LIVE from Seattle: Huge turnout for final scoping hearing on Gateway Pacific Terminal

This after­noon, the U.S. Army Corps of Engi­neers, Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy, and What­com Coun­ty (the co-lead agen­cies) are hold­ing the sev­enth in a series of scop­ing meet­ings to deter­mine how to best pro­ceed with an envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ment for the pro­posed Gate­way Pacif­ic Ter­mi­nal and Custer rail­road spur at the Wash­ing­ton State Con­ven­tion Cen­ter in down­town Seattle.

This meet­ing was orig­i­nal­ly going to be held ear­li­er at a small­er venue, but it was pushed back to today in antic­i­pa­tion of big crowds. It’s a good thing the meet­ing was moved. There are a huge num­ber of peo­ple here.

The co-lead agen­cies have set up two rooms to accom­mo­date hear­ing par­tic­i­pants. Each room has at least a thou­sand chairs set up in it (and most of the seats are now taken).

Par­tic­i­pants have been asked by the hear­ing’s mod­er­a­tor not to applaud, cheer, boo, or oth­er­wise make noise so as to allow agency rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the court reporter present to lis­ten care­ful­ly to the tes­ti­mo­ny and make notes. Par­tic­i­pants have been told they can wave their signs to sig­ni­fy their agree­ment with a speak­er, or show “thumbs down” to sig­ni­fy disagreement.Persons tes­ti­fy­ing will have two min­utes apiece (and no more than that) in which to speak.

Ready for sev­er­al hours of con­tin­u­ous live cov­er­age? Here we go!

UPDATE, 4:11 PM: We’re now hear­ing from a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Lum­mi Nation who says it is “not accept­able” to his tribe for tra­di­tion­al bur­ial grounds to be despoiled by indus­tri­al development.

UPDATE, 4:14 PM: Our next speak­er is the chair­man of the Tulalip tribes. He’s mak­ing his oppo­si­tion to coal exports plain­ly clear.

“Tulalip will not tol­er­ate impacts to the health of our trib­al mem­bers… These projects pose sig­nif­i­cant threats to our environment.”

“We ask you not per­mit any project that sig­nif­i­cant­ly impacts our way of life.”

UPDATE, 4:16 PM: Our last Native speak­er comes from the Swinomish tribe. She’s echo­ing the sen­ti­ments of the pre­vi­ous speak­ers. “The Swinomish peo­ple want to ensure that we all live healthy lives,” she told the agency representatives.

UPDATE, 4:20 PM: The Rag­ing Grannies are the first to tes­ti­fy. And nat­u­ral­ly, they’re tes­ti­fy­ing in the form of a song.

UPDATE, 4:23 PM: Our next speak­er is an envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer. Her com­ments are very on point. “I ask that you eval­u­ate the impact of burn­ing all of the coal that would be trans­port­ed through all of the export ter­mi­nals.” Specif­i­cal­ly, she urged the agency rep­re­sen­ta­tives to think about the con­se­quences for ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion and endan­gered species. She con­clud­ed by say­ing,” We say no to coal exports… period.”

UPDATE, 4:26 PM: Our next speak­er, Sharon Levine, says, “We should not be encour­ag­ing Asia to use fos­sil fuels.” She urged agency rep­re­sen­ta­tives to con­sid­er “cumu­la­tive impacts”. “We real­ly need to be think­ing about things like coal train derail­ments,” she declared.

UPDATE, 4:26 PM: And now, State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Reuven Car­lyle is up!

UPDATE, 4:28 PM: Car­lyle is telling the agency rep­re­sen­ta­tives that the EIS must be “data-dri­ven” and “thor­ough”. “We are one state,” he remind­ed the pan­el. “A com­pre­hen­sive, cumu­la­tive impacts state­ment is vital.”

UPDATE, 4:31 PM: Our next speak­er is a twelve-year old stu­dent from Seattle’s Queen Anne neigh­bor­hood – Rachel Hall. “With­in my life­time, I’m no longer going to be able to ski at Sno­qualmie Pass because of glob­al warm­ing,” she says. “My gen­er­a­tion will pay a high price for the glob­al warm­ing that you do.”

Lots and lots of signs in the air!

“If you make coal more avail­able, more peo­ple will burn it,” she notes.

Huge cheers and applause break out after mod­er­a­tor makes an excep­tion to the noise rule for “peo­ple under eighteen.”

