From Stark
Matthew Rose, president and CEO of BNSF Railway Co., has written to Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire to argue that increased rail shipments of coal to Gateway Pacific Terminal and other proposed shipping facilities will not disrupt other freight or passenger service on the railroad.
Craig Cole, local spokesman for SSA Marine, provided this copy of the letter to Gregoire. SSA Marine is the Seattle-based international shipping company that has proposed the Gateway Pacific pier at a Whatcom County deep-water shipping site south of the BP Cherry Point refinery. The later is dated May 14, 2012.
The Gateway Pacific proposal, along with other proposed coal shipping facilities in the Northwest, has triggered a firestorm of opposition based on concerns about rail traffic through communities, diesel exhaust, coal dust, climate change, and more.
“Unfortunately, much of the public discussion is misleading and incorrect,” Rose’s letter says.
If I were the CEO of BNSF I would probably not be citing the on-time arrivals and departures of Amtrak service on the BNFS line as fact…
Keep the coal in the ground.
Burning and transporting coal causes severe harm to all living things.
BNSF and its puny king pins are transitory. Let’s protect the planet for the coming generations.
Proposition 2 (a Community Bill of Rights to establish a coal free Bellingham) will be on the ballot this fall. You can vote to deny BNSF the right to ship coal through Bellingham.
You do have the power to stop BNSF.
BNSF’s letter misses the point entirely. It fails to account for the actual train numbers that would be rumbling up to Bellingham. Worse yet, BNSF is ignoring the fact that there are six proposed coal terminals. The Bellingham coal export proposal – remember, this is coal, not just any “bulk export” – is joined by proposals throughout the region (including another 44 mt/y project in Longview). Each one of these terminals could potentially involve the use of BNSF tracks, with dozens of coal trains involved coming through the Columbia Gorge and I-5 corridor.
The people of Washington and its Governor cannot afford to take BNSF’s statements on faith. We need a thorough, hard look at these proposals. Or, maybe it makes more sense to push for cleaner industries in Bellingham and Longview, ones that don’t spill so much coal on the tracks that trains derail (note: BNSF’s letter admits that coal dust has led to derailments). We can do better.
BNSF’s letter fails to address the serious impacts of 18 more daily coal trains on local communities along the rail line and provides a “smoke and mirrors” discussion of “capacity.” A BNSF representative will be in Mount Vernon on Wednesday evening of this week to address topics of his choice before the Council’s Public Safety committee. Meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the Council Chamber at 1805 Continental Place. Members of the public can attend but cannot make public comment.
Insight, rail is federally regulated, which completely pre-empts Prop2. To stop the trains, we must stop the terminals. Period.
Mary is right.
It’s funny that ‘capacity’ would be his excuse for cramming railroad traffic down the community’s throat since it only means that BNSF is accommodated,
not the residents.
An illustration of the traffic delays that would accumulate over the hundreds of level crossings might be a better indication of their shipping capacity but that might be too honest.
The Good News is that Gregoire is a lawyer and so will scan this facile marketing pitch and toss it aside as meaningless since she won’t be anywhere nearby when the studies are presented.
How have the two candidates for her seat come down on the issue?
Terry, you are neither judge nor jury.
We need to do both, support Prop 2 and Say NO to the terminal.
Support the Coal-Free Bellingham Community Bill of Rights campaign.
The people have a right to decide. As of January, 2012 the number of communities with such ordinances is about 150. Perhaps the best known law protects the people of Pittsburgh and its local ecosystems from natural gas fracking. Other communities have confronted threats such as industrial hog farming, spreading sewage sludge, cell phone towers, waste disposal and bottling local water sources. (Read about other communities’ rights-based ordinances)
Stop the GPT
Of course we need to stop the building of the terminal. People of good will are working on that also.
Remember “Do not put all of your eggs in the same basket. ‘
Owl, all the community bill of rights ordinances challenged in court have been overturned because they purport to regulate that which is already regulated at the state or federal level. I discussed with Tom Linzey. They’re not designed to stop the activity; they can’t stop the activity. I’m not licensed to practice in WA, so this is not a legal opinion. And I’m not saying not to support the BoR, I’m saying be honest about its legal effect.
All the people I speak with are in favor of the terminal and the trains, as am I. AND, I am fairly well educated.
