Whose County Is It, Anyway?

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

All right, Pacific International Terminal, Bill Lyne, Gordon Thomas Honeywell, and all you bigwigs who play in the big leagues.  We get it.  You’re big and important, and Whatcom County is small and insignificant.  We are Hicksville, way up in corner of the state, with hardly any people and no significance to your great big important world. Well, other than the fact that our marine shoreline could support a deepwater port that you need for North America's largest coal export terminal. 

But really.  You’ve seen the movie "Braveheart,” right?  You may see us as the rebels with our faces painted blue, beyond the pale of civilization up here in the far reaches of Puget Sound, but do you really expect us to surrender our County to you without a fight?

Let me repeat a fact that sometimes seems to get lost the discussion:  Pacific International Terminal has proposed to locate North America’s largest export terminal in our County. This is one of the biggest projects in the country.  The entire U.S. of A.  Right here in Whatcom County.

When an enormous project descends on a small community, it is not unusual for the enormous project to take over the small community.  After all, project proponents need to make sure that local concerns don’t get in the way.  They have a lot at stake, and the last thing that they need is for the local yokels to putz about, putting big plans at risk with their petty concerns.  And the big guys have the know-how and the wherewithal to keep the locals out of the gears of the machinery.  Right?   

Well, maybe not.  Not necessarily.  That is, if Hicksville really turns out to be Pretty Smart Community With a Bunch of Active, Interested Citizens.

Last week, County Council Chair Carl Weimer proposed a minor amendment to the County Code.  The Code already states that contracts “entered into by the county” (that means the County Executive) over $10,000 must be reviewed and approved by the County Council.  The Council's approval authority currently excludes “pass-through moneys,” or contracts where an applicant reimburses the County.  The Executive may approve such contracts – even if the contracts are in the millions of dollars – without any Council review.

Mr. Weimer’s amendment simply states that contracts “which involve externally funded pass-through moneys” should be approved by the County Council.   That’s all it does.  It eliminates a loophole in the normal system of checks and balances that provides oversight of large contracts.

Why did this simple amendment result in this splenetic three-page bloviation from the lawyer for Pacific International Terminal, the applicant for the Gateway Pacific coal terminal? 

 Why would PIT, a project applicant, insert itself into a matter that’s strictly local, relating to the process for approving a contract?

If everything is on the up-and-up, why would the applicant care WHO reviews the contract, or HOW MANY people review the contract?  

In short, why is PIT afraid of transparency?

According to an article in the Bellingham Herald, Council member Sam Crawford believes that transparency about PIT’s “pass-through” contract would be harmful because citizens aren’t smart enough to understand the role of contracts.  Oversight of pass-through contracts “could create the false impression that the public will be able to convince the council to halt the process over a small change. ‘I think that's too much and that's unnecessary,’ Crawford said of the proposed change to county law. ‘The public may ultimately end up disappointed.’"

So Mr. Crawford and the coal terminal folks just want to protect us from ourselves, to keep us from being “disappointed.”  That’s one possible explanation.  If you agree that the County needs to act in loco parentis, or in the role of a parent that needs to protect its child-like citizens from information, then this makes sense.  I suppose. If that's how you view the role of government.

A letter that David Stalheim wrote to the County Council last week may provide another explanation.     From the information that’s available in public records, it appears that the "pass through" contract doesn't work.  

The County has not actually billed PIT for much time spent on its application.  The record indicates that no county attorney has reviewed any contracts or other documents, the Finance Department has not billed for any time involved in processing contracts or paying bills, and the Public Works Department – which is responsible for stormwater, water quality, and transportation impacts – has spent less than five hours on North American’s largest coal terminal.

What does that mean?  It could just mean that the County’s not very good about keeping time, and that this record-keeping failure means that we the taxpayers are subsidizing PIT.  That’s not very appealing.  