UPDATE, 4:33 PM: Our next speak­er is one of Tacoma’s city coun­cilmem­bers. “I am here this evening con­cerned about coal train impacts on my city and cities like mine,” he says. He’s out­lin­ing sev­er­al areas of con­cern he wants the agency rep­re­sen­ta­tives to look at. For example:

• Con­cern about at-grade cross­ings in Tacoma;
• Con­cern about how this negates activ­i­ty with cli­mate action plan;
• Con­cern about impact on prop­er­ty values.

UPDATE, 4:36 PM: Our next speak­er is from Mon­tana. The room has gone extra qui­et because every­one is lis­ten­ing intent­ly. “I’ve worked in a coal mine and I’ve seen how things are done. How the Earth is dug up,” he told the agency rep­re­sen­ta­tives. “From our riv­er, all the way to your ocean… the water will be poi­soned… You can’t drink that water, where I work.”

UPDATE, 4:40 PM: Our next speak­er is a farmer who has come some dis­tance to speak. “I under­stand the need to burn coal for elec­tric­i­ty… but I also under­stand that coal is a finite resource,” he said ear­ly on in his pre­pared remarks. He went on to con­demn the Corps of Engi­neers for not hold­ing scop­ing meet­ings in Wyoming and Mon­tana. “I can’t under­stand why I should need to trav­el over a thou­sand miles to com­ment on a project that affects my liveli­hood,” he told the agency representatives.

UPDATE, 4:43 PM: Our next speak­er comes to us from the Edmonds City Coun­cil. She’s ask­ing the agen­cies to con­sid­er the impacts that coal trains would have on Edmonds fer­ry traf­fic and the beach­es of Edmonds.

UPDATE, 4:45 PM: Our next speak­er is a twen­ty-two year old trans­plant from Min­neso­ta who works at the Bon­neville Pow­er Admin­is­tra­tion and moved here because he want­ed to enjoy the Pacif­ic Northwest’s qual­i­ty of life. “I would love [for the co-lead agen­cies] to see the exter­nal costs,” he told the representatives.

UPDATE, 4:49 PM: We final­ly have a speak­er in green shirt. (Peo­ple wear­ing green shirts are here to sup­port the pro­posed ter­mi­nal project). “We need these facil­i­ties to pre­serve port and rail jobs,” he told the agency rep­re­sen­ta­tive. “Coal is not a pol­lu­tant when burned…. except when burned,” he quick­ly added, catch­ing him­self, as peo­ple began to laugh. Lots and lots of thumbs down.

UPDATE, 4:52 PM: Our next speak­er is Seat­tle small busi­ness own­er Mike Dash. He wants the agen­cies to look at per­mafrost melt­ing, because that could result in a very large increase in car­bon diox­ide emis­sions. He says he wants four things to be includ­ed in the EIS:

• How much of a mar­gin of safe­ty do we have in terms of where we are now and the melt­ing of the permafrost?
• How would the pro­posed ter­mi­nal at Cher­ry Point impact per­mafrost melting?
• What’s the cost of build­ing sea­walls to pro­tect us against superstorms?
• Would exter­nal costs be cov­ered by the builders of the terminal?

UPDATE, 4:53 PM: Our next speak­er wants the co-lead agen­cies to look hard at the impact of coal trains on wildlife sanctuaries.

UPDATE, 4:59 PM: Our next speak­er has to be one of the youngest peo­ple here. Not sure how old he is, but boy, can he speak. (Sor­ry for the pun). This is one of the most inspir­ing bits of tes­ti­mo­ny I’ve ever heard at a pub­lic hear­ing. “This plan pro­pos­es tons and tons of coal going through many neigh­bor­hoods… next to train tracks,” he says. “My ques­tion is: What would the health impacts be on peo­ple – espe­cial­ly chil­dren liv­ing near the train tracks?” He con­clud­ed by salut­ing the red-shirt­ed mass­es for turn­ing out to oppose the project.

UPDATE, 5:00 PM: We’re now hear­ing from the edi­tor of CoalTrainFacts.org. She’s point­ing out that we all inhab­it the same plan­et Earth. What hap­pens on the oth­er side of the world affects us: “Coal burnt in Asia hurts peo­ple there and blows pol­lu­tants back here.”

