— by Floyd McKay, Crosscut.com —
Shipping terminals and mining companies hoping to ship coal to Asia from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana gained some political and public-relations traction this week with a ruling by the Surface Transportation Board a railroad can require its coal customers to apply topping to open coal cars to reduce the escape of coal dust.
The Surface Transportation Board, in a decision announced Tuesday, accepted BNSF railway’s evidence that the surfactant reduced coal dust by at least 85 percent on the giant unit trains that ship coal across the country and to Canada. New export terminals have been proposed in Washington state at Longview and north of Bellingham. A smaller terminal is proposed on the Columbia River near Boardman, Ore.
Although the STB’s ruling is based on an economic dispute between BNSF and its coal customers, it buttresses the railroad’s contention that concerns about coal dust from shipments to new terminals can be dealt with through mitigation — in this case the spraying of a surfactant on loads of coal when they leave the Powder River Basin on mile-and-a-half-long coal trains. Critics of the export proposals have long complained about health and environmental risks for coal dust from passing trains.
To read the full article, go to: crosscut.com/2013/12/20/coal-ports/dust-protection-required
Surfactants… Aren’t those the chemicals in detergents, etc., that disrupt the ability of marine organisms to “breathe”? And it all runs downhill.
Yes, Thea. Thank, you for being awake and aware of the surfactant issue, and they don’t just affect marine waters or marine organisms. We certainly don’t want them in our streams, rain water, or aquifers either!
Not only that, but surfactants are also hormone disruptors, interfering with reproductive capabilities of beneficial amphibians. The also affect humans, no matter what this article seems to say. the yardstick for approving dangerous chemicals seems to be “does it affect humans?” How arrogant a stance- to think that humans are superior to, disconnected from, and not dependent on, other life forms.
I guess the bottom line trumps the hypocrisy of cutting our own coal smoke emissions by selling it to China so we can then accuse them of polluting the earth and oceans?