Read stories of love, kindness and music in celebration of Valentine’s Day on page 5.
INSIDE Letters to the editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2
New business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 3
Time exchange initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 5
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Coal terminal raises concern Local waters could be used to ship millions of pounds of coal By Phillip Holder Special to the Islands’ Weekly
The San Juan Islands face a significant increase in large
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cargo ship traffic under a proposal to build the largest yet coal terminal in North America at Cherry Point,
Port
of
near Ferndale, Wash. Annually, ships measuring up to three football fields in length will make over 950
Lopez
is holding a Public Hearing on February 13th at 7:00pm at the LCCA to present to the public a plan for operations, financial projections and a tax funding request for the Lopez Solid Waste Facility. There will be time for public testimony and a question and answer session. All Lopez residents are encouraged to attend. Check the Port of Lopez website for more information www.portoflopez.com
passages (nearly three per day) transporting tens of millions of tons of Wyoming coal to China. SSA Marine/Carrix (owned 49 percent by Goldman Sachs), Peabody Coal, and BNSF railroad want to move 48 millions tons of coal annually, from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin strip mines on publicly owned lands, to a 350 acre coal terminal to be built northwest of Bellingham. Carried by up to 18 uncovered trains a day, each up to 1.6 miles long, the coal would be piled at Cherry Point. To prevent spontaneous combustion, the coal will have to be turned over regularly with huge front-end loaders — creating significant dust.
Contributed photo/ Paul K. Anderson
A coal train passes along the Bellingham waterfront between a popular hotel/spa and the Taylor Street Dock. From the coal terminal, the coal will be loaded on Capesize — too big for Panama Canal passage — and Panamax ships, and
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transported through the Salish Sea for burning by power plants in Asia. The ships would return empty of cargo, each carrying up to 17 million gallons of Asian ballast water, to be released before coal reloading at Cherry Point. Proponents tout that jobs will be created at Cherry Point, and say that the proposal will help the trade balance between the U.S. and China. But some on the islands and the mainland wonder whether the overall costs of this scheme actually exceed the benefits, and point to several potential impacts on communities, businesses, and the Salish Sea ecosystem. “In the San Juan islands, 95 percent of the herring that is available to be eaten comes from the shallows around Cherry Point,� said Russell Barsh, director of Kwiaht, the Lopez-based Center for the Historical Ecology of the Salish Sea. “Cherry Point is the last remaining spawning area that hasn’t been severely impacted by people, and a coal terminal there would have a huge negative impact. Herring is the basis for marine life in the central Salish sea, and we don’t have enough as it is to support seals, dolphins, salmon, and sea birds.� Barsh also raises concerns about increased shipping traffic, “There’s too many close SEE COAL, PAGE 8