UPDATE, 5:03 PM: Our next speak­er is a Native Amer­i­can. “I do not sup­port any coal devel­op­ment of any kind,” he told the co-lead agen­cies. “It’s destroy­ing, and has destroyed, our envi­ron­ment, and wildlife.”

UPDATE, 5:06 PM: We’re now hear­ing from a Sum­n­er com­mu­ni­ty leader con­cerned about eco­nom­ic impacts on her city. She mem­o­rably pref­aced her remarks against the project by say­ing, “If you don’t stand for some­thing, you will fall for anything.”

UPDATE, 5:10 PM: Our next speak­er has some harsh words for the fos­sil fuels indus­try: “Any activ­i­ty based on coal ought to be con­sid­ered a crim­i­nal activ­i­ty at this time in our history.”

UPDATE, 5:14 PM: Our next speak­er is a ranch­er from south­east­ern Mon­tana who is “vehe­ment­ly opposed” to allow­ing cor­po­ra­tions to extract coal from the Rocky Moun­tain West and export it over­seas to be burned in Chi­na. He com­plained about the two-minute time lim­it and expressed the wor­ry that the Corps is treat­ing the hear­ings it is doing as mere­ly a for­mal­i­ty. As he depart­ed the stage, many peo­ple shout­ed their enthu­si­as­tic agree­ment, in vio­la­tion of the rules.

UPDATE, 5:17 PM: Now we’re hear­ing from the leader of the Cas­cade Chap­ter of the Sier­ra Club, who says we should be work­ing on devel­op­ing high speed pas­sen­ger rail, sup­port­ing sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, and invest­ing in renew­able ener­gy instead of export­ing coal to China.

UPDATE, 5:18 PM: Our next speak­er is chal­leng­ing one of the talk­ing points of coal port pro­po­nents. “They say this will cre­ate jobs, but it could destroy jobs,” he told the agency representatives.

UPDATE, 5:21 PM: Our next speak­er is from the Asso­ci­a­tion of Wash­ing­ton Busi­ness, which is an affil­i­ate of the Cham­ber of Com­merce. He is only the sec­ond per­son to have spo­ken in this room in favor of the project. “Oppo­nents are ask­ing you to go beyond the legal require­ments,” he told the agen­cies. He added: “We call on the Corps of Engi­neers, Wash­ing­ton Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy, and What­com Coun­ty to apply fed­er­al laws fair­ly and promptly.”

UPDATE, 5:24 PM: Our next speak­er is the may­or of Lyn­den, who has endorsed the Gate­way Pacif­ic Ter­mi­nal (as have sev­er­al oth­er may­ors in What­com Coun­ty). “We are a nation of laws. Per­mit­ting agen­cies should not inter­fere with law­ful com­merce,” he told the agency rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Plen­ty of peo­ple waved red her­ring plac­ards or stood up with their thumbs held down. Hiss­ing also broke out, in vio­la­tion of the rules.

UPDATE, 5:30 PM: We’re now hear­ing from Michael Ramos of the Church Coun­cil of Greater Seat­tle. “With the Scrip­tures, we have to say: Before us we have life and death. Choose life!”

UPDATE, 5:38 PM: Now that’s a con­cise end­ing – from our last speak­er: “Coal is dead!”

UPDATE, 5:41 PM: We can hear singing com­ing from the adjoin­ing room. Sounds some­one with a lot of tal­ent from one of our North­west tribes.

UPDATE, 5:41 PM: We are now about halfway through the hearing.

UPDATE, 5:43 PM: Our cur­rent speak­er is telling the pan­el that the Pacif­ic jet­stream will blow harm­ful emis­sions from China’s coal-burn­ing pow­er plants back to our skies in the span of just a cou­ple of weeks. “This a mon­u­men­tal­ly stu­pid thing to do,” he says. “I say hell no to rapa­cious greed.”

UPDATE, 5:44 PM: Our next speak­er says it’s time to expand and update our pas­sen­ger rail sys­tem instead of using our rail­roads to ship coal over­seas to China.

UPDATE, 5:46 PM: Our next speak­er is anoth­er young per­son – a fifth grad­er, to be spe­cif­ic – who humor­ous­ly says she’s been “dragged to meet­ings” to learn more about coal. She wants the pan­el to think care­ful­ly about all of the envi­ron­men­tal con­se­quences of this project.

