originally published in The Herald
Railroads have powered the American West for more than a century, teasing out a mixed legacy. At an 1892 banquet at the Bayview Hotel, James J. Hill, coaxed by a rabble of city boosters, claimed that Everett would be the terminus for the Great Northern Railway. Seattle seized the prize the following year. Fickle and hidebound suitors, railroads are historically over-promising, vague and indispensable. It’s a narrative that should inform policymakers as Washington inches forward with a proposed coal-export facility at Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point near Bellingham.
Wednesday afternoon, a handful of legislators, running on post-Election Day fumes, convened a press conference at Seattle’s Pier 70 to spotlight Cherry Point. The cudgel is a Jan. 21 deadline to wrap up comments and public hearings for the scoping phase of the terminal’s environmental impact statement, with lawmakers concerned about the lack of state-agency coordination (and a couple Department of Ecology staffers laboring in a windowless office does not a comprehensive report make.)
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