From Stark
When two Port of Bellingham commissioners joined forces to oust Charlie Sheldon from the executive director post in April 2012, many local community activists rallied to Sheldon’s side in an ultimately futile effort to get Scott Walker and Jim Jorgensen to change their minds and keep Sheldon on board.
Some of those folks might have been less enthusiastic about Sheldon if they had realized the extent of Sheldon’s own enthusiasm for coal trains, Washington state coal ports and coal itself.
Sheldon was not shy about those views in a May 20, 2012 letter he wrote to Seattle City Council (this was after Sheldon’s departure from Bellingham) to criticize their resolution opposing transportation of coal through the Emerald City, which passed May 29.
While Sheldon acknowledges the environmental and health problems related to coal, he suggests that solving those problems will require a major national technology initiative akin to the Apollo moon mission — not the blocking of coal trains. Meanwhile, he says, coal remains an essential source of regional, national and global energy. And he argues that the health risks from coal trains are wildly exaggerated.
“We don’t have time for elected leaders who choose to spend th eir time supporting various national environmental movements and who choose to repeat their talking points without any apparent due diligence whatever,” Sheldon’s letter concludes.
In this letter, and in a later telephone interview with me, Sheldon said he is convinced that the Ridley terminal in Prince Rupert, B.C. has a formidable expansion potential that could draw significant amounts of Powder River Basin coal through Seattle and Bellingham, no matter what happens at Cherry Point — where SSA Marine of Seattle has proposed the Gateway Pacific Terminal to handle coal and perhaps other bulk cargoes.
That is the idea that Communitywise Bellingham took great pains to try to refute in the report they issued last week.
Jack Delay, one of the authors of the Communitywise report, called my attention to this excerpt on Page 10, which contends that massive amounts of Ridley-bound coal are not likely to pass through western Washington:
“Although the RTI (Ridley terminal) appears destined to serve primarily Canadian markets into the future, it is also the only B. C. terminal that has the theoretical ability to expand its footprint and increase capacity. This would require a lengthy plan revision process, new environmental reviews and a major infusion of capital, but it is not impossible in the 10 to 20 year horizon. What are the implications in the distant future for trains heading from the PRB (Powder River Basin) to Ridley through Washington state?
“While it is impossible to predict if PRB interests would be successful in gaining any share of theoretical new RTI capacity, it is easy to predict that any trains delivering coal will not pass through Washington state. There is a much shorter, direct route through Sweetgrass, Montana. The route is a full 800 miles shorter than the 2,700 miles route through Washington. Not only is the route 30 percent shorter, it would also avoid increasing congestion at many locations on the longer route.[1] Cloud Peak Energy has already reported reduced profit margins using the longer route to RTI through Washington and will not renew contracts for use of it.[2] BNSF has been reluctant to invest in this route but recently entered an agreement with Canadian National and is eliminating some financial obstacles to its use.[3] A recent cross-border freight study identified congestion from Blaine northward, particularly for traffic that must cross the Roberts Bank railroad corridor. This is a particularly intractable problem with major infrastructure costs that will likely require establishing new funding mechanisms in both Washington state and British Columbia.[4]
“It should be noted that these same factors also increase the likelihood that the small number of Ridley destined coal trains now passing through Washington will also get rerouted through Montana over time.”
Apollo is what we need. That will provide lots of jobs.
John,
I have not lost my enthusiasm for Charlie as Port ED. We disagreed on this point before, and continue to do so. I do take issue with his characterization of electeds who disagree with his position as parroting an environmental agenda without any independent due diligence. I know as Mayor, I looked into the facts for about eight months before coming to the conclusion that I could not foresee any circumstances under which this project is net positive for Bellingham and Whatcom County.
Notwithstanding global environmental and local health objections, GPT hurts our economic competitiveness. This is due to a variety of factors, including accessibility and perception. It might also push this area out of CMAQ compliance–meeting mandated air quality standards–which has repercussions for existing businesses which emit pollutants (this includes many, any businesses, from small fiberglass manufacturers to large companies like ALCOA-Intalco and the refineries. Failing CMAQ compliance affects the business models used by existing businesses and the ability of existing and potential businesses to operate at a profit–and hence, exist and provide jobs and a tax base.
While I disagree with Sheldon on this issue, I continue to believe his termination was wrong, and that Charlie was a good fit for the Port and the community. We always had a great dialog about port-city issues, and lock-step agreement was never a requirement for positive dialog. Charlie was always pursuing what he thought would best serve the community and the port–a great perspective for a community leader. I wish him luck in his future endeavors, and continue to wish that somehow that could being him full circle to the job he just left.
That Mr. Sheldon should carry such a warped opinion as is stated here means the rest of the man was likely off as well.
Good job PoB shedding this gentleman.
Interesting stuff, Dan. That CMAQ issue is an interesting one. Anybody else want to weigh in on that?
If life were all litmus tests, nobody would have any friends and nobody would get anything done.
john,
I don’t know very much about CMAQ but my neighbor works at the NWCAA and mentioned to me that much of our air quality issues have to do with Canada – apparently we share an airshed with Vancouver. You would have to call the Clean Air Agency for details and facts of course.
