120-day public comment period requested for Grays Harbor DEIS

Saturday, August 29, 2015

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Request made to extend comment period on oil‑by‑rail environmental studies

 

By Shannen Kuest  @Shannen_SVH   Skagit Valley Herald

Several Washington community leaders sent a letter Friday to Skagit County Commissioner Ken Dahlstedt and Gov. Jay Inslee requesting 120-day public comment periods for the proposed Shell Puget Sound Refinery rail unloading facility in Anacortes and the proposed Grays Harbor crude oil terminals.

The letter, which was also sent to Hoquiam City Manager Brian Shay and state Department of Ecology Director Maia Bellon, urged officials to allow the longer comment periods for the draft environmental impact statements of the projects in order to give community groups more time to gather information.

The draft environmental impact statements have yet to be completed.

Among those signing the letter were Kelly Fox of the Washington State Council of Fire Fighters, Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart and Carolyn Gastellum of Protect Skagit.

The letter stated, “We are prepared to read the thousands of pages of documents, discuss them with our members and prepare informed testimony, but we need more time.”

Dahlstedt said county officials have read the letter and have received about 1,200 emails on the subject.

Comment periods for draft environmental impact statements are usually 21 days, Dahlstedt said.

“Ecology and the county have been looking at having a comment period about 42 days long, so double the norm,” he said. “The project has been public for more than six months, so it’s not like it popped up out of the blue and people haven’t had time to gather their materials.”

The letter said local leaders need the participation of community groups to make informed decisions.

The Shell rail unloading facility would allow the refinery to accept 100-car trains carrying about 60,000 barrels of crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken formation.

When Shell Puget Sound Refinery announced plans for the facility in 2013, community members and local, state and federal officials raised safety and environmental concerns about transporting Bakken crude oil by rail to Anacortes.

— Reporter Shannen Kuest, 360-416-2145, skuest@skagitpublishing.com,
Twitter: @Shannen_SVH, Facebook.com/ShannenReporter

Quinault lawyers: Hoquiam could prevent proposed oil terminals

Quinault lawyers: City could prevent proposed oil terminals 

By Kyle Mittan    The Daily World    3/24/15

As the City of Hoquiam works through a process to adopt an ordinance preventing future oil facilities within the city, a legal opinion from attorneys representing the Quinault Indian Nation suggests that the city could prevent the three already-proposed oil terminals currently under consideration.

Hoquiam Mayor Jack Durney pushed for the ordinance that would make it difficult for future oil storage facilities in Hoquiam, but he has said the city’s hands are essentially tied in terms of the three projects that have already requested permits. Those three are grandfathered by the city’s existing zoning ordinances, he has said. The council at Monday night’s meeting moved to hold a workshop on an ordinance to address future requests. It is set for April 20, to decide what the council would like to include in an ordinance, said City Administrator Brian Shay.....

 ...The meeting on Monday night allowed for a public hearing about the ordinance, which drew comments largely from crude-oil opponents. Leonard Barnes, the Port’s deputy executive director, attended the meeting but did not give public comment.

Among those to comment was Aberdeen councilman Alan Richrod, who commended the city’s decision to put an ordinance in place. “Grays Harbor, Washington could — if we want — be a place where the world comes to see how sustainable industry and sustainable management of property happens,” he said.

During the meeting, oil opponents raised concerns stemming from an open letter from Earthjustice, a San Francisco-based environmental law firm whose Seattle office represents the Quinault Indian Nation.

The letter, addressed to Fawn Sharp, the Nation’s president, suggests that the three oil terminals with pending applications that the city had grandfathered in with the moratorium could legally be denied by the city, citing a series of cases as precedent and other regulations, including the Shoreline Management Authority Act.

Arnie Martin, a member with Citizens for a Clean Harbor, sent the letter to a selection of council members and Mayor Jack Durney. Durney said during the meeting that he hadn’t had time to read the letter.

Ward 2 Councilman Richard Pennant, an outspoken opponent of crude-oil facilities, asked fellow council members to provide their thoughts on the letter.

But Durney pointed out that the letter was indeed opinion, and that everyone on the council ought to have a chance to read it before talking about it as a council.,,,,  more here

'Small' Oil Spills Can Add Up To Big Costs 

kuow.org   Editor      03/23/15

......Though they don’t always make headlines, 95 percent of oil spills in the U.S. are relatively small -- less than the size of a tanker truck you might see on the highway. Washington State’s Department of Ecology responds to about 400 oil spills a year, nearly all of them a few thousand gallons or less....

....“Even though 2-3,000 gallons of oil may not seem like a lot where it’s in aggregate form, in a tank, when it spreads out over the water, it can get into the weeds, into the cattails,” Lewis says. That makes cleanup a much more complicated undertaking.

All told, the U.S. spends almost $3 billion annually cleaning up spills on lakes, rivers, and streams. That’s the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez cleanup every single year.....   more here

 

 

Fraser Surrey Docks seeks to pump coal waste water into Metro Vancouver’s sewer system

Coal terminal would use settling ponds to treat water for re-use, but excess water would be piped to Annacis Island sewage plant  - By Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun