When Scoop Jackson wrote the Environmental Protection Act, no one could have imagined how the Internet would empower activists to dig into something like coal exports.
By Floyd McKay
From Crosscut.com
Second article in a three-part series
Scoop Jackson didn’t have the Internet in mind when he wrote the Environmental Protection Act in 1969, but that marvelous invention has dramatically changed the way the Washington senator’s legacy has operated. The democratizing of information has given community activists a shot at the Big Guys, who always have had access to data.
Witness the activists’ and community members’ multi-faceted attacks on plans to export coal from Pacific Northwest ports, in thousands of comments to public agencies charged with the environmental review of Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT), proposed at Cherry Point north of Bellingham.
Most of the 16,000 “uniquely worded” — not form letters — comments from GPT opponents are laced with footnotes and references that to studies and information in 1969 would have been available only to big companies and big environmental groups. Today, small groups and individuals can back their talk with citations from eminent experts. In the case of the coal ports, it could be a game-changer.
Terminal opponents must move the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) beyond the Gateway site in order to introduce impacts such as ship and rail traffic, global warming, and health threats. Terminal backers want a narrower review, as we discussed in Part I of this series.
(To read the full article, go to crosscut.com/coal-port-opponents-rail-crossings-health-climate )
For the past two years, Crosscut has been the region’s best source of news, analysis and commentary on coal ports. You can find it all on Crosscut’s Coal ports page.
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