>> Between 40 and 50 percent of
the nation's coal needs comes
out of the Powder River Basin.>>
We're on a 90-foot thick seam of
coal here, the thickest seam
anywhere in the world.
>> It's all about big bucks, and
big bucks talks.
>> Where the land is being coal
mined, it's being destroyed.
>> If we don't consider climate
Change, the game's over.
>> It's not going to be harmful
to the environment.
>> You talk about a stimulus
package for the United States.
Coal is a stimulus package.
>> This is ground zero of
defining the future of energy
throughout the whole world.
>> All of the suffering, the
global warming, the droughts,
the famines.
The coal companies don't have to
pay for that.
You and I pay for that.
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>> Funding for this program was
made possible by the corporation
for public broadcasting and
viewers like you.
Thank you.
��
>> It's the heart of the crab
fishing season in the Salish
Sea.
This network of coastal
waterways extends beyond the
border of Washington state into
British Columbia.
It's one of the largest and most
biologically rich inland seas in
the world.
Thousands of species call this
place home, including some of
the longest lived animals on the
planet.
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It's difficult to calculate the
true value of the Salish Sea,
especially to the people who
have lived here the longest.
>> The whole landscape is sacred
to us.
There's not much contaminant
free lands left in the United
States.
This is one of them.
>> Jeremiah Julius is a
fisherman from the Lummi tribal
community.
For hundreds of generations, his
tribe has relied on the halibut,
salmon, and crab that thrive in
these waters.
>> Fishing is who we are.
Fishing is our culture.
And to us, culture is fish.
It's just in our blood.
>> It's here at Cherry Point
just north of Bellingham,
Washington, where tribal
fishermen drop their crab pots.
That the largest coal export
terminal in North America is
proposed to be built.
Nearly 500 ships would travel
these waters every year,
carrying coal to the other side
of the Pacific.
The rapid industrialization of
Asia means that coal-fired power
plants are being built there
every week.
Asia consumes more coal than
rest of the world combined.
In the next three years,
countries there are expected to
double the amount of coal they
import today.
That soaring demand spells
opportunity for U.S.
Companies.
>> our particular project,
Gateway Pacific terminals, when
built and fully operational at
full capacity, would generate
approximately $5.5 billion in
foreign monies infused back into
The U.S. economy.
>> This possibility has placed
the Northwest in the middle of a
controversial debate: Should
the region build export
terminals that would open
lucrative markets for the
world's dirtiest fossil fuel?
As the nation's economy
continues to struggle, can the
country afford not to?
Darren Williams has been a
longshoreman in Bellingham,
Washington, for more than three
decades.>>
Today, because
there's no work in the port that
I'm hired to work in, I end up
spending a lot of time on the
road traveling.
>> There hasn't been regular
work in the port of Bellingham
for nearly 10 years.
That means Williams often must
drive hundreds of miles for the
chance to get a day's work in
another port.>>
If we had work
here steady in Bellingham, it
would make my life much simpler.
Because all the hours that we
spend traveling would be spent
at home.Almost everything that
we have in this country is
affected by import and export
over seagoing vessels.
And longshoremen play a big part
in that.
I think at the heart of most
issues, you can always find
money.
I'm not going to try and be holy
and say that I think it should
be built because it's a grand
thing to do, I think it should
be built because of economic
reasons.
That's money.
Economic for me personally,
economically for the community
and the state.So what happens if
the Gateway project is not
built?
I guess my kids and other kids
in this community will go
elsewhere to find jobs.
We'll see a couple more grocery
stores shut down, we'll see
negative, negative, negative.
>> They say we are going to lose
all these jobs and taxes if we
don't allow this to go in, which
to me is false because you can't
lose something you don't have.
We have our fish, we have our
salmon, we have clean air, we
have a coal free corner in
Washington state.
We'll lose that.
That's losing to me.
>> To me, these tankers are the
trains that killed off the
buffalo.
These tankers are going to kill
my way of life.
So to me, this is, it is a
battle.
>> Gillette, Wyoming, lies in
the heart of the nation's
largest coal mining region.
One out of every six people here
works for the coal industry.
People like Phil Dillinger.
Mining has provided a steady
salary to support his family and
send his four children to
college.
>> It's that stability of
knowing that every two weeks I'm
going to get a paycheck.
And that's, that's a huge, huge
thing.
>> Dillinger's job is loading
coal into trains.
>> So our job is by the time
it's dumped into that coal
hopper all the way to the time
when we load it onto the trains.
That's coal processing.
That's what I do.
