Longview Coal Port Peoples Hearing

coal train st. regis MT

Testify Against Longview  Coal Port!

Beginning in 2011, coal corporations have proposed six different coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest to ship Montana coal to Asia. Today, only two remain.

The coal export facility proposed for Longview, Washington, just entered its final public comment period.

Come join us on Monday, May 9 at 7 P.M. at the MCT Center for the Performing Arts, 200 N. Adams Street in Missoula for a “People’s Hearing” opposing the Longview coal port.

The Washington Department of Ecology is not holding any official hearings in Montana, though this port would ship 50 million tons of coal a year. That’s 18 new coal trains rumbling through Montana communities on the way to the coast. That’s thousands of new annual trains, tons additional diesel exhaust and coal dust, hundreds of hours of blocked intersections waiting for trains to go by, and market pressures for destructive new coal mining and carbon pollution.

350 Missoula is helping sponsor the hearing. Everyone who speaks will be videoed and transcribed and submitted as part of the environmental impact process. It’s very important for ordinary Montanans to point out that the future of our state, region, and world is one of clean energy, not fossil fuels. This coal export facility is a giant step back, throwing good money after bad. At this point, with our climate teetering on the edge of some very severe tipping points, it makes no sense to expand the fossil fuel infrastructure. We need a clean renewable energy system.

I hope you can join us to testify.

We are very pleased that a special guest is joining us. Les Anderson lives less than a mile from the proposed coal port and is fighting it tooth and nail. He’ll kick off the hearing with the problems the locals see and why they’re opposing it.

The event is sponsored by Northern Plains Resource Council, Montana Elders for a Livable Tomorrow, Indian People’s Action, 350 Missoula, Montana Environmental Information Center, the Montana Conservation Voters Education Fund, the National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club,Transition Missoula, Northern Rockies Rising Tide, Reinvest Montana, and Faith and Climate Action.

Let’s make sure we deep-six all of the coal export proposals.

Jeff Smith, co-chair, 350 Missoula