These forums, featured at several rural Whatcom County granges, community halls, and schools during March and April, will focus on various risks to the communities along the alternate “Farmland-Coal Port Route” and will provide information on how residents can participate in the Environmental Impact Statement scoping process anticipated in June 2012.
Doors at 6:45 with panel and discussion from 7-9:00 pm :
March 8, Glen Echo Community Hall, 7694 Goodwin Rd, Everson, WA
March 22, Haynie Grange, 3344 Haynie Rd, Custer, WA
April 4, Ten Mile Grange, 6958 Hannegan Rd, Lynden, WA
April 19, Acme Elementary School, 5200 Turkington Rd, Acme, WA
This tour is organized by Safeguard the South Fork–a grass roots organization whose mission is public education for agricultural and environmental integrity in the Nooksack River watershed. SGSF is gathering input on the impacts of rail expansion through our county farmlands on public costs, including health, water, air quality, and effects on existing natural resource industries, such as agricultural crops and dairies.
SGSF brings together presenters from Whatcom Docs, SGSF, RESources, and Protect Whatcom, including physicians Dr. Jan Peter Dank and Dr. Frank James along with a team of regional analysts including Dr. Nicole Brown Tate who will discuss the impacts and options.
The “Farmland–Coal Port Route” is a contingency that has until recently escaped scrutiny. Despite Burlington Northern Santa Fe’s insistence to the contrary, SGSF analysts will outline the collaborative history involving regional planners, business and political elites who have been laying the groundwork for a countywide rail route and commerce corridor to the Gateway Pacific Coal Terminal.”
With the advent of a major political effort by Bellingham activists and the prospect of BNSF’s ballooning coal and freight traffic backing up on the single track south of Edgemore, the probability of a “coal chain” being rerouted from Mt. Vernon, looped from one side of Whatcom County to the other, is increasingly likely. SGSF’s “Community Conversation on Coal Trains Running Through Whatcom Farmlands” will provide county residents with information to reflect upon. For additional information, please visit:
safeguardthesouthfork.org or contact at
info@safeguardthesouthfork.org
RSVP for Lynden Community Conversation on Coal Trains on Whatcom Farmlands to add comments!
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