COAL, COAL,
GO AWAY
While Eugene braces itself for possible coal trains and
their choking dust, citizens of other states are already well
aware of the high costs of coal to the environment and to
human health.
The Port of Coos Bay’s coal export proposal that would
require open-car coal trains over a mile long chugging
through Lane County may have hit a snag. It will cost
millions of dollars to repair the Coos Bay Rail Link, the
railroad track that goes from Eugene to Coos Bay, enough
to carry the loads of coal.
The Coos Bay World reports that a $190,000 assessment
outlined three scenarios involving from two to six trains
coming in and out of Coos Bay. The study was paid for by
Project Mainstay, the code name for the anonymous coal
company looking to export coal through Oregon. The
repairs, aside from deferred maintenance, would be paid for
be private companies, not the port, according to a Port of
Coos Bay representative.
Coal took another blow at the national level last week
when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
announced its first carbon pollution standard for new power
plants, a move that analysts say will discourage new coal-
fired plants from being built and reduce domestic demand
for coal.
Oregon is on track to shut down its coal-fired power
plant in Boardman, but utility companies also buy coal-fired
power from other states.
Eugene attorney, Charlie Tebbutt, working on behalf of
the Sierra Club reached a landmark settlement with a coal
mine and power plant in New Mexico in late March. Megan
Anderson of Eugene-based Western Environmental Law
Center was also an attorney in the case.
The multimillion dollar settlement seeks to stop ground
and surface water contamination that the Sierra Club alleges
comes from toxic coal ash waste and other sources at the
San Juan Coal Mine and San Juan Generating Station coal-
fired power plant operated by the Public Service Company
of New Mexico.
Tebbutt says the settlement will call for spending about
$8 million on projects to restore the San Juan River basin
watershed, control existing pollution sources at the facilities
and monitor downstream waterways.
“The essential goal to of the settlement is top stop the
pollution now,” Tebbutt says. He says the settlement seeks
not just “a continual pump and treat system,” but “sets out a
more in-depth mechanism for getting the problem to away.”
Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign is working to
retire coal-burning plants across the U.S., and is also
working to stop the coal trains through the Northwest.
— Camilla Mortensen
ENVIRO JUSTICE
FROM ALL ANGLES
Eugene’s environmental groups are not necessarily
known for reaching out into the Latino community, but
Beyond Toxics is looking to change that. The group is
organizing a series of forums, panels and discussions on
how toxic pollution affects the West Eugene community that
runs April 11-13. Lisa Arkin of Beyond Toxics says events
will include the academic and the experiential. “It will be a
trip into environmental justice from all different angles,”
Arkin says.
The events run the gamut from an all-Spanish forum at
the Iglesia Bautista Hispana to a panel at the UO’s John E.
Jaqua Academic Learning Center (aka the big glass jock
box). Beyond Toxics has been working with Centro
LatinoAmericano, the EPA and other businesses and
organizations to bring together a diversity of perspectives on
toxics issues such as how pollution can disproportionately
affect lower-income residents.
On April 11 Luis Olmedo, executive director of Comite
Civico del Valle, a California group whose mission focuses
on addressing environmental health related problems in the
farmworker community, will speak at 6:30 pm at an event
called Voces Unidas at Iglesia Bautista church, 1105 River
Road.
Alison Guzman, environmental justice outreach
coordinator for Beyond Toxics, says Olmedo’s “cutting
PHOTO SANDRA HEALY
sports
SACRED CITY SCORER/JAMMER THE 4CLOSER POW-
ERING HER WAY BY EMERALD CITY BLOCKERS REX
HAVOC AND ROCKA ROLLA
SACRED CITY SACKS
EMERALD CITY 227-90
For the first 25 minutes of the hour-long March 24
bout between the host Sacred City Derby Girls of
Sacramento and the Emerald City Roller Girls, the seating
in the small, crowded venue seemed superfluous. Four
lead changes and one tie kept the crowd on its feet.
Sacred City opened up leads. Emerald City obliterated
them. Up 26-24, Sacred City took a 21-point lead off 10-0
and 9-0 scoring runs by Jamn’ Jewlz and The 4Closer
respectively. But Emerald City was not going down easily.
They regained the lead on the next two frames. Jala Pain
Yo (31 points for the bout) posted Emerald City’s best run,
a 14-0 effort. Golden followed that up with a 10-2 jam. It
was 51-47 Emerald City with 5:30 to go in the half. But, a
couple double-digit jams by Jamn’ Jewlz gave Sacred
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City a 72-55 lead going into the half.
