In response to the article covering the oil train derailing in Quebec, “Explosion highlights risk of oil transport”: I cannot stress enough how significant this story is in how it relates to the United States’ energy and trade future, which directly impacts the development of our region.
The opposition to the myriad of fossil fuel export operations that have been proposed lately has not risen out of blind ignorance and fear; it exists because of the real danger these fuels present to our communities and our world. Oil and coal companies stand to make a lot of money by exporting their fuel to foreign markets, and wish to do so despite the clear risk they present to the health of our local communities. It does not matter that rail transport is deemed safe 99.9 percent of the time when the exception to the rule kills tens of people and causes millions in damages.
If this lone example of the dangers of oil transport is not enough, we have to look only to recent pipeline spills in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Michigan and Canada to see that despite Prime Minister Harper’s words, pipelines like the proposed Keystone XL are just as “environmentally challenging” as rail transport. And this is all without recognizing the obvious risk that advanced climate change poses to our planet.
North American fossil fuel industries want us to believe that if we choose not to extract and export these fuels, we are foolishly passing up an economic opportunity for job creation and influx of capital. But before we chase dollar signs, we must think critically about the full implications these projects have for our country. The money left on the table today by rejecting proposals such as the Gateway Pacific Terminal may be more than made up for by the money saved in environmental cleanup efforts and preserved human health (reference this article for solid numbers http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/science/earth/20fossil.html?_r=0). We cannot consider only the immediate returns of our investments when making decisions that will impact lives decades into the future.
Carter Case
Mill Creek
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