Environmental activists on both sides of the border are hoping a lawsuit against a railway giant will result in a watershed legal decision on how coal is shipped in Canada and the U.S.
Anti-coal campaigner Laura Benson says she’s closely watching the suit filed by the Sierra Club in two Washington State District Courts claiming the shipment of coal in open rail cars violates the Clean Water Act.
Benson, coal campaigner for the Dogwood Initiative, said if the suit is successful, it may have a spill-over effect on plans to increase coal exports in B.C.
“Certainly, the lawsuit is relevant on this side of the border as well,” said Benson.
“If changes are made in the States as a result of this action, then that will have implications here.”
The suit filed by a coalition of environmental organizations led by the Sierra Club in U.S. Federal Court alleges that the BNSF Railway Company (BNSF) is violating the Clean Water Act by shipping coal in open railcars from mines in Montana and Wyoming to transfer stations in the Pacific Northwest. The suit claims that pollutants from the shipments are contaminating waterways in Washington State.
Krista Collard, spokesperson for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, says the contaminants are contained in coal dust that blows from off the cars enroute. The “fugitive coal dust” contains mercury, arsenic, uranium, and hundreds of other toxins harmful to fish and human health. She said the impacts are potentially “quite horrifying.”
And if the lawsuit is successful, it will force BNSF to make changes to mitigate the problem, she says.
“If this case is successful, it would force the railways to ship coal in closed cars and would change the economics of shipping coal,” said Collard.
In support of its suit, the Sierra Club cited BNSF testimony at hearings before the U.S. Surface Transportation Board stating that each rail car loses an average of 226 to 1,587 kilograms of coal dust. Coal trains are composed of approximately 120 rail cars, resulting in an average of 27,215 to 190,508 kg of coal lost per train on each trip.
Collard said increased shipments to proposed new coal export terminals to be built in Washington and Oregon would only make the problem more acute.
And she is hoping the legal action in Washington State has an impact on the debate over expanded coal imports in B.C.
“If we have to do something about it here, then hopefully it would translate into action up there in Canada,” she said.
Benson said while environmental laws in Canada are different from those in the U.S., she’s hoping regulators and residents on this side of the border sit up and take notice.
“The impacts caused by transporting coal in open railcars doesn’t stop as soon as the trains cross the border,” she said.
“If that material is getting into the water, it’s also in the air and getting into our lungs. There are implications for our food as well – these trains past agricultural lands on the way to the terminal.”
The U.S. legal challenge comes as Surrey Fraser Docks seeks approval to build a coal transfer station built on the Surrey-Delta border that would handle between four million and eight million metric tonnes of coal per year.
The coal would be shipped from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming/Montana on the BNSF line.
The case is being heard by Judge John C. Coughenour of the Western District of Washington. BNSF filed a motion to dismiss the suit on Aug. 15. The Sierra Club and other plaintiffs responded on Sept. 3, and BNSF filed its reply to the response on Sept. 6. Judge Coughenour has yet to rule on the motion.
Courtney Wallace, BNSF spokesperson, refused to comment on the case, other than to say the Sierra Club lawsuit is just legal grandstanding.
“This lawsuit is nothing more than a publicity stunt,” said Wallace.
Wallace said the corporation is spending $1.3 billion (US) on maintenance, upgrading and expansion of its tracks, including those in B.C.