Or it could mean that the County is just rubber-stamping everything that PIT wants to have done, without actually reviewing it or raising any questions.  That is even less appealing. 

Sunlight, which Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called "the best disinfectant," would reveal whether or not there is a reason for concern.  And sunlight, in the form of public transparency, could not conceivably hurt anyone involved in the contract – assuming that the contract is shipshape, aboveboard, well monitored, and in the public interest.    

So, if you think that it ought to be OK for the public and the County Council to see what’s happening in the contract between PIT and Whatcom County, please write to the County Council and support Council Chair Weimer’s resolution. The Council's e-mail address is council@co.whatcom.wa.us. 

Or attend the Council meeting on Tuesday, February 11th.  The Finance and Administrative Services Committee will consider the proposed amendment at 11:00 (the public may or may not be allowed to speak, but you can at least listen to your policy-makers debate the issue), and open session will start shortly after the meeting begins at 7:00 in the evening.  The agenda is here.   

If you think that PIT knows best how our County should be run, then by all means, support PIT.

Either way, we’ll know whose County this is.

Mendacity

Clearing compared to project plan

Bob Watters has an Op Ed piece in today’s Herald.  I won’t insult Mr. Watters by suggesting that he “wrote” the Op Ed piece.  His spinmeisters undoubtedly are responsible for that.

The Op Ed is an effort to downplay the significance of SSA's $1.6 million settlement with RE Sources, which sued Pacific International Terminals (owner of SSA Marin) over its illegal land clearing and road building on the site of the proposed Gateway Pacific coal terminal at Cherry Point.

Those who followed Get Whatcom Planning’s coverage of this issue ought to be inoculated against the nonsense in that Op Ed.  In case you missed our coverage, you can read it here (“New Roads for Whatcom County: Gateway Pacific Bulldozes Ahead”) , and here (“The Wrong Place at the WrongTime”),  and here (“Road to Nowhere”), and here (“Heedless Destruction”), and here (“How Would That Six-Year Moratorium Work?”), and here (“The Six-Year MoratoriumAgain: What Is ‘The Law’?”), and here (“Thinkin’ Bout a Moratorium”)  , and here (“Piecemealing”).  

I wrote about this so often because I was outraged.  Outraged at the blatant violation of federal, state, and local law and SSA’s brazen efforts to pretend it was no big deal.

From the moment I saw the overlay of road-building compared to what was permitted on the site, there was no question in my mind that this could possibly be a “mistake.” 

Clearing compared to geotechnical well permit

A “mistake” is when your contractors are off by a few feet.  A “mistake” is when communications get garbled and you start a week before you’re authorized.  A “mistake” is when you drill a few extra holes.

Clearing roads in a pattern that has absolutely nothing to do with any permitted activity is no “mistake.”

And that’s what the litigation revealed. 

As RE Sources’ press release on the settlement agreement explained, one of the leading national experts on large-scale construction project management, Philip S. Lanterman, conducted an in-depth analysis of SSA’s “mistake.”  He concluded:

 “In my opinion, it is probable that [SSA-owned] PIT  intentionally chose to proceed with the geotechnical investigation without necessary permits to obtain the expected economic benefit of securing the geotechnical information early in the project timeline, and PIT has actually received such benefit.. . . 

PIT’s efforts to ensure legal compliance of the geotechnical investigation were so far below the standard of care that, in my opinion, they evidence extreme recklessness as to legal compliance or, more likely, an intentional violation of the law.”

In other words, SSA took a calculated risk.  It could break our laws and nobody would find out – or, if they did, so what.  Nobody would do anything about it.

And if it weren’t for RE Sources, that would have been true. 

Is that the kind of business we want in our community?  Is that the kind of operator that we can trust to operate North America’s largest coal terminal in our back yard?

Processing the Small City Mayors

Not surprisingly, the Gateway Pacific coal terminal was the topic of some of the questions at this morning’s Small City Mayors forum in Ferndale. 