Sheldon’s letter had a snarky, sarcastic tone that is inappropriate for someone with his background. The comment on public process spoke volumes about how the Port operates. Any one with a background in public development should know that the SEPA process rarely prevents development, or even results in adequate mitigation to meet no net loss standards.
During his time in Bellingham, Sheldon was an advocate for development, beginning and end of story. I wish he had also been an advocate for public health and the environment.
The public needs to elect a Port Commission that understands that protecting air, water, fish and wildlife is a predicate requirement for development. Until then, we will continue to have dioxin contaminated dredge dumped on waterfront development sites, airport expansion and obvious, if unspoken, support for GPT.
We do share an airshed with Vancouver, Clayton, and the airflows back and forth are extremely complex. If you want to learn more, Environment Canada periodically prepares a “characterization” of the Georgia Basin-Puget Sound airshed: http://www.ec.gc.ca/Publications/BFA49636-3310-4AAA-BB55-8054B1791178/02AirshedGBPSreporte.pdf
The report notes that Whatcom County is little, but we’re mighty when it comes to sources of air pollution:
“The 2000 inventory also shows how the use of a single surrogate (population) to compare emission levels can be misleading. With just seven per cent of the population in the Georgia Basin, Whatcom County is relatively sparsely populated but has several major industries and contributes 29 per cent of the-smog-forming emissions.”
In our shared airshed (again, according to the last inventory, whcih took place in 2000), “Marine vessels account for 22 per cent of the NOx emissions. . .Marine
vessels are the largest single source of SO2 in the airshed emitting 33 per cent of the SO2 emissions.” (page 32).
SO2 is sulfur dioxide. It’s an acid rain precursor, it’s a precursor of fine particle soot, and it’s hard on people with asthma when high levels are in the air. NOx stands for nitrogen oxides, which are precursors to smog and acid rain.
I’m sure that we’ll be hearing more about this when we start to evalute the prospect of 487 additional marine vessels per year — the largest in the world, burning the dirtiest fuel — stopping by Cherry Point.
And of course, we ultimately share an “airshed” with China. What they burn comes back to us.
All the more to be happy about the new (and always improving) clean diesel, clean gas, clean coal, etc. etc. technologies!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
The airflow between the Lower Fraser Valley and Whatcom County is very complex. Three million Canadians create air pollution and send it to us.
Fortunately, Georgia Strait’s predominant winds carry much of it past our homes – that ain’t fog you’re watching that obscures Orcas island all summer.
Litmus tests for public officials in management positions are necessary so the electorate can tell whether they’re getting a good wine
or merely vinegar in a fancy bottle.
The published scientific literature quoted by Whatcom Doc about the potential health concerns are all cited for your and anybody’s review. It includes the body of literature on all the concerns, diesel included.
coaltrainfacts dot org
It is interesting that the former port commissioner dismisses the health concerns about diesel particulate matter. I happened to read today on the BBC web site that the World Health Organization this week formally classified Diesel emissions as a recognized carcinogen. In other parts of the world this is a headline making news.
bbc dot co dot uk
Whose health expertise do you most trust?
It seems to me that it is Mr. Sheldon who has prematurely judged the issue before a formal independent health impact assessment of the project has been carried out. It is quite possible to quantify exactly how much increased disease and how many deaths will be caused by increased coal train traffic, ship traffic, etc. We need to formally and rigorously study the issue before we can make informed choices.
Maybe Charlie should look at the UN’s report that just came out in regard to Diesel.
But then, Charlie has a bit more spare time these days fighting back retirement.
It’s time to retire Mr. Sheldon. You failed in your effort as an executive both here and in Seattle.
I noted that Charlie now lives on the east side of Magnolia in Seattle right above the rail yard. So here you have a Seattle resident telling us about coal trains. What kind of agenda do people like Charlie have on the back of their minds? No matter how you connect the dots, Sheldon, Cole, and Hemmingway (SSA Marine) all worked together in trying to play the coal dust card instead of the number of trains / quality of life issue. These people do not care about jobs, they care about their real estate investments. SSA Marine needs these port facilities to create a their service that the world really does not need. They are salesman and they are trying to tell us our community needs this. Look Mr. Sheldon if you really cared about people’s future why not build a coal terminal next to your new condo paid for by us tax payers.
The railroad should pay for noise impacts and traffic impacts. Otherwise, it’s privatize the profits and let Seattle eat the costs. Same for anywhere along the line.
Just a quick fact check on one of Charlie’s statements. He wrote:
“Are you aware that the power we use here in Washington is 30% derived from coal facilities?”
So a quick look at Washington State’s profile at http://www.eia.gov shows this to be completely false. Under electric utilities, the amount derived from coal in 2010 is below 0.5%. 7.5% is from natural gas, 8.9% from nuclear, 65.8% from hydroelectric and 2.8% from other renewables.
I’m surprised he’d chastise the Seattle City Council for failing to wait to do analysis, then do such a poor job of research himself before asserting ‘facts.’
May I summarize? As a new citizen with next-to-no-knowledge of the workings of the port commisssion, I was, prior to this JS report, outraged by CS’s termination. Now, my feeling is, “Bye bye, Charlie.”
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