and future restored wetlands which can now be transferred and applied to other geographies.
The Study, “Coastal Blue Carbon Opportunity Assessment for Snohomish Estuary: The Climate Benefits of Estuary Restoration” finds that currently planned and in-construction restoration projects in the Snohomish estuary will result in at least 2.55 million tons of CO2 sequestered from the atmosphere over the next 100-years. This is equivalent to the 1-year emissions for 500,000 average passenger cars. If plans expanded to fully restore the Snohomish estuary, the sequestration potential jumps to 8.8 million tons of CO2 or, in other terms, equal to the 1-year emissions of about 1.7 million passenger cars.
“The study is the first to provide a science-based assessment of climate benefits from restoration at scale. The findings are clear: restoring coastal wetlands must be recognized for their ability to mitigate climate change,” said Jeff Benoit, President and CEO of Restore America’s Estuaries. “The report adds to our list of science-based reasons why restoration is so critical.”
“Healthy estuaries mean healthy economies,” Representative Rick Larsen, WA-02, said. “I have long advocated to restore our estuaries because of the critical role they play in supporting recovery of fisheries. This new study shows that estuary restoration can play a big role in countering climate change too.”
“It is very fitting that we are implementing some of the world’s leading Blue Carbon research here in Puget Sound,” said Steve Dubiel, Executive Director of EarthCorps. “We have always known that wetlands are a kind of breadbasket, thanks to the salmon and shellfish they support. Now we are learning that they are also a carbon sponge.”
In addition to the climate benefits outlined by the study, healthy and restored estuaries act as spawning grounds and nurseries for commercially and recreationally important fish and shellfish species, provide storm buffers for coastal communities, filter pollutants, and provide habitat for numerous species of fish and wildlife, as well as recreational opportunities for hundreds of millions of Americans annually.
“This study illustrates the contribution of tidal wetland restoration to reduce global warming,” said Dr. Steve Crooks, Climate Change Program Manager for Environmental Science Associates and lead author on the study. “From this analysis we find wetlands restoration in Puget Sound likely to be highly resilient to sea level rise while at the same time continuing to sequester carbon within organic soils. Similar opportunities will exist in other coastal regions of the U.S.”
“This report is a call to action. We need to invest more substantially in coastal restoration nationwide and in science to increase our understanding of the climate benefits which accrue from coastal restoration and protection efforts,” said Emmett-Mattox, Senior Director for Restore America’s Estuaries and co-author on the study. “Sea-level rise will only make restoration more difficult and costly in the future. The time for progress is now.”
This report was a collaborative effort of Restore America’s Estuaries, Environmental Science Associates (ESA), EarthCorps, and Western Washington University. Lead funding was provided by NOAA’s Office of Habitat Conservation and additional support was provided by The Boeing Company and the Wildlife Forever Fund.
“Coastal Blue Carbon Opportunity Assessment for Snohomish Estuary: The Climate Benefits of Estuary Restoration” full report is available here, and the Executive Summary is available here.
Officials are responding to a spill of oily bilge water in Washington’s Puget Sound. The spill occurred at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor and has spread 10 miles north to Hood Canal.
State agencies estimate that up to 2,000 gallons spilled Monday when a ship was pumping out oily discharge at the naval facility. The pier-side transfer system failed and overflowed.
Initially the Navy estimated that 150 gallons spilled, but by Tuesday other agencies were disputing that amount.
The Washington Department of Ecology has conducted fly-overs and said that the sheen has spread as far as the Hood Canal Bridge, 10 miles north of the base.
The Navy did not immediately respond to requests for an interview.
There were no documented impacts to wildlife as of Tuesday afternoon, but the Department of Health advised against harvesting shellfish from the affected area.