The League of Women Voters of Bellingham/Whatcom County sponsored the forum.  Many thanks to the League for this contribution to civic discussion in our community.  

The forum raised more questions than it answered, I think, which is one of the purposes of discussions.

 

Here are a couple of questions that I wish I could have asked.

Question 1:  “The Process” 

Lynden Mayor Scott Korthuis stated that “the process” relating to the coal terminal is “in play right now,” so “let’s let the process take place.”  Blaine’s Mayor, Harry Robinson, said “let’s get all the information” before putting the “horse before the cart.”  Korthuis stated that he would not support the project if “the process” showed that it would be “environmentally horrible” (or "disastrous" -- I'm not sure which adjective he used.  You get the idea, in any case.)

 

But here’s the thing. 

The small city mayors are already on record as unequivocally, unquestioningly supporting the coal terminal.  They have established that they have no interest in “the process” as you and I might envision it:  an objective approach to gathering the information needed to evaluate community, environmental, and economic impacts, thereby ensuring that coal terminal benefits are weighed knowledgeably against impacts. 

Here’s a link to a video showing Mayor Korthuis of Lynden, testifying in Seattle.  He stated:  

“I speak on behalf of all the mayors of the six incorporated cities of northern Whatcom County—that would be Blaine, Everson, Ferndale, Nooksack, Sumas, and Lynden.”

“Let me emphasize that all the mayors of these cities have endorsed the Gateway project.” 

“We are confident that Gateway can be built to protect the environment.”  

“Permitting agencies should not interfere with the lawful conduct of commerce.” 

These statements demonstrate not one shred, not one iota, of intent to pay any attention to the “process.”  The small city mayors have already made their decision.  Process is for everyone else, apparently. 

In fact, as David Stalheim pointed out during today’s forum, some of the small city mayors subverted “the process” by walking to the head of the line at the Ferndale scoping meeting.  Line-sitters paid by the project applicant held spots for VIPs, while citizens who had followed the “process” by showing up early and waiting in line for hours wound up with no opportunity to speak.

 

So, my first question would have been:  “What gives you the right to tell everybody else to follow the ‘process’ when you have already made it clear that you, yourselves, are above the process?” 

Question 2:  Paying for Infrastructure 

One of the more heartfelt and moving moments of the meeting came from Blaine’s mayor.  In response to a question about each mayor’s major concerns, Mayor Robinson said that his major concern was delays caused by trains.  “Trains slowing down affects our city very dramatically,” he observed. For example, school buses arrive at school late when they have to wait at rail crossings, and children who depend on school breakfasts have to go without breakfast when the buses are late.  

Trains also delay Blaine’s emergency vehicles.  Mayor Robinson vividly described his own wife’s experience.  She had required an ambulance, and the local ambulance was not able to provide the drugs that she needed.  An ambulance was called from Bellingham – and it had to wait 20 minutes for a train to pass.   

“If she had required those drugs [to live],” he concluded, “she would have died.” 

You could be excused for expecting that the mayors would show some human reaction to this story.   You might think, for example, that at least a few of the mayors would show concern for the fact that the Gateway Pacific project would add 18 ADDITIONAL coal trains per day, each 1.6 miles long.  You might assume that this concern would lead to a broader discussion, in light of the fact that their constituents, maybe even their own family members, might. . .die from the impacts. 

You would be wrong on all counts. 

In response to a question asking whether BNSF, the railroad company, should pay for the improvements needed to avoid impacts from the 18 additional 1.6-mile-long trains, someone – Mel Hansen from Ferndale, I believe, but I was in the back of the room and couldn’t see well – growled “No.  You don’t saddle a business with that much undue burden.” 

Nobody contradicted him.  So I waved my hand with a question that I didn’t get to ask at the time: 

 

If BNSF shouldn’t be saddled with so much undue burden, who will pay for those improvements?  Anyone?  Will you, the small city mayors, pay for the needed improvements?  Or is it OK with you simply to impose this burden on your constituents, who will have to live (or die) with the delays?

