From Stark
Earlier today, Jack Delay of Communitywise Bellingham emailed me to clarify his stance on the potential routing of coal trains to the Gateway Pacific terminal at Cherry Point.
In an earlier article, I had erroneously suggested that Delay was proposing sending the trains full of Rocky Mountain coal through Canada, via the BNSF line that runs from Burlington to Sumas mostly alongside Highway 9. That route would take the trains into Canada and then down to Cherry Point, crossing back into the U.S. at Blaine.
That notion got Delay a testy email from a Blaine resident who didn’t relish the prospect.
Delay noted that in his written analysis of possible rail route alternatives, he favors a different approach: the completion of a cross-county rail connection that would enable the trains to go up the South Fork Valley and then head east toward Cherry Point without going all the way to Canada.
The existing east-west spur ends at Lynden. Extending that line west to the BNSF main line at Custer would mean coal trains rumbling through Lynden, I suppose.
Far-fetched? Check out Map 15 in Chapter Six of the Whatcom County Comprehensive Plan. It shows an “east-west rail proposal” as a dotted line from Lynden to Custer. (The map is on Page 23 of the pdf linked above.)
Also, on page 6-14 of the plan, Policy 6P-2 states: “Consider proposals for an east/west rail freight corridor.” (See pg. 14 of the pdf)
My next job: Finding out what “proposals” our county planners were referring to.
We all know where it’s going…and it’s not going to do anything significant to help our community supporting this absurd venture to benefit China at the expense of the planet and our own health. But I would be in favor of a plan to ride Craig Cole out of town on some rail spur….
Where are they going to get the money to build 10 miles of new tracks to connect Lynden and Custer? Never going to happen. I think Mr. Delay is just tweaking Lynden’s mayor about this because the mayor has been advertising his support of the project.
This seems like more enviro-babble “not in my backyard” job-destroying mania from the Herald. In other words, let the people in Japan freeze to death. They don’t need our coal. And the coal miners in the east can find other work. The Herald did such a great job closing down GP and shuttering construction in Whatcom County. Even before the housing collapse the Herald and its one-sided anti growth editorial legions convinced local government to abuse its permitting authority to end development. Now there are no construction jobs left, Whatcom county is teetering toward bankruptcy and the Herald and its friends up on the Western campus want to shut down interstate commerce through the area. Good job, keep it up. I have only one question — where are your friends in local government and the overpaid faculty at the U are going to get their paychecks to continue the Great American No Growth Campaign once they complete their crusade for destruction of the state and local economy? Better yet, where will the Herald find new subscribers? The Japanese may be in trouble, but they will rebuild, while the Herald and those who write for it continue to commit economic suicide.
Steve Martini
Wow, the construction jobs that have been lost ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY are all the Herald’s fault. What a powerful small town newspaper!
After GP closed, you know what? Average wages and the diversity of our economy went UP. Sure those jobs were lost, but…the now hundreds of high-tech jobs downtown would not have been here if the belching mass that was GP was still in place. And in case you did not notice, similar plants up and down the west coast all shuttered. Not because of the Herald, but because their business plans were utterly unsustainable.
Anti hob envrio babble? i think not. I have worked in a coal mine. They are destructive at the source, through the transport and wherever the coal in burned. What this is, is a thoughtful attempt to avoid the latest boom and bust economic cycle. But, your slovenly love for international corporations and the hedge funds that support them have blinded you to the facts.
Gee, Steve,
You think economic development is a good idea?
How quaint!
Phranc,
I don’t know where you have gotten your facts, but if you will click on the link below you will find that Whatcom County has been falling behind both King County and the nation for quite some time. One of the largest drops in average earnings per job was when GP closed.
To even suggest that the statistics will verify that the GP jobs were somehow replaced by higher paying jobs is complete BS.
I guess it is good thing that medicinal marijuana has been legalized, so that you can smoke those “green” jobs.
Link:http://washington.reaproject.org/reap-report.php#pg5
Phranc,
“, but…the now hundreds of high-tech jobs downtown would not have been here if the belching mass that was GP was still in place.”
You can’t support that.
One has nothing to do with the other, and if the GP jobs were still there or had left later, which is a possibility, economic conditions would still be better.
The coal is still going to go to China – just as it is now, the only change would be that US coal would be shipped from the US instead of from Canada. I have no idea why a strategic US resource is being sent out of the US. If they need grain, lumber, or any other renewable resource then sell it to them, but finite resources (polluting or not) should not be sold, especially with the unsettled middle east situation(s)!
Communitywise=Futurewise=Jobs and progress are dying on the vine. Educate your kids here or elsewhere and then send them on their way, out of the area, to earn a living.