On an average, it takes a minute
to a less than a minute to fill
up one car.
One train car of coal.
>> Across Wyoming, more than 250
square miles have been mined.
That's more than three times the
area of the city of Seattle.
Mining companies are required to
restore the ecosystems they
disrupt.
But so far, only about 10 of
those 250 square miles have been
turned back into healthy
rangeland.
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For some ranchers like LJ
Turner, coal companies haven't
been good neighbors.
>> Just as a pure role of the
dice, our leases were all over
in the area where the coal
mining is.
It was a beautiful place to run
cattle.
We've lost about 6,000 acres.
It was some of the nicest
country in the world.
I miss it.
>> Now, he has to drive his
herds hundreds of miles to find
rangeland.>>
What's happening
here is something that's going
to continue to happen, and once
you destroy this area, And I
hate to say it, but where the
land is being coal mined, it's
being destroyed.
All of the water along the creek
are fueled by these aquifers
that run along the creek bed and
where the coal mine has just
mined completely across the
creek just doesn't exist anymore
and they've totally interrupted
the natural hydraulic flow of
the water and so it's just gone.
>> The United States relies on
coal to provide about 40 percent
of the nation's energy.
But in recent years, U.S.
Utilities have been switching
from burning coal to burning
natural gas.
That trend has pushed U.S.
Coal companies to search for
other customers.
>> The coal industry recognizes
that over the next few years to
decades as we in the U.S.
And countries in Asia use more
and more environmentally
friendly forms of energy that
the market for coal is just
basically going to completely
tank.
So they want to get it out of
the ground as quickly as
possible sell it incredibly
cheaply to China and Korea and
India and make the money while
they can.
>> The most direct path would be
to send coal trains through the
river valleys of the Northwest
to its deep-water ports.
The only obstacle is the lack of
adequate coal export facilities.
Cherry Point is one of a handful
of places in Washington and
Oregon considering building coal
export terminals.
These facilities would allow
U.S. coal companies to ship up
to 100 million tons of coal
every year.
If these terminals are built,
communities along the railroad
could see between 18 and 37
additional coal trains a day.
And each coal train can stretch
a mile and a half long.
Marion Dozier lives in the
crosshairs of three rail lines
in Billings, Montana.
She knows what it's like to live
in close proximity to coal
trains.
>> When you've got a train
that's 120 cars long, you're
sitting there for a good four or
five minutes or so at the train
crossing.
We're just three blocks away,
and we never know where the dirt
comes from, but there's dirt on
your cars and your windows, and
if your windows are open, you've
got grit.
It's an issue that's very hard
to get the ordinary person in
any way excited about it.
If they're not waiting at the
train and it's 103 degrees out
and they're waiting and waiting
and waiting and waiting, they
don't care.
And they won't care.
>> Coal trains headed to the
Northwest for export would
travel through Montana, across
the panhandle of Idaho, and then
down to the Columbia River.
The Columbia is the largest
river in the West.
Its dams provide the region with
cheap electricity.
They also create slackwater
reservoirs that allow cargo to
be transported from hundreds of
miles within the Northwest's
interior.
Often, these vessels carry
grain, but soon, they could be
carrying coal.
It would be Anne McIntyre's job
to navigate coal ships through
these narrow channels of the
Lower Columbia.
>> Captains of ships really
can't learn all the local
knowledge that every port
requires for every ship to call
on that port.
So we're the person with the
local knowledge.
We are a 365 day a year, 24/7
operation.
We're moving ships all the time.
I don't view a coal ship as
being any different than any
other ship that I navigate.
You could put grain in it.
You could put steel in it.
You could put fertilizer in it.
It's the same type of ship.
It's just that the cargo is
different.
We bring large ships in the
river routinely.
900 feet long.
1,000 feet long.
If you put that ship on end, it
would be taller than a building
in downtown Portland.
But that is what we do.
>> If coal is exported by way of
the Columbia, it could mean up
to about 700 additional ships.
But this prospect doesn't worry
McIntyre.
>> A pilot's job really is to
mitigate risk, and we view
ourselves as being on the front
lines of defending the
environment.
I think the likelihood of coal
spilling out of a ship onto the
river is just about nil.
>> Coal that doesn't travel by
way of the Columbia would
continue on the railroads that
pass through the small towns and
major cities of the Northwest.
Little research has been
conducted to measure how passing
coal trains impact air quality.
Professor Dan Jaffe is a leading
expert in atmospheric pollution.
He's begun to take a closer
look.
