Multnomah County, OR announces coal train study
Chair Jeff Cogen announces that he is directing the Multnomah County Health Department to conduct an immediate study on the health effects of coal on our communities and that he is directing the county’s Office of Emergency Management to study the impact of the additional trains in our neighborhoods on…
Northwest Residents and Leaders Deliver Army Corps 25,000 Signatures for Full Review of Coal Export
In an unprecedented action, hundreds of Northwest residents and local Oregon elected officials came together in front of the Northwest Headquarters of the Army Corps of Engineers in demanding a long overdue evaluation of the five coal export proposals threatening the region. They delivered over 25,000 signatures to the Army…
American Coal Companies Look To The Northwest For Export Opportunities
. . .The Gateway Pacific Terminal would be big enough to handle 48 million tons of coal per year. That’s equivalent to almost half the amount of coal the entire country exports right now. Almost 500 ships a year would be passing through this waterway on their way to and…
Burning coal pile has neighbors concerned
A pile of coal that caught fire last week has a Lansing [Michigan] neighborhood concerned about their health. Now the Department of Environmental Quality and other agenies are stepping in to investigate. The yard is on Lansing’s north side at the Conrad Yelvington Distributors Transfer Yard off Martin Luther King…
Rail company shelving Hoquiam WA coal export plans
Regional railroad operator RailAmerica told Port of Grays Harbor commissioners Tuesday that it is shelving current plans to build a coal storage and export facility at the port’s Terminal 3 in Hoquiam. . . “We agree with Rail America that there are other opportunities which will create more jobs and…
EDITORIAL: Oppose coal shipments; Eugene has much to lose, little to gain
. . .it’s hard to imagine how any councilor could do anything but vote to put Eugene on record as opposing the industrial-scale movement of coal by slow-moving trains, some up to 11/2 miles long, through the city. Global firms such as Ambre Energy Ltd. and Kinder Morgan Energy Partners…
Study raises concerns about potential coal train traffic to Northwest export terminals
Coal trains destined for planned terminals in Oregon and Washington could gum up already congested lines, increase rail rates for other freight and increase taxpayers’ costs to fix rail problems, a report released today by the Western Organization of Resource Councils predicts. Read the entire story here.
Editorial: Review proposed coal terminals for impacts across Washington
Do not expect the dust to settle on expansive plans to ship coal from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana to Asia via six proposed coal ports in Oregon and Washington. The derailment Monday of 31 cars of a 125-car coal train at Mesa in Franklin County, 20…