Thanks to council for coal position | Letter

Published 4:16 pm Monday, July 16, 2012

We are pleased to hear that the San Juan County Council has unanimously requested that a programmatic, area-wide environmental impact statement be performed for the proposed Gateway Pacific Coal Terminal. And we are also glad to see that a prominent story about this request appeared on page 1 of the July 11 Sounder.

The impacts of this project – and of five others like it in Washington and Oregon – will stretch far beyond the actual terminal site. The proposed terminal at Cherry Point would stimulate rail and shipping traffic affecting Washington citizens from Spokane to Seattle and from Bellingham to Port Angeles. It has the potential to change our way of life irreversibly here in the San Juan Islands.

The possible regional impacts have recently been cited by the Northwest Straits Commission, representing seven counties and eleven tribes in the Puget Sound region, in a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and three other officials in the Obama Administration. The Commission also requested such an area-wide assessment.

Such a regional environmental analysis should include “the assessment of impacts to water quality, air quality, habitats, wildlife species, and potential loss of tourism,” the Commission states. “In addition, a comprehensive assessment should specifically include the potential effect of increased noise from shipping traffic on Southern resident orca populations.”

We could not have said it any better. Thank you, Northwest Straits Commission for taking this important case to some of the highest offices in the U.S. government.

Donna and Michael Riordan

Eastsound