Steve, stick with what you know..fantasy thrillers with little base in reality but still good reads…leave the big questions to those who can discern between reality and fantasy made for hollywood pablum…
Grace,get over your neurosis or get some green counseling…
I miller, have yourself committed… or not…
Dave…very astute comment bro… 6 degrees…
Shaun, Can’t we all get along in this Wise Community? CommunityWise is an oxymoron. Let them eat banana leaves and leave the rest of us alone. It’ll soon be no sock Birkenstock season…
How is a coal dump ‘economic development’?
How much are the benefits to local citizens compared to the detriments?
Why is the dumping of coal on the ground at Cherry Point seen as progress?
What kind of jobs, how many and what is the pay scale of a working coal dump?
GP left town because they sold their pulp mills and ours was filthier than its asking price so we got it free.
The Herald – Juggernaut that it is – had nothing to do with it.
See, one good reason for pseudonyms on the boards is so that stupidity isn’t recognized by the name Martini.
stupidity citizen?
Economic developement from the 60′s flower child, where no economic study is required.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_trade
Shaun, I like the way that you avoid uncomfortable facts, by name calling.
If you go to the link below and look a Figure 3, this table will tell you all you need to know about the falling wages of Whatcom County.
You comments are solution-less, Shaun, and you have difficult time accepting facts which are contrary to your already made up mind.(ie closed)
With wages so low, and unemployment and houses so high, something will have to change.
Link: http://washington.reaproject.org/reap-report.php#pg3
Grace,
I like shauns “green counseling” comment the best.
Green counseling, from the old mental health facility at Smith and Northwest.
Now we can import the former local GP TP from China too.
Go Green, where the local sewer is even fed by China!
Balance of trade?
That’s a good excuse for going to war with China over Britian’s need to sell, er smuggle – opium in exchange for,
as a balance of trade for,
tea.
We face a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars every year with China.
Selling them $250 million worth of coal from Wyoming isn’t gonna address any shortfall.
Onkels need only ask GP why they didn’t keep those high-wage jobs in town,
or delay the closing of their pulp mills.
Incredible that someone charged with helping to plan development would seem so clueless.
The industry that the environmental community often calls green is only sustainable with the “green” from taxpayers, and as soon as that ends, the business goes away.
With the proper incentive most businesses are already well underway towards going green, the difference is that these businesses go green to save money and not burn up scarce resources.
Shaun has been smoking too much “green”, which is why he is not up yet this morning.
China has 25 nuclear power plants under construction and 50 more on the drawing boards. Their industry will have reliable power, and many of they citizens will get lights, heat, and refrigeration, for the first time.
Over 1 billion people in the world still don’t have clean heat, lights or refrigeration, and if Shaun and his identical twin Citizen have their way the poor of the world will never get reliable heat, light, or refrigeration, and if we follow their advice, we will lose our reliable light, heat, and refrigeration.
And every one here will be employed making green things to sell to green people and attend a green church with Reverends Citizen and Shaun.
Liberty Bell,
If the lunatics get control of the asylum, we will be importing toilet paper from China.
The lunatics already did get control, free trade from the Clintons, explained in the Cox Report!
http://freedomsfreefall.blogspot.com/2006/10/bill-clinton-sellsgives-secrets-to.html
Curious about the east county proposal. There is a rail line that enters Lynden at the east end of town, near Lynden High School, but it currently ends at the Darigold plant on Depot Road. Can’t believe anyone would seriously propose punching it through residential neighborhoods en route to Custer.
It’s about time! As the late Harvey Manning pointed out in “Walking the Beach to Bellingham”, it was a huge blunder to allow the railroad to lay tracks along the shore, with lasting detriment to land values from Seattle to Vancouver.
If you have followed the news this winter, you know that mudslides frequently block the seaside tracks. With the US Navy forecasting a sea level rise up to six feet by 2100, the instability of the land on which the tracks run will no doubt increase, reducing the profitability of the railroad by the sea.
As Bellingham taxpayers, we should be concerned that the railroad was built on that causeway across Mud Bay with no deed or other legal permission, as I once heard. Why are we not paid for this ongoing egregious abuse of our environment? What if we kicked the squatter railroad out of our bay?
Steve, did you miss this editorial?
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/02/26/1888004/community-desperately-needs-jobs.html#storylink=misearch
FYI: I have no input into editorial policy, and editorial policy has no input into me.
I recently got an email from a local environmental activist accusing me of being pro-coal terminal, focusing on the jobs rather than the environmental risks.
The environmental risks will be chronicled at length in the years ahead.
Grace, I included happy faces or do you not like sarcastic humor either.
Also there are other ways to create power. China has giant rivers and not enough Hydro for one. But you keep your head in the luddite clouds there princess.
There will be few jobs, more outside employment for most of them, zero tax advantage because of the costs of infrastructure the public will get stuck with and the local economy will not improve any faster than it already is.