How One Tribe Could Slow the Rate of "Bomb Trains" Through Seattle
Worried About Increased Crude-by-Rail Shipments, the Swinomish People Are Going to Court
by Sydney Brownstone The Stranger 04/15/15
In 1889, the acting commissioner of Indian
Affairs heard about a new railroad construction project that was under
way, laying track on Swinomish land about 70 miles north of the city,
without permission. He fired off a telegram to a federal employee in
Seattle, but it was too late. A subsequent telegram from the federal
agent shows that the railway company had already built 1,130 yards. The
telegram couldn't halt the railway's construction, but it was stored
away by the tribe until a tribal historian dug it up decades later. And
now its concerns are being renewed in a legal fight that could slow
crude-oil trains through Seattle.
According to Swinomish chairman Brian Cladoosby, the telegram shows how the Swinomish people have the right to limit the trains that run across Swinomish property on their way to a refinery near Anacortes (after running beneath Seattle and up to Burlington). "No authority for railroad to cross Swinomish reservation present," the message reads. The telegram, and railway construction that followed despite its warning, illuminates a fundamental disagreement that's now in a different form, 126 years later. "[The telegram] said they were building this railroad across our reservation without our permission," Cladoosby said.
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community couldn't have known that more than a century later, crude-oil trains would be rattling along that very route—and across reservation land—carrying with them a well-established risk of derailing and exploding. In fact, the only way today's Swinomish people knew that trains full of crude oil were passing through their land was from media reports in 2012. They're not alone. As it stands, railroads still don't have to disclose crude-by-rail routes.
But if the Swinomish can stop the crude-oil trains with a lawsuit that echoes the concerns in this telegram, and tries to assert their rights under a rare agreement the tribe has with the railway company, then this one tribe's stand could also begin to check a runaway industry that mayors, governors, firefighters, senators, and federal regulators have been failing to rein in. It's a story that goes back hundreds and thousands of years, back to a time before anyone had even thought of taking oil from beneath the ground..... more here
According to Swinomish chairman Brian Cladoosby, the telegram shows how the Swinomish people have the right to limit the trains that run across Swinomish property on their way to a refinery near Anacortes (after running beneath Seattle and up to Burlington). "No authority for railroad to cross Swinomish reservation present," the message reads. The telegram, and railway construction that followed despite its warning, illuminates a fundamental disagreement that's now in a different form, 126 years later. "[The telegram] said they were building this railroad across our reservation without our permission," Cladoosby said.
The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community couldn't have known that more than a century later, crude-oil trains would be rattling along that very route—and across reservation land—carrying with them a well-established risk of derailing and exploding. In fact, the only way today's Swinomish people knew that trains full of crude oil were passing through their land was from media reports in 2012. They're not alone. As it stands, railroads still don't have to disclose crude-by-rail routes.
But if the Swinomish can stop the crude-oil trains with a lawsuit that echoes the concerns in this telegram, and tries to assert their rights under a rare agreement the tribe has with the railway company, then this one tribe's stand could also begin to check a runaway industry that mayors, governors, firefighters, senators, and federal regulators have been failing to rein in. It's a story that goes back hundreds and thousands of years, back to a time before anyone had even thought of taking oil from beneath the ground..... more here
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