Comment EI-19477
Received or sent (printed as 1/7/2013)
- Coal companies want to develop coal export facilities in many NORTH WEST locations to ship to ship 150 million tons of coal every year to Asian markets. These are the markets undermining American jobs. -The environmental result will be increased diesel emissions, a known carcinogen. There are robust correlations between these pollutants and cardiovascular and respiratory disease, reproductive health problems, and malignancy. - Coal dust itself is a health concern for people with allergies, asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and heart disease. The dust which blows off train cars (full and empty cars) contains mercury, lead and arsenic, which can coat the yards where children play. To date, no covered rail cars have been utilized. - Long unit trains will block emergency vehicles for over five minutes as they rumble slowly through small towns. -Rail improvements to decrease the number of grade-level crossings, for example, are expensive. In many cases, rail companies are limited by federal law to pay only 5 % of the cost of improvements. Where will the money come from to finance rail improvements? - Coal dust damages tracks and can lead to derailments. There were 12 derailments of coal trains this summer, with four fatalities of innocent bystanders. - We can't afford to dump coal into precious salmon-bearing streams, either. Coal dust harms the tracks, increasing the risk of derailment for other, non-coal bearing trains. - Coal is notoriously harmful to its workers and to everyone along the line, from the mines, to the trains, to the barges, to the ports. Because of harmful emissions, Oregon's one coal-burning power plant will be shut down by 2020. But emissions from coal burned in Asia will also cause serious illness right here in Oregon. - Several recent studies have shown that powerful spring trade winds can carry Asian pollution into the atmosphere above North America. Some of the imported pollution descends to the surface, where it affects ground-level concentrations of ozone, mercury, sulfur compounds and soot. Ground-level ozone can cause severe respiratory problems, including asthma, in susceptible individuals. - A 2008 study found that Asian emissions of mercury contribute 18% of springtime mercury concentrations at Mount Bachelor. Snowpack runoff ends up in our rivers and lakes where the mercury contaminates the fish we eat. Pregnant women and children are particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of mercury. - Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that damages developing brains in children and fetuses. It is estimated that between 300,000 and 600,000 children are born in the U.S. each year with dangerous levels of mercury in their bodies, putting them at heightened risk for developmental disabilities, mental retardation, seizures, and disturbances of gait and speech. - Another major health concern is the role of coal emissions in causing global climate change. Rising oceans, prolonged droughts, stronger hurricanes, and more intense heat waves are examples of climate change that lead to food shortages, heat stroke and death and injury from natural disasters. The dislocation of people from floods and drought leads to outbreaks of pest and water borne diseases. Children, the poor, the elderly, and anyone with a weak or impaired immune system are among the most vulnerable. Only a small minority of scientists still deny man made global climate change. Even the skeptic the Koch brothers hired to do their study changed his mind and now believes climate change is a man made phenomenon, capable of the eventual extinction of life as we know it on this planet.
Submitted by: Sandra Cole · Vancouver, Washington
The Board publishes this comment in its environmental-comment table for this proceeding. It is quoted here as printed; nothing is inferred from it, and it states the commenter's own position in their own words, not this record's.
Permanent address docketyard.org/d/FD-30186/comment/EI-19477 · back to the docket sheet