>> We stood on the bridge over
the tracks at Richmond Beach and
watched a couple dozen trains
and we measured particulate
matter concentrations that were
well above the health
thresholds.
The data we have collected on
diesel and coal exhaust on
trains is very preliminary.
I'd be disappointed to see a
policy decision go forward
without more information on the
air pollution impacts.
>> In 2009, a BNSF Railway
representative testified that as
much as 645 pounds of coal dust
is lost from each car during a
400-mile journey.
And if a coal train usually has
about 125 cars, the amount of
dust could add up quickly.
Physicians also worry about the
diesel exhaust coming from train
locomotives.
>> We know from numerous peer
reviewed population-wide studies
that there is an increase in
asthma exacerbation when people
are exposed to diesel
particulate matter.
>> It's important to realize
that the particles from the coal
trains are microscopic, ultra
fine particles that you can't
see.
They're the ones that do the
real damage because they make it
to the deepest parts of the
airways.
So you may not be seeing it, but
you're breathing it, and it's
affecting you.
>> Shahraim Allen has worked for
BNSF Railways for 19 years.
>> I've never seen an ounce of
dust.
That's just my experience.
And I've run coal trains for
BNSF Railway my whole career.
So I've been around coal for a
long time.
If any has ever escaped, it has
been, you know, to a small
amount and that there are
precautions that have been taken
to this day.
>> BNSF now requires companies
that ship coal to apply what's
called a surfactant or a topper
agent to coal trains before they
leave the mines.
They say this helps suppress
dust by about 85 percent.
>> I've actually climbed on top
of the car and I've tapped on it
and it's not going anywhere.
It's hard.
There is actually an aerodynamic
shape, they call it like a bread
loaf shape, and what that allows
for is even air flow as the
train, over the tops of the
loads, as the train travels down
the tracks.
It's not going to be harmful to
the environment.
You know, hauling coal from the
powder river basin to the
pacific northwest has gone on
for decades.
>> There are currently three
coal trains a day that travel
through the Northwest up to
ports in British Columbia.
>> I believe it's a
misconception for the public to
believe that if this terminal's
not built, that the train
traffic won't increase anyway.
>> Canadian ports are already
operating at near capacity.
They too would need to expand in
order to ship more coal abroad.
Here at the Westshore terminal
in British Columbia, about 1.5
million tons of coal is waiting
to be shipped to Asia.
>> Westshore was built in the
1970s.
So the environmental laws and
requirements and regulations are
much different than they are
today.Comparing what Westshore
terminal is and what our
terminals are going to be, you
can't compare the two terminals.
On an environmental basis, it's
looking at a 1970 GTO versus a
Prius.
>> Unlike the Westshore
facility, the Gateway Pacific
Terminal is designed so the coal
would be covered during the
loading process.
>> We've built in a great deal
of design elements to protect
the environment.
We have all of our conveying
systems on the terminal covered.
Any conveying systems that go
out over the water are actually
completely enclosed.
We don't think it's an either-or
proposition.
We think that you can develop
family wage jobs and be good
stewards and protect the
environment.
There's a demand for this coal
in Asia.
So the question is, do we want
the impacts and the coal to go
through Canada, and have them
get the jobs and the tax
revenues?
Or do we want to build these
facilities here and have that
$5.5 billion worth of foreign
monies be injected back into our
economy rather than into the
Canadian economy.
That's the real question.
>> Before any of the coal export
terminals can be built, the
environmental impacts of these
facilities must be studied.
In the fall of 2012, federal and
state agencies asked for input
on the Gateway Pacific project.
They held public meetings
throughout the Northwest.
Thousands from both sides
testified.
>> I'd like to apologize for my
dress.
I have soccer practice after
this.
>> 12-year-old Rachel Howell
Was one of the youngest to
speak.
>> I have to say I was pretty
nervous.
When I was up on stage, I was
just thinking about delivering
the message.
And it was sort of a nervous,
exciting feeling, I was just
really happy.
>> My generation will pay a high
price for the global warming
that you do.
This is the future that you're
creating for us and this isn't
the future that we want.
Please don't build these coal
terminals.
It's just not fair to my
generation.
[cheering]
>> Howell's parents are
environmentalists.
Her mom works for the Northwest
Energy Coalition and her dad
works for the Sierra Club.
>> I first learned about the
plans to export coal when my dad
came home one day and he started
talking about it.
I didn't think it would be that
big of a deal because I didn't
understand the full concept back
then.
When you hear something that's
really bad, and you don't want
to accept it, and you shut it
out, and you pretend it's not
real, and you pretend the
opposite of that is happening.
