coal for the tubercular
We had a Coal Car meeting down at the Grange the other night. Folks could weigh in pro or con whether they wanted coal shipped by rail from Wyoming to Bellingham, then loaded on boats for China. This same week on TV you could see the pollution in Beijing, something so dangerous to breathe, they didn’t have a number on their toxicity scale. 150 is plenty poisonous. Theirs was over their top number of 500. Way more…. You could see for yourself they need more coal.
I had a friend who sat down awhile back and decided to drink himself to death. Suicide by bottle. If he’d asked us to pick him up a sackful of booze every day — and offered to pay us really well to do it — maybe we could’ve had some meetings at the Grange to decide if it was okay or not. He was going to kill himself with or without us making a profit on his suicide.
I’m old and more than a little cynical. I figure the coal is coming in. Money talks. But I once went to apublic hearing in Coupeville when the pipeline folks meant to come down from Alaska and go across the country. This was back in, oh, the early 80’s. The pipeline changed its proposed route, originally intended to go through Portland where opposition was mounting, to cut across Whidbey and Camano after coming up out of the Straits and Saratoga. Smart move. Caught all of us by surprise.
Me and my roommate Joe were the only folks who went to the public hearing. The ONLY two other than the pipeline rep and his pretty wife and two cute kids. Pause on that awhile. Gov. Spellman eventually vetoed it, said the pipe was deeper than any ever laid, sunk in a seismic area, no less. The Secretary of the Interior came out to speak to the Guv. The Secretary of the Defense came out to twist his arm. The President leaned on him. It was a matter of national security, they said. It meant jobs. Money was at stake.
No doubt Governor Spellman read Joe and me’s incisive testimony and was swayed by two long-haired, unemployed citizens of his state who cared enough to drive clear over to our sister island and make our position crystal clear: No Pipeline!
So I don’t know why I think the coal is coming sure as Santa comes to the Mall. I don’t know why I’m so pessimistic. Most of the folks at the Grange didn’t like the idea much so I wonder if the average Joe in China doesn’t either. We didn’t lose much security when the pipeline didn’t get built and I suspect we can survive without the profits from 19th century energy sales. I’m betting there’s a couple of unemployed Chinese guys living hell and gone from Shanghai who may think so too. If the government doesn’t run a tank over them when they make their protest, maybe someday they’ll get a job and become productive members of society. Like Joe and me….
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Catching up here….Dana Lyons said…”they said it was a done deal when they planned to build a nuclear power plant on the Skagit also in the 70s”Governor and Reps lined up 2 mayors and citizens in Skagit blocked it…they are proposing 162 acres of wetland fill to build the terminal….that is going to be hard to justify for a couple hundred jobs…especially with the Tribes lined up against it…take heart!