Stand against coal scam

Saturday’s op-ed (“Spokane can balance rail traffic, safety, jobs”) calls for more coal trains through Spokane? Why? What can Spokane gain from thousands of Wyoming coal trains clogging our rail lines and street crossings each year, forcing taxpayers to fund $30 million overpasses while local farmers can’t ship their grain? Coal that drifts back from Asia as more of the mercury pollution that already has local rivers and lakes under fish consumption advisories?

What can our world gain from sending dirty coal halfway around the world, doubling its carbon footprint and speeding our rush towards climate disaster?

Spokane, we’re being punked. Just as coal utilities now shunt the huge costs of their pollution onto us each day, these coal mining giants want us to pay their shipping costs, and then to pay again for their carbon and mercury pollution.

All the world’s nations agreed in Paris to quit fossil fuels within decades. Coal must be the first to go. Panicked coal companies are simply trying to ship out every ounce before coal is better regulated and eventually banned, and they want us to pay for it.

Let’s not be suckers. Attend the May 26, 1 p.m. hearing at Spokane Convention Center and stand against this scam.

David Camp

Spokane