Editor:
Re: Dust-up over American coal trains, June 25 letters.
Many thanks to letter-writer Terry Garvey for sharing his first-hand experience of how coal is transported, and for helping us see through the corporate whitewash about their ability to contain the coal dust.
One of the reasons my wife and I moved to White Rock was that over the 25 years we lived in Ladner, we began to notice more and more black dust on window sills, outdoor plants and furniture, etc. as coal exports increased from the Roberts Bank port.
Our home was 10 km away from the port and five km away from the trains. Imagine how the dust will travel from an additional 800 trains per year, the wind so often coming off the water here on the Peninsula.
If the coal trains can’t be stopped, the constant cleanup of our homes and additional health services required to respond to respiratory problems and food contamination may unfortunately create more than 50 jobs.
Larry Colero, White Rock
• • •
Re: Blackening coal credibility, June 20 letters.
I have a suggestion for letter-writer Ivan Scott.
He should get on his best white Sunday shirt, take a healthy dollop of coal dust and smear it on one side of the front of his shirt. Then take a healthy dollop of the dust his car garnered and smear it on the other side.
Then wash the shirt in the normal cycle.
Then he should try to imagine what that black tarry crap left on the tar dust side looks like in people’s lungs.
Bruce McIntosh, White Rock
BNSF ‘an exemplary citizen’
Re: Wishful thinking, June 18 letters.
Firstly, thank you, letter-writer Ian Sutor for suggesting I give my head a shake concerning my comment that we’re lucky BNSF allows pedestrian access to beaches.
I took his advice, and this is what fell out:
The facts are clear. BNSF owns the foreshore adjacent to all its rail line through White Rock and much of South Surrey. They own quite a bit of the other side, too.
Our MLA, Gordon Hogg, was quoted in the Oct. 22, 2010 Peace Arch News referring to his days on council: “The only contentious issue… was that we were spending a lot of money on developing parking lots and the promenade on what was someone else’s property.”
BNSF property that is. Hogg was further quoted that the railway was an “exemplary citizen”. I think so, too. They allow us access to the beach across their property.
Back to coal. Westshore Terminals has been shipping Powder River Basin coal for years and years and years.
Because the U.S. west coast environmental lobby has been successful in electing left-thinking Democrats, does this mean we Canadians have to stop doing business?
As for the global-warming argument, any student knows we’ve been coming out of an ice age for 10,000 years.
Alex Barrie, Surrey
Not all coal created equal
Readers need to keep in mind a couple of facts as they consider this coal-train issue.
1) All the new coal would be U.S. thermal coal, cheaper and dirtier than the metallurgical coal we now ship from Roberts Bank. Reducing or stopping this coal from being shipped from any new Fraser Surrey Docks terminal will have no impact on the 33 million tonnes of coal we now ship from Roberts Bank.
2) Metallurgical coal – for making steel – is needed by the world. So far there is no replacement for this coal. American thermal coal, not so much.
With global warming occurring, and us approaching the amount of CO2 we can sustain, if we do have to produce coal, it must be metallurgical and not the dirtier, wasteful thermal coal, from which B.C. would get little in return and coming with a heavy environmental cost.
Steven Faraher-Amidon, Surrey