UPDATE, 5:48 PM: Our next speak­er is a project pro­po­nent. “It’s clear there is a mar­ket for the prod­uct and a prof­it to be made…. The eco­nom­ic advan­tages of mov­ing the project for­ward are enormous.”

He con­cludes: “Let’s build the Gate­way Pacif­ic Ter­mi­nal at Cher­ry Point… Let’s move for­ward for prosperity.”

UPDATE, 5:51 PM: We just heard from anoth­er elo­quent speak­er from the North­ern Cheyenne tribe. Real­ly glad to have peo­ple with us from Mon­tana and Wyoming who would be affect­ed by this.

UPDATE, 5:54 PM: Anoth­er Lum­mi speak­er is up now. “I grew up as a com­mer­cial fish­er­man,” he says. “We’re already suf­fer­ing from the chem­i­cals that are being leached into the waters by the alu­mini­um smelters that are up there.”

“You should see those tankers that pol­lute our waters,” he says.

UPDATE, 5:56 PM: Dave Myers is now speak­ing on behalf of the build­ing and con­struc­tion trades. He’s in favor of export­ing coal to Chi­na. Some sound bites:

• “It’s only appro­pri­ate to eval­u­ate the Gate­way Pacif­ic Ter­mi­nal on its own merits.”
• “I’m con­fi­dent the stud­ies will show lim­it­ed impacts on the environment.”
• “This project will bring real con­struc­tion and fam­i­ly wage jobs to Wash­ing­ton State… We need to embrace oppor­tu­ni­ties like this.”
• “I believe we can be smart and respon­si­ble when using coal.”

UPDATE, 6:01 PM: One more hour to go!

UPDATE, 6:03 PM: Our next speak­er is some­one who has done thir­ty years of envi­ron­men­tal work. She wants the agency rep­re­sen­ta­tives to look at the infra­struc­ture that would be required to sup­port the coal trains.

UPDATE, 6:06 PM: We’re now hear­ing from Grace Ann Bird, a Nisqually trib­al mem­ber. “I live with­in a few miles of the Burling­ton North­ern train tracks that are pro­posed to car­ry uncov­ered coal trains,” she says. She’s con­cerned about coal trains neg­a­tive­ly impact­ing trib­al fish­ing grounds

UPDATE, 6:08 PM: Lee Nugent from the Seat­tle build­ing trades is now at the podi­um, speak­ing in favor of the project. “Everybody’s heard every con­cern from both sides of this,” he says. “What we haven’t addressed is why China’s using all of our coal… Chi­na is burn­ing our coal is because we keep buy­ing their products.”

“If coal is going to be used, we should try to put envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards on it,” he concludes.

UPDATE, 6:10 PM: Our next speak­er is a young woman who is soon to be a moth­er who works on a farm and rais­es poul­try. She doesn’t want the meat she sells to be con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed as a result of tox­ic dust from coal trains.

UPDATE, 6:14 PM: “What kind of peo­ple are we?” our next speak­er is ask­ing. She won­ders “what kind of col­lec­tive crazi­ness” would allow a project like this to go for­ward. “Now is our last chance to get the future right,” she adds.

UPDATE, 6:17 PM: Our cur­rent speak­er is play­ing an audio clip of train noise (from a freight train) record­ed up in What­com Coun­ty. It’s not a pleas­ant sound.

UPDATE, 6:19 PM: We’re now hear­ing about some of the poten­tial con­se­quences to our ecosys­tems that would result from allow­ing this project to be built.

UPDATE, 6:22 PM: Our next speak­er is a Lum­mi Island res­i­dent. “There are too many sig­nif­i­cant adverse impacts to men­tion in two min­utes,” he says. But he urges the agency rep­re­sen­ta­tives to thor­ough­ly ana­lyze the cul­tur­al impact of the project on the Lum­mi peo­ple. He also gives Sight­line Insti­tute a shout-out.

UPDATE, 6:24 PM: Wow, anoth­er young speak­er thought­ful­ly urg­ing that we real­ly think through the con­se­quences of this. An eleven year-old this time. I’m real­ly sur­prised and impressed by the num­ber of youth who have stepped up to the podi­um at today’s hear­ing. Bra­vo to these kids for becom­ing activists so ear­ly in their lives.

UPDATE, 6:26 PM: Our next speak­er sug­gests China’s appetite for coal won’t last for very long, and that con­se­quent­ly, a coal ter­mi­nal would be a waste of money.

