— by Michael Riordan for the New York Times (nytimes.com) —
EASTSOUND, Wash. — From where I live on Orcas Island in Puget Sound, north of Seattle, I can see Cherry Point across the wind-whipped waters of the Salish Sea. This sandy promontory jutting into Georgia Strait has become the focus of heated debate here in the Pacific Northwest.
Peabody Energy, Carrix and other corporations hope to build a shipping terminal at Cherry Point to export nearly 50 million metric tons of coal to Asia annually. They ballyhoo the jobs the terminal may bring to our region but say nothing about the profits they will reap from selling subsidized coal.
Opponents decry the prospect of the dirty, smelly, noisy trains blocking railroad crossings all across Washington State as they transport coal here from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. They also warn that coal dust from the terminal will pollute nearby waters and harm our dwindling populations of herring, threatened Chinook salmon and endangered killer whales.
But much larger issues of national and global concern are at stake.
(to read the full article, go to nytimes.com/2014/02/13/opinion/dont-sell-cheap-us-coal-to-asia )
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Thank you Dr. Riordan. Your article is appreciated, to the point, and touching nerves across the country from the Times article. All nails in the coffin of this antiquated, environmentally disastrous industry are needed. From the devastation in West Virginia to Montana, and now the efforts to drag it westward through our communities so that it can land in Asia to fuel cheap, dangerous manufacturing has to end. This dinosaur is roaring loudly as it goes down, and will continue until it has been put to rest.