The information presented to the Governor by Mr. Rose is skewed, to be kind. BNSF wants to put longer trains than those currently operating in our area; Steve Bobb, BNSF’s VP for Coal, told me their goal is to ultimately have coal trainsets of 10,200 feet running in this area, up from the current max of around 8000 feet (in case you were wondering how important coal haulage is to BNSF’s bottom line, they have four national VPs. VP of Coal is one of them, and coal is BNSF’s most profitable work area; around 37% of BNSF’s net profits can be traced to its coal business) . This sleight of hand is how Craig Cole can talk with a straight face about the numbers of trains remaining at historical levels. While even that is not entirely true, the true growth would be clearer if BNSF spoke about the growth of train car numbers, instead of the growth of train numbers. The increase is beyond current or planned capacity to handle.
The benefits of longer trains cannot be realized without significant investment in supporting infrastructure. This includes longer sidings, more and longer storage tracks for train building in terminals and yards, and adjusting operations to account for the time it takes longer trains to clear grade crossings, sidings where passage can occur (between slower vs faster trains, as well as trains in single mainline areas, such as ours, going in opposite directions) and entry and egress locations at terminals. In addition, the use of longer and heavier trains will mean more, and more frequent, track maintenance, which also affects operational capacity, particularly in single track areas.
Over the past couple of decades, taxpayers have paid BNSF well over a billion dollars for rail capacity improvements; nearly all of those funds targeted improving passenger rail service, including the amount of passenger service offered, and improving on-time performance. Under the American Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) alone, Washington received federal allocations totaling $781 million, al for high speed *passenger* rail–but the improvements help provide BNSF the capacity to handle the proposed coal traffic–and even then, at the cost of current freight and passenger rail capacity.
Shouldn’t we expect at least a refund from BNSF, if they are not going to provide us what we paid them for?
Mayor Pike is quite correct: the only way to accurately evaluate this proposal is to make sure the facts are evaluated based on reality, not hype – “apples to apples.” It is common for project proponents to attempt to confuse the issue by artful ambiguity and misdirection.
I agree that Prop 2 may well be overturned – I have seen a number of local-control-over-rail initiatives overturned in the years after 9-11, when people were afraid of the terrorist vulnerability and accident potential of shipping chlorine, etc., by rail through or near populated areas. //Nonetheless//, I believe the Prop 2 effort will be good for raising public awareness of (1) our current lack of control over the process, and (2) the harmful, costly effects of this proposal. It will, I believe, serve as a good rallying cry. We should not, however, mislead people into thinking Prop 2 by itself will “solve the problem,” and I would not advocate spending litigation resources on trying to defend it in court. The analogy could be to the Alamo: a doomed, but absolutely necessary defensive action.
Just to be clear, taxpayers have provided BNSF with over a billion dollars for rail improvements in Washington state.
Mr. Rose supplied the right answers… for the wrong questions. Good try buddy… have a cupcake.
Maybe we should stop the flow of I-5 traffic…think of all those disgusting polluting trucks that go right through the middle of bellingham… then we can all get on our bicycles and ride to California too get our food!!
BNSF paid Matthew Rose $15,000,000 for 2008. There seems to be no public record of his compensation since then. In any hierarchical organization, the higher up you go, the greater the tendency to lie.
By the way, did you know that Bill Gates is on the board of Berkshire Hathaway?
man this is funny do you people know how much coal already passes though bellingham no one is dead there is dust. I think everyone are going to push bnsf out of bellingham and with it the job. but at least we will have a coal free bellingham get over it people. STOP PUSHING JOBS OUT OF WHATCOM COUNTY
BTW, Boudou, good point again. And did you know Bill Gates is largest stockholder in Canadian National Rail (not so “Canadian” any more; an old name that’s stuck), on Warren Buffet’s recommendation?
Note that GPT’s project information doc submitted with their permit apps is quite open about the fact that to move the volume of coal they hope, trains must be 1.6 miles long. Read: Dan’s points should be reread with the knowledge that Amtrak is never moving anywhere until all this rail infrastructure is upgraded for coal trains (weight and length).
Conspicuously absent from the letter are the potential disruptions to transportation, local commerce and the obvious obstruction to B’Hams waterfront.
However, there is may well be some validity regarding the “coal dust” argument, the lowest apple on the tree and the easiest for proponents to discount.
Do we know how much coal already passes through Bellingham?
No because BNSF claims that tonnage to be proprietary information.
But judging from Westshore’s own numbers for American PRB shipping
it’s about 10% of the 54 million tons a year planned by SSA.