Coal trains a threat

Thanks to Jan Hoem for the guest editorial (“Fight coal exports, trains”) on the high price that Spokane will pay if we become a rail conduit sending Wyoming coal to China.

The 40 coal trains a day that Hoem mentions could, in reality, become 50 or 60. That’s 60 1.5-mile-long, uncovered coal trains thundering and blaring through Spokane Valley and downtown Spokane 24/7, spewing tons of toxic coal dust and diesel exhaust.

To keep streets usable, Spokane taxpayers will build rail overpasses at $15 million a pop. Local people will pay with their health for exhaust-poisoned air. Property within hearing of the trains will lose value.

Meanwhile, sending the coal halfway around the world doubles its carbon footprint, destroying the climate and returning mercury pollution to us on the winds. In fact, recent analysis by the Sightline Institute shows that this Wyoming-to-China coal conveyor would do far more climate damage than the controversial Keystone XL pipeline would.

It is the most environmentally destructive project on Earth.

Groups such as the Sierra Club and Climate Solutions have been working to prevent this disaster for two years, fighting the building of coal megaports that these trains would serve. For more, see these sites: www.sierraclub.org/coal/wa; www.climatesolutions.org.

David Camp

Spokane