UPDATE, 6:28 PM: Our next speak­er is a for­mer Seat­tle Uni­ver­si­ty dean. “I would like you to con­sid­er that you are co-cre­ators with God of Earth’s future,” she says. “Our faith tells us that we are spe­cial crea­tures cre­at­ed by God and that we have these great responsibilities.”

UPDATE, 6:31 PM: Our next speak­er was trained by Al Gore to deliv­er his “An Incon­ve­nient Truth” pre­sen­ta­tion on the cli­mate cri­sis. He’s read­ing off some sev­enth graders’ reac­tions to the coal ter­mi­nal project.

UPDATE, 6:34 PM: Our next speak­er is some­one who says she moved to the Pacif­ic North­west because of its mag­nif­i­cent coast. “Wash­ing­ton is the only state with a marine recre­ation­al trail,” she notes. “As you move for­ward with the scop­ing, you must con­sid­er impacts to shore­line recreation.”

UPDATE, 6:36 PM: Our next speak­er says it is “beyond unthink­able” that in 2012, we are con­sid­er­ing increas­ing our depen­dence on fos­sil fuels instead of pow­er­ing past coal, oil, and nat­ur­al gas.

UPDATE, 6:38 PM: Our next speak­er is an oceanog­ra­ph­er and retired EPA water qual­i­ty spe­cial­ist. “I think that you have heard today a broad num­ber of peo­ple speak­ing about effects that go all of the way from Mon­tana and Wyoming to Chi­na… “I hope you have not­ed that these are all inter­con­nect­ed effects.”

UPDATE, 6:44 PM: Well-known envi­ron­men­tal attor­ney Peter Gold­man is now address­ing the agency rep­re­sen­ta­tives, urg­ing them to do due dili­gence in prepar­ing the envi­ron­men­tal impact statement.

UPDATE, 6:45 PM: Our next speak­er says he is pre­pared to phys­i­cal­ly impede coal trains if need be. He uses the last forty sec­onds of his time to repeat­ed­ly say, “We won’t do this!”

UPDATE, 6:46 PM: Our next speak­er wants the co-lead agen­cies to con­sid­er if the ven­ti­la­tion in the Great North­ern rail­way tun­nel is acti­vate. He’s also con­cerned about poten­tial neg­a­tive impacts on his­toric buildings.

UPDATE, 6:48 PM: The meet­ing has been so effi­cient­ly run that we have time to hear from addi­tion­al speak­ers (which is a good thing).

UPDATE, 6:50 PM: Our next speak­er is both pas­sion­ate and spir­i­tu­al. “Our plan­et can­not speak,” she says. “Our chil­dren, not yet born, can­not speak. I ask that you look into the future fifty years.”

UPDATE, 6:54 PM: Our next speak­er won­ders whether the rail­roads oper­at­ing the coal trains that would be bring­ing coal to the pro­posed Gate­way Pacif­ic Ter­mi­nal would be required to cov­er the trains.

UPDATE, 6:57 PM: An obser­va­tion: Hav­ing peo­ple sig­ni­fy dis­agree­ment by wav­ing their hands or signs real­ly seems to work. It allows the mod­er­a­tor to move quick­ly between one speak­er and the next, and it ensures the speak­ers them­selves get more time to say what they want to say.

UPDATE, 6:59 PM: Our next speak­er is from Nathan Hale High School. “My gen­er­a­tion is faced with the realtiy of cli­mate change as our future,” he says. “That sci­ence they show us in biol­o­gy tells us we’re rapid­ly approach­ing the point of no return.”

UPDATE, 7:01 PM: So that Nathan Hale stu­dent was our last speak­er. Great way to end the hear­ing. She was real­ly elo­quent. “When we get to the point of no return, mon­ey won’t mat­ter. Sur­vival will.” Great thought!

UPDATE, 7:02 PM: The hear­ing is adjourned. Every­one is head­ing their sep­a­rate ways, Thanks for read­ing our live cov­er­age! If you’d like to watch this hear­ing lat­er on, you can do so on TVW or the Seat­tle Chan­nel. They were here tap­ing the proceedings.

Well, it’s time to close the lid on the lap­top and head out. Thanks for fol­low­ing along with our live cov­er­age! We hope it was infor­ma­tive and helpful.