I heard Surrey council voted to turn down the coal shipment proposal as a first step.
It wants an environmental assessment report before a final decision. I thank the mayor and councillors for the first rejection.
In my view it needs to be voted down again. Regardless of promises to virtually eliminate coal dust by coating, I believe in practice it can not be relied upon. Coal dust will remain.
It is like water flowing over a rock. You can’t see the rock being eroded. But in time it gets eroded.
You won’t necessarily see the micro-particles being breathed in, but in time they will accumulate in the lungs – not to mention coal dust on the area grounds. I don’t care if it will meet some artificial standard.
We have a choice between no coal dust, as is the case now, and a certain finite amount.
The overriding simple question is: Why did the U.S. coastal states turn the proposal down?
I am a pragmatic guy when it comes to the environment and jobs. In this case I would turn the proposal down again even if it involved 10 times as many (250) jobs for this trans-shipment of coal.
Dave Bains, Surrey
