— by Walter Corbin —
It is certainly appreciated that U.S. Representative Larsen visited the San Juan Islands recently. The environmental efforts that are made by our elected officials are surely welcomed by the San Juan Islands community.
However, should that same area be cloaked with coal ash, airborne nitrous oxide, sulfuric acid clouds and CO2, what matter its monument status if that same representative is pushing for that to happen?
Unlike the monument legislation that he has chosen to grant our archipelago, few if any lobbying dollars were necessary for that effort. However, his stand on coal exportation is littered with industry and union contributions to expound and support such environmentally damaging acts.
I hope you choose your candidate not on what they say but what they do. Does Rick Larsen oppose or support the environmental damage that the exportation annually of 51 million tons of coal from Cherry Point will do to our community and the entire West Coast of America?
Walter Corbin lives in Olga WA
“industry and union contributions to [Larsen] support such environmentally damaging acts” I can suspend the proving of this assertion for the sake of discussion–such a record is easy enough to believe! Sadly, there is no one to vote for, due largely to Mr. Corbin’s observation about money. So, as long as we are willing to gamble on a good outcome of our environmental excess against all indicators, and we are grateful for feel-good distractions such as publicity actions, it will almost surely get worse before it gets better. No added jobs hurts, too, but we have to agree which jobs are worth the equivalent destruction of the natural world.