- by Ray Ring
On India's sweltering Western coast, Bharat Patel heads a group of traditional fishermen called Machimar Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti, which loosely translates as the Association for the Struggle for Fishworkers' Rights.
Meanwhile, up in the arid breaks of southeast Montana, Mark Fix wants to preserve the rural character of his 9,700-acre ranch along the Tongue River, where a couple hundred head of cattle share territory with wildlife ranging from great blue herons to beaver and prairie dogs.
Toss in grassroots environmental groups in India and China, some big worldwide green groups, plus more than 300 doctors in Oregon and Washington, local governments in towns like Mosier, Ore., and Edmonds, Wash., Sandpoint, Idaho, and Helena, Mont., numerous Northwest tribes, and the Chamber of Commerce in Burlington, Wash., a small town proud of its annual Berry Dairy Days festival.
What do these disparate parties have in common? They've all recently become allies in an environmental battle in the Western U.S. All are concerned that some of the world's biggest coal and railroad companies want to begin moving huge amounts of that fossil fuel from our country's mother lode -- the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming -- on rail lines across the Northwest to new port facilities, where it would be shipped to voracious power plants in Asian countries, mostly China and India. This scheme would cause pollution, noise and congestion everywhere along the rail line, and seriously worsen climate change, among other impacts.
"At both ends, local communities are getting trampled," says Justin Guay, a Sierra Club staffer based in Washington, D.C., who spends part of his time in India working with Bharat Patel's group.
On the Powder River Basin end, mining companies like Peabody and Arch have shipped coal by rail for decades, mostly eastward to U.S. power plants. But stricter U.S. regulations on coal combustion -- which releases toxic mercury, other heavy metals, sulfur compounds and carbon dioxide, a primary cause of climate change -- and the use of hydrofracturing to develop new sources have made natural gas a cheaper, better fuel for domestic power plants. That's why coal companies want to sell to Asia, where India and China are on a coal-fired power-plant building binge.
The thousands of fishermen in Patel's group oppose the construction of two gigantic coal plants on India's coast -- each at least 4,000 megawatts, roughly eight times larger than the average U.S. coal plant. They say that the coal plants are blocking their access to the shore and marketplaces, spreading pollution and discharging hot water that harms fish habitat. India already imports coal from places like Indonesia and Australia, and many in the industry think that the Powder River Basin coal, thanks to cheap federal leases and easy-to-access veins, will be competitively priced even after it's hauled all the way to Asia.
Patel says that "policy makers are too focused on developing industries ... at the cost of degradation of the coastal environment," and calls for "new solutions to ... climate change."
In between the Powder River Basin and Asia, the coal must pass through many cities in mile-and-a-half-long trains, up to 60 per day, not counting the return traffic. Six new ports are proposed in Washington and Oregon to handle as much as 157 million tons of coal per year (roughly twice as much cargo as the states' existing ports handle).
The Whatcom Docs, a group of more than 150 doctors near one of the proposed Washington ports, are "deeply concerned about the health and safety impacts," because coal dust and diesel fumes lodge in people's lungs, causing asthma, cancer and other illnesses, while long trains impede emergency vehicles trying to cross the tracks.
Rancher Fix frames it more bluntly: "It's corporate greed -- making a buck on whoever's back you have to."
Read more:
http://www.hcn.org/issues/44.12/coal-export-schemes-ignite-unusual-opposition-from-wyoming-to-india?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email
Meanwhile, up in the arid breaks of southeast Montana, Mark Fix wants to preserve the rural character of his 9,700-acre ranch along the Tongue River, where a couple hundred head of cattle share territory with wildlife ranging from great blue herons to beaver and prairie dogs.
Toss in grassroots environmental groups in India and China, some big worldwide green groups, plus more than 300 doctors in Oregon and Washington, local governments in towns like Mosier, Ore., and Edmonds, Wash., Sandpoint, Idaho, and Helena, Mont., numerous Northwest tribes, and the Chamber of Commerce in Burlington, Wash., a small town proud of its annual Berry Dairy Days festival.
What do these disparate parties have in common? They've all recently become allies in an environmental battle in the Western U.S. All are concerned that some of the world's biggest coal and railroad companies want to begin moving huge amounts of that fossil fuel from our country's mother lode -- the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming -- on rail lines across the Northwest to new port facilities, where it would be shipped to voracious power plants in Asian countries, mostly China and India. This scheme would cause pollution, noise and congestion everywhere along the rail line, and seriously worsen climate change, among other impacts.
"At both ends, local communities are getting trampled," says Justin Guay, a Sierra Club staffer based in Washington, D.C., who spends part of his time in India working with Bharat Patel's group.
On the Powder River Basin end, mining companies like Peabody and Arch have shipped coal by rail for decades, mostly eastward to U.S. power plants. But stricter U.S. regulations on coal combustion -- which releases toxic mercury, other heavy metals, sulfur compounds and carbon dioxide, a primary cause of climate change -- and the use of hydrofracturing to develop new sources have made natural gas a cheaper, better fuel for domestic power plants. That's why coal companies want to sell to Asia, where India and China are on a coal-fired power-plant building binge.
The thousands of fishermen in Patel's group oppose the construction of two gigantic coal plants on India's coast -- each at least 4,000 megawatts, roughly eight times larger than the average U.S. coal plant. They say that the coal plants are blocking their access to the shore and marketplaces, spreading pollution and discharging hot water that harms fish habitat. India already imports coal from places like Indonesia and Australia, and many in the industry think that the Powder River Basin coal, thanks to cheap federal leases and easy-to-access veins, will be competitively priced even after it's hauled all the way to Asia.
Patel says that "policy makers are too focused on developing industries ... at the cost of degradation of the coastal environment," and calls for "new solutions to ... climate change."
In between the Powder River Basin and Asia, the coal must pass through many cities in mile-and-a-half-long trains, up to 60 per day, not counting the return traffic. Six new ports are proposed in Washington and Oregon to handle as much as 157 million tons of coal per year (roughly twice as much cargo as the states' existing ports handle).
The Whatcom Docs, a group of more than 150 doctors near one of the proposed Washington ports, are "deeply concerned about the health and safety impacts," because coal dust and diesel fumes lodge in people's lungs, causing asthma, cancer and other illnesses, while long trains impede emergency vehicles trying to cross the tracks.
Rancher Fix frames it more bluntly: "It's corporate greed -- making a buck on whoever's back you have to."
Read more:
http://www.hcn.org/issues/44.12/coal-export-schemes-ignite-unusual-opposition-from-wyoming-to-india?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email