 

That’s the question that I wanted to ask, this morning.  But then I listened to that YouTube video of Lynden’s Mayor testifying in Seattle.  He said this:

 

“It would be inequitable for a major population center like Seattle or Tacoma to recognize transportation infrastructure capacity for their own needs while seeking to deny it to other communities.”

 Now I want to ask: 

Small city mayors, is it “equitable” to impose the harms that 18 more trains will create– the kids who don’t get breakfasts, the spouses and children and parents and siblings who don’t get emergency services in time – on communities between here and Wyoming, just for your “own needs”?

And – I might add --  don't tell me to wait for "the process." Not when you don't play by the same rules.

 

 

Coal Terminal Scoping -- From the Sea Surface Microlayer to the Global Commons

I'm sure that hundreds of people, or maybe 2, will want to read RE Sources' scoping comments, submitted this afternoon --

so here they are. 

There are a lot of excellent scoping comments available for everyone to review through the scoping website. RE Sources' comments are simply among those excellent comments.

Word went out yesterday that 94,000 comments had been submitted.  By the end of the day, perhaps a round 100,000?

Coal Terminal News: In Which I Try Out "Greenwashing" By Explaining Why Coal Freighter Accidents Are Good

Source: http://www.southdeltaleader.com/news/182580431.html;

photo submitted by Rick Swan.

Businessweek reminds us that it's a darn good thing that a coal freighter "crashed into a trestle leading to one of the berths" at the Westshore coal export terminal, just north of here, on December 7th.  An analyst at Barclays in New York pointed out:

“'Obviously accidents are never a positive for those directly involved,' Gagliano said. 'However, strictly from a supply/demand and pricing perspective, issues that constrain supplies have the potential to have a positive impact on underlying prices.'”

So those directly involved -- fish, for example -- will pay the ultimate price, but the coal industry will make more money. 

How can we make sure that the Gateway Pacific Terminal will create a similar economic benefit?  Just build the thing!  According to Westshore spokesman Ray Dykes,

"'We've had over 8,300 ships and never had an incident like this in 42 years. You just couldn't predict it,' he said. 'It's rather ironic, we've just finished the equipment upgrade in five years, $100 million and were just starting to really steam along.'"

Well, maybe they couldn't predict it, but now we can, because it happened in our back yards.  Literally. 

The next time you hear SSA say that there won't be any environmental problems with the Gateway Pacific Terminal because it's going to use the best environmental technology, remind them of irony.  As Ray Dykes might put it, even hundreds of millions of dollars of the best equipment can't stop human error.  You can't predict it.

Of course, it might not be SSA doing the talking about GPT's environmental "benefits."  Lots of good coverage is starting to come out about who's really behind the "Alliance for Northwest Jobs and Exports," Gateway Pacific's "grassroots" support organization.  No spoilers here -- you have to read for yourself: Sightline and Joel Connelly at the PI.

Oh, all right, I'll give you one clue.  The title of the PI article is "Seattle PR firms are 'doing coal's dirty work':  study."

I'm sure that the good folks in our community who profess to be bitterly opposed to "people from Seattle telling us what to do" will immediately distance themselves from the coal campaign.  Because otherwise, they'd sound hypocritical.

Coal Terminal Special: How the 1% Scopes

Let’s see.  So far:

The Gateway Pacific Terminal applicant assures us that its coal terminal project will follow the most exacting environmental procedures and criteria –

after the applicant bulldozed roads, cut down trees, and filled wetlands on Cherry Point, all without the necessary permits.

The GPT applicant exhorts us to “work through the process” –

and subverts the process by paying day laborers to take up limited speaker spots as an inducement for pro-coal bigwigs to speak, while at the same time denying the opportunity to citizens who stood in line for hours to make scoping comments.