>> Howell snowboards with her
family at Snoqualmie Pass in
Washington's Cascade mountains.
>> When you're up there and
you're looking around, you just
see wilderness and you think
beauty.
There's a lot of snow up there
but if global warming keeps up,
and that snow is going to start
to disappear.
It sort of shows you how amazing
the parts of the world that are
untouched by humans can really
be.
>> When coal is burned, a whole
suite of pollutants is emitted.
That pollution doesn't just stay
in the air above a power plant.
It travels.
You can't see Asia's air
pollution from the top of Mt.
Bachelor in central Oregon.
But it's here.
>> Typically, it takes about
five to ten days for air over
China to move to the pacific
northwest, so if pollutants were
emitted from a factory in China
at the surface, they'll get
wafted up into the air and we
may detect them a week later.
>> Dan Jaffe and his team have
built this mountaintop research
station to learn how China's
escalating pollution impacts the
rest of the world.
>> It's a wonderful location for
doing the kind of research that
we do for understanding global
pollutants and the transport of
pollutants from Asia over here
to the United States.
>> Of all the pollutants
released when coal is burned,
it's carbon dioxide that most
concerns Jaffe and other
scientists.
Coal is the world's leading
source of carbon pollution and
it has a direct impact on global
climate change and the future of
the world's oceans.
Once built to full capacity,
Northwest export terminals would
ship 100 million tons of coal to
Asia every year.
Burning that coal would put
about 200 million tons of carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere each
year.
>> Climate changes needs to be
considered in any proposal to
ship coal to asia.
This is a very real issue that
we will be dealing for the rest
of our generation and the next
generations.
>> It's a real slippery slope.
If you look at the greenhouse
gas effects of a product that we
manufacture and export, do you
look at that with Boeing
airplanes?
The jets that Boeing produces
and sells to the international
airlines produce greenhouse
gases.
This is the kind of precedent
that precludes our country from
being able to go ahead and
continue to expand our exports.
Actually, what it will do is
constrict the exports that we
have in our country and our
economy.
>> If we don't consider climate
change in a proposal to export
coal, it means the game is over.
Because once we are exporting
millions of tons of coal to
other people, there is no reason
in the world anyone would enter
into an agreement to reduce co2.
We've pretty much stacked the
deck and climate lost, and we
lost.
>> In the last century, the
Earth's surface temperature has
risen by about 1.4 degrees.
And a vast majority of
scientists say this change is
having devastating and
potentially irreversible
consequences.
>> When my temperature goes up
1.4 degrees, I'm not allowed to
go to school.
And if I do stuff, it makes it
worse, and if I ignore it, it
makes it worse.
And it's the same thing with the
planet.
But the problem is people are in
essence letting the planet go to
school and ignoring it.
And so the temperature's going
up and up, and the planet's
getting more unhealthy and more
sick.
You only have one lifetime, and
if you stink it up with coal and
you ruin it, and you make global
warming bigger, you'll go away,
but the stuff you do won't.
And my generation has to deal
with the generation that's
burning coal and we didn't do
anything wrong and yet we still
have to deal with the problem.
And so it's not fair because we
are trying to do good, and yet
our efforts make no difference
because of what older
generations are doing.
>> If the Pacific Northwest
becomes the gateway for sending
coal to Asia, there will be
winners and there will be
losers.
How do we weigh those costs?
How do we decide what is best
for our future?
And how do we make sure that
today's solution doesn't lead to
tomorrow's crisis?
>> It's going to mean economic
stimulus.
There is no doubt.
To this region and beyond.
>> I think we need to be careful
of a short term economic gain
for a small relatively modest
number of jobs for changes that
are going to change our region
and our planet permanently.
>> If this coal port goes
through, Lummi will feel this
for the rest of time.
We're not anti-jobs.
But we have to fight to protect
what little we have left.>>
We
can't just say we're not going
to burn any more fossil fuels,
we're going to use wind and
we're going to use solar power.
Maybe we'll get to that someday.
But we can't just do that
overnight.
>> The time to make that change
to sustainable energy is now.
It's going to be too late in
even just a few years.
We need to do this now and we
need to do it on an Apollo lunar
mission type level.
>> I don't want to try to tell
people what they should or
shouldn't think.
People are intelligent; all I
want to do is give them the
facts.
You give people the facts,
people will come to the right
conclusions.
>> If you force them, they're
more likely to choose the
opposite side, and so you have
to give them an open choice and
give them the facts and the
truth and they'll realize even
without you pushing them, that
that's the right decision.
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