The second half was all Sacred City. For the first 16:30
of the period, Sacred City went with their most effective
scorers, Jamn’ Jewlz (91 points for the game) and The
4Closer (102 points). During that run, Sacred City
outscored our girls in green 82-17 putting the score at
154-72 and virtually out of reach. Sacred City’s star
scoring duo seemed oblivious to which direction they
were facing as long as they continued to zip around the
track in the counter-clockwise direction and stayed in
bounds after Emerald City’s ineffective hits. This was the
story of the second half and how Sacred City managed to
turn a nail-biter into a 227-90 drubbing.
You can catch the Emerald City Roller Girls April 21 at
the Lane Events Center.
— James Brains (formerly James Warmels)
edge approach to environmental justice is a bold model for
our work in Eugene.”
Olmedo will next speak at the UO with Carleen Sisk of
the Native American Winnemum Wintu and Ben Duncan,
chair of Gov. Kitzhaber’s Environmental Justice Task Force
on April 12. Arkin will moderate the panel, which begins at
7 pm at the Jaqua Center and is free and open to the public.
An environmental justice bus tour April 13 — a tradition
in other areas but a first for Oregon, Arkin says — will be
followed by neighborhood community forum at 1:30 pm at
Cascade Middle School. Seating is limited for this event and
it requires an RSVP by April 9.
For more information on the events call Guzman at 465-
8860. Para obtener más información sobre Voces Unidas,
llame al Centro LatinoAmericano 687-2667, pregunte por
Alison.
— Camilla Mortensen
PEEING TOXIC
CHEMICALS
The chemical atrazine can turn a boy frog into a girl frog.
It’s a pesticide commonly used in forestry that’s been found
in the urine of residents of Triangle Lake, a rural community
in the Coast Range west of Eugene. Residents have been
trying for years to put an end to the aerial sprays that they
say drift on to the farms and homes, as well as manual
pesticide applications that can affect drinking water.
Oregon’s PARC (Pesticide Analytical Response Center)
will be holding a town hall meeting at 6:30 pm Tuesday,
April 10, at the Blachly Grange Hall to discuss a pesticide
exposure investigation that began in the spring of 2011.
“We have no idea what their purpose is in holding a
meeting,” says Amy Pincus Merwin of STOP Oregon
(Standing Together to Outlaw Pesticides). She says she is
frustrated with PARC and what she sees as a lack of effort
over the past 30 years by the agency to listen to those who
are affected by the sprays, and to deal with the issue.
PARC began to investigate the pesticide exposure issue
after a study by Emory University researcher Dana Barr
showed 2,4-D and atrazine in the urine samples of Triangle
Lake area residents. This “sparked concern among public
health officials,” PARC says. Atrazine is an endocrine
disrupter, meaning it can interfere with the hormonal
system, and 2,4-D is an ingredient in Agent Orange.
Rather than use Barr’s data, PARC began its own study.
But on March 8, PARC announced the spring 2012 urine
and environmental sample collection was suspended.
PARC says the study was suspended because it was “not
able to recruit enough participants to ensure that the data
resulting from the effort are a valid test of potential exposure
among local residents,” citing the study area’s remote nature
with “few residents.”
“The industry thwarted the study, as we predicted they
would,” says Eron King of STOP. The pesticide spray foes
say once the timber industry became aware of the study, it
simply didn’t spray atrazine in the areas to be tested.
PARC is now asking residents who participated in the
Barr study to allow their data to be used by the agency,
according to an email from Karen Bishop of PARC to Day
Owen of the Pitchfork Rebellion, another group fighting the
toxic exposures. PARC is setting up meetings on April 9 for
residents who wish their data to be used.
“They had previously refused four times over a six-
month period to even look at the Barr study urine sample
results,” Owen says. He adds, “I am happy that they are
taking this one step in the right direction but we want more.
We want them to not just look at the results, we want them
to take action and stop the poisoning.”
King says PARC will also be conducting “passive air
sampling,” but that the agency stressed that this was “not a
drift study.” Pesticide drift means that the toxics sprays can
move from what they are supposed to target, such as a
clearcut, onto another area, such as an organic farm or a
home.
CONTINUED P. 8
EUGENE WEEKLY APRIL 5, 2012 7