Coal train opponents planning forum Oct. 27

On Thursday Oct. 27, the Sierra Club and Climate Solutions, with support from the Spokane Riverkeeper and the Lands Council, will host a free forum to warn Spokane residents about a proposal that may drastically impact our quality of life and put our city in the middle of a global climate change debate: Two of the biggest coal mining and processing companies in the world plan to strip mine 130 million tons of coal per year from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, send it rumbling through Spokane on 1 ½ mile-long trains, and ship it to China and other coal-hungry Asian markets via new export terminals in Longview and Cherry Point. This would add nearly 50 trains to the 100 that already thunder through town every day. The free event will take place at the Lincoln Center, located at 1316 N. Lincoln, from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Spokane Riverkeeper Bart Mihailovich and his KYRS co-host Paul Dillon, author of the Down to Earth blog, will facilitate a discussion of the project’s potential impacts with a diverse group of panelists, who will also be available to answer audience questions. Panelists include city councilmembers Amber Waldref and Bob Apple, North Soundkeeper Matt Krogh, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality hydrologist Gary Stevens, and Dr. Robert Truckner. Together, the panelists will examine the project from an economic, political, environmental and public health perspective. Similar forums have already taken place in Bellingham, Mt. Vernon, and Seattle, and according to Sierra Club’s Associate Field Organizer, Robin Everett, have attracted hundreds. Mihailovich urges Spokane-area residents to actively oppose this project because while he says the issue is framed mostly as one that impacts the proposed export terminal sites, communities that are along the rail lines, like Spokane, have just as much if not more, to lose. “Bellingham and Longview are fighting to stop the export terminals from being in their communities, and they very well could be successful and say, ‘wow, we dodged a bullet,’ but for Spokane, there is no dodging the bullet. No matter where they end up exporting this stuff, the trains will come through Spokane. People here need to know what that means,” he warns. And what it means according to the Riverkeeper and what keeps him up at night, is a serious threat to the integrity of local lakes and rivers, and the area’s sole source of clean drinking water - the Spokane Valley Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer. If this project gets approved, Mihailovich explains, all 48 of the additional proposed trains (per day) will use the existing refueling depot that sits directly above the aquifer. “I’m fearful that we are playing too high of stakes here,” he says, “I mean our drinking water is all we have.” Kootenai Environmental Alliance, a Coeur d’ Alene-based conservation organization that is opposed to the project, shares the Riverkeeper’s fears. KEA recently described the situation: “The probabilities for disaster, however remote on any given day, are doubling. And the odds are worsening with every rumbling train over the thin protective liners that separate the aquifer from BNSF’s supply of diesel fuel.” Beyond water quality concerns, groups opposed to the project say that it will significantly contribute to global climate change, and that the added coal dust and diesel fumes will greatly increase the risks of cancer, birth defects, heart disease and increased asthma and lung disease. Traffic congestion and noise pollution are also raised as inevitable impacts. “This is a big global issue,” Mihailovich says, “and Spokane is right in the midst of it. People in Spokane need to stand up and fight for the quality of life that we have come to expect here, and being a conduit for this coal exporting will seriously impact that quality of life.” The sponsors hope that this event will mobilize a group of local volunteers to represent Spokane’s interests in the statewide anti-coal campaign.