Safe Shippers Ask Our State to Say “NO!” to Kinder Morgan

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Opposition to Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion is growing! This pipeline expansion would triple Canada’s tar sands exports and increase crude oil tanker traffic and oil spill risk in our waters.
British Columbia’s new NDP/Green Party government has vowed to use “every tool available” to oppose the pipeline and tanker traffic expansion. Let’s get Washington State to join our Salish Sea neighbors to keep new tar sands crude oil tanker traffic out of our waters.
Washington State is known as a leader when it comes to addressing climate change. In 2008, the state Legislature was the first in the country to adopt limits on greenhouse gases, and, last year, our state’s Department of Ecology adopted the nation’s most progressive rule to cap and reduce carbon pollution, the Clean Air Rule. “Washington state is leading the way on climate issues where Washington, D.C., is failing,” Inslee said following the decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement in early June.
Our state needs to walk the talk! Let’s keep those Canadian tar sands in the ground and not create new greenhouse gas emissions! 
 
Please call or write our state representatives and Governor Jay Inslee. Ask our elected officials to publicly oppose the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMPE) and use every means available to stop the project from moving forward. Remind them that we have nothing to gain and everything to lose if these additional oil tankers in our transboundary waters cause an oil spill in our Salish Sea.
Here’s what else you can say:
• For the sake of the Salish Sea: Our environment and economy depend upon the health of the Salish Sea. We ask Washington State to oppose the increased risk of oil spills and the increased vessel noise impacts to our Southern Resident Killer Whales.
• For the sake of our climate we need to keep tar sands in the ground and support renewable energy alternatives.
• For the sake of future generations: All the work that is being accomplished to restore and protect Puget Sound and the Salish Sea will be obliterated if a major tar sands crude oil spill occurs on your watch. Please do all that’s possible to oppose the TMPE for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
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CONTACT INFO FOR THE SAN JUAN ISLANDS
(40th Legislative District: San Juan County, and part of Skagit and Whatcom counties including Anacortes, Burlington and part of Bellingham and Mount Vernon)
Senator Kevin Ranker
(360) 786-7678
Congresswoman Kristine Lytton
(360) 786-7800
Congressman Jeff Morris
(360) 786-7970
Governor Jay Inslee
Office of the Governor
(360) 902-4111
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NOT IN THE SAN JUANS?
Find your district and state representatives here: http://app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder/
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CALL OR WRITE TO THE SAN JUAN COUNTY COUNCIL
Thank them for their opposition to the TMPE to date and ask them to advocate for state opposition to the pipeline expansion and increased tar sands tankers in our county’s waters.
Council Member Bill Watson, District 1
(360) 370-7473
Council Member Rick Hughes, District 2
(360) 298-5103
Council Member Jamie Stephens, District 3
(360) 370-7475
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MORE INFO
CBC News Analysis: “What B.C. can and cannot do to stop the Kinder Morgan pipeline”
National Post: “Battle of the pipeline begins”
The Globe and Mail: “Trans Mountain pipeline’s necessity questioned as tanker traffic slumps.”
“BC NDP Leader John Horgan, who hopes to wrest power from the governing Liberal Party in a vote of confidence in the next few weeks, says the dramatic difference between existing tanker traffic in Vancouver Harbour and the levels that would be reached with the proposed expansion will fuel even more opposition to the project on the West Coast. ‘If the tanker traffic is going to increase even more than sevenfold [from 1.25 tankers to 34 tankers per month], there will be greater anxiety amongst those who are opposed to increased tanker traffic,’ he said in an interview. ‘We have said all along: This is a risk too great.’”
In protest to the Kinder Morgan Pipeline Expansion and in solidarity with the First Nations fighting it, several fellow islanders participated in Walk 4 the Salish Sea.
KUOW EarthFix: “Crossing the Border To Protest A Canadian Pipeline”
Kitsap Sun: “Polls show support for state action on climate change — near and far”
San Juan County Council to Canada National Energy Board: Comments on the proposed Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion project.
Download pdf file of Letter of Comment: https://apps.neb-one.gc.ca/REGDOCS/Item/View/2811526
Sightline: “We in the Pacific Northwest Have a Choice.”
“We think about two doors in front of us. One to the left is the door we open and through that door is huge amounts of pollution in this region. The other door? We say ‘no’ to all that stuff and what we have is a Northwest that continues its environmental legacy and can continue to flourish”. Eric de Place, Sightline Institute
Sightline: “Is Canadian Tar Sands Pipeline Pointing to Tacoma? Kinder Morgan’s expansion plans would put central Puget Sound in harm’s way.”
Sightline Article by Safe Shipper Michael Riordan: “The Tar-Sands Threat to Northwest Waters. Massive increases in marine transport of tar sands crude could easily lead to submerged oils in the Salish Sea.”
Department of State’s Record of Decision and National Interest Determination: TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, L.P. Application for Presidential Permit, Keystone XL Pipeline.
“WCSB [Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin] crudes are generally more GHG [greenhouse gas] intensive than other crudes they would replace or displace in U.S. refineries, and emit an estimated 17 percent more GHGs on a lifecycle basis than the average barrel of crude oil refined in the United States. As the EPA notes in its letter of February 2, 2015 to the Secretary, ‘oil sands crude is substantially more carbon intensive than reference crudes and its use will significantly contribute to carbon pollution.’”