I was out sailing last week and was crossing Rosario Straight when I looked to the north and saw a pitch black cloud starting out on the horizon, the wind started to spread it closer to us and as it came toward us it got bigger and bigger and spread all over the sky above the water. I could see that it was coming from Point Roberts Coal Terminal. I took a picture so that I could send it into the Herald for folks to see. That is the coal dust that is already covering, if the wind is in the right direction, the farm fields to the east of this terminal, that means the fields around Blaine, Ferndale etc. We have many many farms, dairy as well as vegetable and berry farms that will be coated with coal dust if this new terminal at Cherry Point gets built. I am not willing to compromise the jobs that exist now in that area for a few hundred jobs created for a few years while the terminal is being built and then it is mostly automated with no more jobs coming our way. I can't understand the mentality of people who think that jobs for these two years of building are worth losing the land that our farmers grow their produce on. It will become too contaminated to sell their produce.........this is one of the reasons the 160 doctors are against this terminal. Don't you get it?
Douglas Smith - 12 years ago
We need to take into account the impacts of this proposed project in terms of the effect on global warming by the commerce of extracting fossil fuels for profit. And the fact that humanity had better cease and desist such enterprises. It is definitely "An Inconvenient Truth", but one this citizen takes very seriously.
The Gateway Pacific Terminal will not create any positive outcomes period! The small number of permanent jobs is insignificant compared to the damage done to the health and welfare of our entire planet.
Please do not rely on that old saw of "someone is going to build it somewhere else if we don't build it here". Every thinking person knows that in the context of the climate crisis which is already upon us, "that dog don't hunt"!
Mary Ann Kae - 12 years ago
I'd like to urge Patty Martin and others who have no clue about how this project could possibly have a negative effect on the community to spend some time educating themselves about the air and water quality degradation that would come with this huge coal influx.
Review the info at powerpastcoal.org or beyondcoal.org for starters. What Bellingham and Whatcom county would lose in this bargain isn't worth a few hundred jobs.
Patty Martin - 12 years ago
I don't understand how 60% of people could believe that this would negatively affect the community, in what way? The trains are already coming through Bellingham, why would you not want to create more jobs in our area, versus having all of the jobs go to Canada? Why is everyone in this town so anti job/anti growth, I'll just never understand. Grow or die people.
I was out sailing last week and was crossing Rosario Straight when I looked to the north and saw a pitch black cloud starting out on the horizon, the wind started to spread it closer to us and as it came toward us it got bigger and bigger and spread all over the sky above the water. I could see that it was coming from Point Roberts Coal Terminal. I took a picture so that I could send it into the Herald for folks to see. That is the coal dust that is already covering, if the wind is in the right direction, the farm fields to the east of this terminal, that means the fields around Blaine, Ferndale etc. We have many many farms, dairy as well as vegetable and berry farms that will be coated with coal dust if this new terminal at Cherry Point gets built. I am not willing to compromise the jobs that exist now in that area for a few hundred jobs created for a few years while the terminal is being built and then it is mostly automated with no more jobs coming our way. I can't understand the mentality of people who think that jobs for these two years of building are worth losing the land that our farmers grow their produce on. It will become too contaminated to sell their produce.........this is one of the reasons the 160 doctors are against this terminal. Don't you get it?
We need to take into account the impacts of this proposed project in terms of the effect on global warming by the commerce of extracting fossil fuels for profit. And the fact that humanity had better cease and desist such enterprises. It is definitely "An Inconvenient Truth", but one this citizen takes very seriously.
The Gateway Pacific Terminal will not create any positive outcomes period! The small number of permanent jobs is insignificant compared to the damage done to the health and welfare of our entire planet.
Please do not rely on that old saw of "someone is going to build it somewhere else if we don't build it here". Every thinking person knows that in the context of the climate crisis which is already upon us, "that dog don't hunt"!
I'd like to urge Patty Martin and others who have no clue about how this project could possibly have a negative effect on the community to spend some time educating themselves about the air and water quality degradation that would come with this huge coal influx.
Review the info at powerpastcoal.org or beyondcoal.org for starters. What Bellingham and Whatcom county would lose in this bargain isn't worth a few hundred jobs.
I don't understand how 60% of people could believe that this would negatively affect the community, in what way? The trains are already coming through Bellingham, why would you not want to create more jobs in our area, versus having all of the jobs go to Canada? Why is everyone in this town so anti job/anti growth, I'll just never understand. Grow or die people.