On February 11, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued three new permits for Ambre Energy’s Coyote Island Terminal coal export project in Boardman, Oregon, known as the Morrow Pacific project. The Morrow Pacific project would transport 8 million tons of coal per year from the Powder River basin in Montana by rail to Eastern Oregon, where it would be loaded onto barges and shipped down the Columbia River to the Port of St. Helens.  

If this project goes forward, Governor Kitzhaber and the state of Oregon will be signaling their disregard for the catastrophic effects of climate change that our children and our children’s children will most certainly face if the international community does not make huge changes in how we source and use energy.  

Coal contributes to more than 40 percent of global greenhouse gasses. I am the mother of one year old and four-year-old daughters who were born in Oregon, and I am a native Montanan. The idea that my generation will continue to add to the problem of climate change rather than do everything in our power to combat it is unacceptable.  

Each year the effects of climate change become more obvious and apparent.  

Floods, fires, drought and ocean acidification threaten the forests, rivers and oceans so many of us love and cherish and that have sustained us for generations. The damages to our natural resources that climate change will cause are incalculable. Now is the time to do everything we can to protect those resources. Now is not the time to build new coal terminals.  

Ambre Energy claims that this project would be safe for people and the environment; according to the project’s website, “Every part of the project has been designed to minimize or eliminate dust or spillage.” As we well know, however, there can be no guarantees for safety. But even if the coal could be safely transported, we cannot continue to ignore the effects that coal and other fossil fuels are already having on our climate. 

Thankfully we can still stop this facility from being constructed. At the same time the new DEQ permits were issued, DEQ also announced a new hurdle for Ambre Energy: they are required to apply for a Clean Water Act 401 permit. This application process will include much greater scrutiny on the project's impact on our health, the Columbia River, and salmon populations.

As parents and grandparents, we must do everything we can to make the world our children inherit at least as healthy, safe and beautiful as the world we have known. The Pacific Northwest should be a leader in clean energy solutions — not a pathway for coal exports. 

Please tell Governor Kitzhaber to protect our families and our climate by taking a firm stand against all coal exports in Oregon.