Diversity Special Edition
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Volume X X X X I
‘City ö/Roses’
Number 32
j | www.portlandobserver.com
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Wednesday • August 22, 2012
E s ta b lis h e d in 1970
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Committed to Cultural Diversity
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photo by M indy C ooper /T he P ortland O bserver
Bonnie Meltzer and her husband sit on the front porch of their north Portland home, ju st five blocks from a railroad line that would transport huge amounts o f coal to
Asia markets. The couple expects toxic coal dust to invade their space.
Opposition grows on plans to ship coal through Portland
by M indy C ooper
T he P ortland O bserver
Plans to ship coal through Portland and build export
terminals along the Columbia River on both sides of the
Cascades is drawing local residents into an environmental
battle.
Oregon's Department of State Lands is considering the
first of three proposals to move huge amounts of coal from
Montana and Wyoming through the Columbia Gorge to
Asia.
According to Regna Merritt of Oregon Physicians of
Social Responsibility, coal creates a substantial number of
health risks, from the exposure to people working in coal
mines, to the coal dust and diesel emitted along transporta
tion routes, to the air pollution caused by burning the fossil
fuel itself.
“The toxic effects of mercury and diesel particulate pollu
tion are real and measurable,” she said.
The concerns also include noise pollution in neighbor
hoods from several mile-long coal trains each day, the
disruption of pedestrian and vehicle traffic, the impact of
barge traffic on the Columbia River, and the blowback of toxic
waste to the Pacific Northwest after the coal is burned in Asia.
“We are talking asthma and chronic bronchitis, and an
increased risk of stroke, heart attack, cancer and emphy
sema,” Merritt said.
With an estimated 60 trains a day, 30 full trains and 30
empty, passing on the railroad lines behind community
houses in north and northeast Portland, Vancouver and
other local communities, a massive amount of diesel and coal
dust will be going through the community, the activists said.
“Already north Portland is exposed to a lot of diesel
through its relative proximity to 1-5 and 1-84 and the airport.
So residents of north Portland are already disproportionately
burdened by risks of air pollution,” Merritt said.
“The great irony is we are finally starting to clean up the
air, and it would be a huge step backwards for residents,” she
said. “It is certain to affect the people who live along the
lines.”
Bonnie Meltzer has lived with her husband in north
Portland for the past four decades. She grows more than 50
percent of her food with 24 raised organic garden beds, a
continued
on page 20