— from Alex Ramel of Stand.earth —
A December 2013 view of the Tesoro refinery across Fidalgo Bay from March Point. (Photo by Dana via Creative Commons License)
On Tuesday, February 27, the Board of Skagit County Commissioners heard an appeal made by six local and regional environmental organizations of the Hearing Examiner’s approval of the Shoreline Substantial Development Permit for the Tesoro (recently renamed Andeavor) Anacortes Refinery petrochemical expansion project.
Last year more than 7,500 public comments were submitted to Skagit County calling for a more thorough and accurate environmental impact statement. Many of those people were in attendance this morning with standing room only in the Skagit County Commission Chambers and dozens more gathered and watched from the overflow area.
Chris Winter with Crag Law Center represented Stand.earth, RE Sources for Sustainable Communities, Evergreen Islands, Friends of the Earth, and the Sierra Club at the hearing. Friends of the San Juans was represented by their staff attorney.
The attorneys pressed the County Commissioners to reverse and remand the Hearing Examiner’s decision to approve the petrochemical expansion project, calling for a more careful and accurate analysis. The project would result in increased vessel traffic in the Salish Sea, increased risk of petrochemical spills, increased emissions of greenhouse gases, increased impacts to air and water quality, increased threats to public health and safety, and increased impacts to fish and wildlife resources — including the 76 remaining endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales.
The environmental groups are also calling on Skagit County to require a stronger conditional use permit for the project, which involves new activity transporting petrochemicals over a designated Shoreline of Statewide Significance.
At the conclusion of the public hearing, environmental organizations Stand.earth, RE Sources for Sustainable Communities, Friends of the San Juans, and Evergreen Islands issue the following statements:
“The flawed environmental study masks the fact that Andeavor’s petrochemical expansion project has direct impacts equivalent to adding 75,000 cars to the road. A similar case in Kalama, WA recently required agencies to redo the environmental study because it lowballed the climate impacts,” said Alex Ramel, Extreme Oil Field Director at Stand.earth. “We are confident the commissioners will require a redo of this environmental study. Decision makers should have accurate information to guide them.”
“Our coalition is working to hold governments and industry accountable to the highest standards. We’re appealing this permit because Skagit County’s government has failed to properly manage new industrial activity. They ignored impacts and gave this expansion a green light without conditions to protect the shoreline and the public interest,” said Eddy Ury, Clean Energy Program Manager at RE Sources for Sustainable Communities.
“The increased threat of a toxic spill from this project remain a significant risk to the endangered Southern Resident orcas and the health of our region. The final environmental review fails to recognize that a worst case spill would include both xylene and propulsion fuel. The EIS does not address the response to the impacts of a spill of both xylene and propulsion fuel,” said Stephanie Buffum, Executive Director of Friends of the San Juans.
“The Salish Sea is irreplaceable, so we have to get this right. Tesoro is proposing to transport a massive quantity of petrochemicals through the community, and the environmental study glosses over the impacts,” said Tom Glade, Board President of Evergreen Islands.
Alex, thank you for bringing this news to our attention.
With existing examples of alternative energy on display world-wide which, in some cases, provide the great majority of energy needs in some forward thinking EU countries (e.g., The Netherlands and others), only apathy stands between us and the next stage of “energy” evolution.
Practical solutions to the region’s energy needs are now available. We should minimize the harmful impacts and risks of harmful impacts during the transition to clean energy as these above organizations are attempting to do; but we should re-double (and reinvigorate) our efforts to implement a new energy infrastructure.
We need the likes of Elon Musk and others with vision and deep pockets to back the start of actually building out the infrastructure, connect the clean energy dots and activate modern energy grids that already function in other places in the world.
Do this is no longer theoretical or financially impractical. If we support this transformation, it attracts $$$ from visionaries who want their $$$ to make a positive difference. What attracts the likes of these well-funded people is the smart application of our latest scientific and technological knowledge to solve intractable societal problems that, if solved, would lead to a tangibly transformative new and improved world. A national clean energy grid is that big. It has all the makings of a huge positive advancement for our species.
Many of these billionaire entrepreneurs found any way possible to make their initial fortunes (pay-pal, seed $ for FB, etc..). Once made, they followed their hearts, dreams and visions in how they have put their money to work.
Moving to clean energy nationally could be a “fantastic” dream come true for the likes of these billionaire visionaries. Let’s connect the dots for them, market this new world to them and then work with them to bring about a world powered by clean energy.
More than $, these first steps require leadership, tenacity and being inspired.
What about starting with programs to eliminate waste in our current consumer ways of the way we are living today !