The GPT applicant says to “wait for the science” –

while making sure that scoping meetings feature its project cheerleaders, who tout one-sided claims about jobs without waiting for the studies that could show that the coal export project's impacts – on jobs, humans, and the environment -- will result in a net loss to our community, state, region, and world.

GPT’s public relations spokesperson admitted that the project applicant paid day laborers to stand in line at yesterday’s scoping session in Spokane (“'A lot of our people have jobs,' said Hennessey”).   As far as I know, so far the applicant is not admitting that the practice originated in Ferndale – although by all accounts, the folks waiting in line at 8 a.m. for the first spots were not the head of on the staff of the Realtors REALTORS(R) (not representing the REALTORS(R)), the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and Joe Wilson, speakers 4, 5 and AFY.

This practice does suggest a mitigation measure that the 1% can get behind.  Has SSA Marine already committed to hiring folks to sit in line at rail crossings on behalf of our local VIPs, so they won’t have to waste their time waiting for 18 additional mile and a half long trains?  After all, they have jobs! 

For some reason, I found it particularly depressing that the GPT applicant apparently hired the Ferndale Event Center – the location of the Ferndale Scoping Session – for its own equivalent of an airport VIP lounge.  While the wretched masses huddled outdoors in the cold wind, SSA Marine is said to have provided its boosters with a nice buffet.

Scoping agencies, please!  Of all of the entities that you could emulate, could you not choose the airlines? 

Or maybe it’s too late to bypass the omnipresent trappings of our hardening national caste system, even in so-called “public process.”  The justice of the free market demands that the SSA Elite get the first class seating at scoping sessions.  And, as the airlines have taught us, those who haven’t paid extra for the best seats deserve to be treated like cattle.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, I say.  So the next time that somebody starts to talk about how much everybody in Whatcom County is going to benefit from coal terminal money, I’m going to ask for my own personal day laborer, too.  After all, I have a job.  I'm far too busy and important to do anything else.

I think that I’ll request an unemployed English major.  If Get Whatcom Planning’s literary content suddenly exhibits a dramatic improvement, you’ll know that I’ve been bought out.

The Gateway Pacific Terminal and Ocean Acidity





World Bank, Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided,

November 2012, at 11.





Surely I was not alone in being walloped in the face with a great big dose of irony when I unfolded this morning’s Bellingham Herald. 

Above the fold:  “Support for coal exports.”   The article features a big picture of some determined-looking men carrying boxes of petitions in support of the Gateway Pacific coal export terminal. 

(At least they aren't pretending that it isn't a coal export terminal any more.)

Below the fold:  “State panel presses for action on threat from ocean acidity.” 

As the article states, "[r]ising acidity levels in the oceans pose a serious threat to shellfish and other marine life, and tackling that problem in Washington state will require reducing carbon dioxide emissions. . ."

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/11/27/2781442/wa-governor-to-announce-action.html#storylink=cpy

The “action” to be taken will involve the overstretched Department of Ecology and a little bit of funding for projects.

You know what?  I’m getting sick of being the chump – the dutiful taxpayer who pays to clean the house, only to find that the Very Important Men of Business (maybe I was thinking about the Herald picture when that phrase came to mind) are throwing a giant frat party at the same time. 

In accordance with Get Whatcom Planning’s time-honored role as a bastion of fiscal conservatism, let me save the state some money.  Here’s the bottom line for ocean acidification, in three logical steps:

1.      Ocean acidification is caused by increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

That’s what the picture above demonstrates.  It’s from a November 2012 World Bank report, Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided, which you can read here.

 

It’s not happy reading.  It isn’t intended to be.  As the President of the World Bank Group, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, stated in his introduction, “It is my hope that this report shocks us into action. Even for those of us already committed to fighting climate change, I hope it causes us to work with much more urgency.”

