As Safe Shippers guard the Salish Sea, our Columbia Riverkeeper friends guard the river. They have sounded the alarm! Our voices are needed to help stop a proposed fracked-gas-to-methanol refinery in Kalama, Washington, on the shore of our salmon-producing Columbia River.
Proposed by Northwest Innovation Works (a Chinese government-backed company), this would be the world’s largest of its kind. It would receive fracked gas from Canada via pipeline, refine it into methanol, and load it onto ships bound for China to be manufactured into plastics and/or used as fuel.
Despite our efforts, the just-released Final Environmental Impact Statement for the refinery falls far short of addressing the global warming impacts from this project. Now it’s up to our state’s Department of Ecology to stick to its mission and deny the upcoming permits that would take this refinery forward. This may be our last chance to insist that our state gets this right!
LET’S TAKE ACTION!
1. Write letters to the editors of local, regional papers.Use your voice to say why this project is the opposite way to go for salmon, orcas, and everyone who needs clean air and water. Headlines are misleading when they only report what the project backers say*. We need to correct them and tell them what wesay!
– The Olympian (Olympia): https://www.theolympian.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/submit-letter/
– The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/contact/
– The Daily News (Longview): https://tdn.com/forms/contact/letter_to_the_editor/
– Journal of the San Juans: http://www.sanjuanjournal.com/contact/
2. Write or call Department of Ecology Director Maria Bellon.Ask her to deny the permits for this polluting project. She knows the environmental sacrifices are too great for our Evergreen State.
maia.bellon@ecy.wa.gov
360-407-7009
3. Sign on to the petition by Columbia Riverkeeper(adding your own personal story adds more power): https://www.columbiariverkeeper.org/news/2019/8/environmental-review-ignores-climate-impact-proposed-kalama-methanol-refinery
Click on “signing our petition” at the bottom of this page.
https://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/contact/send-gov-inslee-e-message
360-902-4111
Thank you, Safe Shippers! The river, orcas and salmon thank you!
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MORE INFO
4-19-18 Sightline Institute: “Three reasons why the Kalama methanol project would be a climate disaster”
https://www.sightline.org/2018/04/19/three-reasons-why-the-kalama-methanol-project-would-be-a-climate-disaster/
https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/sei-2018-db-towards-a-climate-test.pdf
5-23-18 Earthjustice: “A guide explaining the health and climate risks posed by the proposed Kalama methanol facility”
4-19-19 Oregon Public Broadcasting: “Controversial Kalama Methanol Plant May Be Misleading Public, Regulators”
https://www.opb.org/news/article/methanol-plant-kalama-fossil-fuel-china/
5-9-19 The Daily News: “Inslee changes tune: opposes Kalama methanol project”
https://tdn.com/news/local/inslee-changes-tune-opposes-kalama-methanol-project/article_5b1bbb68-e303-5e94-97f0-e54b29fe1662.html
7-10-19 “Crosscut: Actually, Jay Inslee is right to oppose Kalama’s methanol plant”
https://crosscut.com/2019/07/actually-jay-inslee-right-oppose-kalamas-methanol-plant
8-15-19 “National Geographic: Fracking boom tied to methane spike in Earth’s atmosphere”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/fracking-boom-tied-to-methane-spike-in-earths-atmosphere/
*8-30-19 The Seattle Times: “Final study: Proposed Western Washington methanol plant a net positive for greenhouse-gas emissions”
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/final-study-proposed-washington-state-methanol-plant-a-net-positive-for-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
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