Here’s what the report says about the significance of ocean acidification (at page xv):

Apart from a warming of the climate system, one of the most serious consequences of rising carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere occurs when it dissolves in the ocean and results in acidification. A substantial increase in ocean acidity has been observed since preindustrial times. A warming of 4°C or more by 2100 would correspond to . . . an increase of about 150 percent in acidity of the ocean. The observed and projected rates of change in ocean acidity over the next century appear to be unparalleled in Earth’s history. Evidence is already emerging of the adverse consequences of acidification for marine organisms and ecosystems, combined with the effects of warming, overfishing, and habitat destruction.

2.      To stop, much less reverse, ocean acidification, we have to stop increasing the sources of carbon dioxide emissions.  Soon.  Not in the year 2020, or 2050, or 2100.

The World Bank report emphasized that we do not have time to putter about when it comes to ocean acidification.  Here’s why:

Based on an estimate of the relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and surface ocean acidity, only very low emission scenarios are able to halt and ultimately reverse ocean acidification.  If mitigation measures are not implemented soon to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, then ocean acidification can be expected to extend into the deep ocean. . . .[S]lowing and reversing this will be much more difficult. This would further add significant stress to marine ecosystems already under pressure from human influences, such as overfishing and pollution.  (World Bank report at 25, citations omitted.)

If we need more evidence about what needs to be done, the United Nations Environment Program came out with its own report, which looks at the “gap” between our current plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the emissions reductions that we need in order to keep the global temperature increase below 2° Celsius.  That’s the standard benchmark for maintaining a planet that more or less resembles our current planet.  We might call that the livable planet scenario – well, aside from sacrificing some island countries, which won't be livable because they'll be under water. 

It is not an optimistic report.  If we don’t assume that we can reach “negative” carbon dioxide emissions in the not-too-distant future, the odds of a livable planet go way down.  "Negative carbon dioxide emissions" means that we need to take more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than we add -- through massive planting efforts, or some technical means that isn't at hand yet.  Of course, the more CO2 we put into the air now, the more we'll have to take out in the future.  If we want a livable planet, that is.

 

3.      If Washington State provides for coal export, to feed more coal-burning power plants, it is ensuring continued ocean acidification. No need for a panel or for projects or for further studies – we can put a fork in it right now.

 

The Gateway Pacific terminal proposes to export “thermal coal.” That’s coal that is burned in power plants.  

Fossil fuel use is the most significant source of carbon dioxide.     To be more specific, coal- fired power plants are the largest source of carbon dioxide.   

In a study released on November 20, the World Resources Institute estimated that more than a thousand coal-fired power plants have been proposed around the world.  Three quarters of these plants are proposed in China and India.   

More power plants.  What would that do to the oceans?  Acidify them beyond anything that Taylor Shellfish has seen to date.  All of our messing around the edges won’t change that.   

 

“But all the other kids are doing it!” you may say.  Look at Australia!  On the one hand, Australia knows that climate change is the greatest long-term threat to the Great Barrier Reef.     On the other hand, Australia is one of the biggest coal exporters in the world – with proposals to double, triple, quadruple its output in the next few years.

And sure, there’s no question that Australia needs to get its house in order.  As an Australian author recently observed about that country’s irreconcilable policies towards coal,

"It’s really not that dissimilar to the son-in-law who everyone pretends is not that bad to keep up appearances, despite the alcoholic outbursts and odd bout of domestic violence.  So long as when Christmas rolls round presents are a-plenty."

Sophie Trevitt, “Coal, It’s a Love Story,” Nov. 25th, 2012.

As  much as I enjoy this metaphor, it occurs to me that drunken sons-in-law rarely threaten the survival of the entire Earth.  The family story that the Bellingham Herald brought to my mind was Cain and Abel.

The one where one brother kills the other.

Let’s say that coal export is Cain and the oceans are Abel.  Washington wants to love both of them, and is digging around the medicine chest to come up with an aspirin for Abel.  But Cain is Cain, and adding a feel-good moment wouldn't change the end of the story.