Category Archives: Coal

Refusing to be a corporate throw-away community

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Lisa Arkin, Executive Director

Our ground-breaking work centers on bringing the voices of Oregonians to the forefront of policy reform. What do I mean by that? We help people who want to speak “ground-truthing” to power; in other words, using their real experiences to expose corporate financed and secret backroom deals that allow industry polluters to mislead and harm the public.

Two philanthropic organizations recently featured Beyond Toxics as exemplary examples of effective grassroots work. The Resist Foundation (Massachusetts), featured our unique work blending environmental justice with our fight to stop coal trains, and the McKenzie River Gathering Foundation (Oregon) shined a spotlight on our gutsy “get it done” style and list of many accomplishments.

You know, I get calls every week with accounts of what is happening when chemical trespass brings illness and property damage to the lives of every day Oregonians. With your steadfast support, Beyond Toxics can investigate, report and fight for better environmental laws that protect the environment and safeguard our health.

I want to share just a few stories, in addition to the ones I described in the Eugene Weekly. The sad part is the story, but the hopeful part is what Beyond Toxics did to make a positive difference. In each case, we didn’t just troubleshoot an individual problem; instead we elevated grassroots assistance into stronger human health and environmental protections.

Air Toxics, Asthma and School Kids: A teacher in a Lane County school district called to alert us that children were have trouble breathing during recess because of the ammonia and creosote fumes from a nearby factory. Beyond Toxics leapt into action, researched the relationships between air pollution and asthma and got the EPA to investigate the polluting industry for violations. The investigation is underway! We also got Union Pacific Railroad to clean up a huge hazardous waste dump!

Run-Away Power Fuels Coal Trains: As soon as Beyond Toxics heard that an unnamed multinational corporation had signed a secret MOU (“Memorandum of Understanding”) with the Port of Coos Bay to bring coal trains to the Willamette Valley and Oregon Coast, we teamed up with another non-profit to file an Oregon Public Records Request. We are seeking to reveal the identity of the coal companies and their coal export plan. While waiting for the courts to decide if we get access to those records, we have held rallies, teach-ins, marches, and written lots of editorials that gathered the public support to pass an anti-coal train resolution in Eugene.

Oct. 2011 Highway 36 Weed Pull Party

Pesticides on Highways: A woman in Marion County receiving chemo-therapy treatment for cancer begged for a reprieve from roadside spray so that she could protect her weakened immune system from toxic chemicals while driving from her home to her chemo appointments. Her plea went unanswered, so Beyond Toxics used her story and others just like it as the catalyst for our report on just how much pesticide is sprayed on Oregon’s roads and highways. As a result, ODOT has established a 25% chemical reduction goal for 2015.

Beyond Toxics doesn’t sit by and let bad practices and policies continue to harm folks! We take decisive action! Please join our team! We need your membership and involvement. Refuse to be a corporate throw-away by joining now and helping to make environmental health Oregon’s moral and practical standard.

Lisa Arkin, Executive Director
Beyond Toxics

See the news stories about our work in 2012.

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Coal trains and beloved local spots

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The coal industry wants us to believe that coal exports are inevitable, and that supporting continued mining and burning coal is our destiny. I would argue that a beautiful community and renewable energy future is our destiny, and obsolete coal is the doom and desperation of Big Dirty Coal.

Coal train tracks near River Road neighborhood

How will the proposed arrival of coal trains in Eugene and West Lane County impact our communities? I’ve thought of a few local landmarks that will be in the path of the coal train. I would enjoy reading what others think – what places are dear to you that will be impacted by four or more coal trains every day?

The Oregon Country Fair is a special spot that might suffer a tourism crisis if a coal trains passed within a few dozen yards. We’d see coal dust instead of fairy dust on those dancing, semi-naked bodies. The sound of screeching coal trains passing by eight times each day (round trip) would be unwanted percussion to the nightly jam sessions.

And sweet little Veneta. Last week, as I was having dinner at Our Daily Bread restaurant right off Highway 126, I chatted with another person about the coal trains. We both eyed the rail road tracks a few hundred yards from the restaurant. “I’m worried about what the noise and dust would do to our businesses here in Veneta,” the woman said. “A lot of people I know don’t want a coal train, but no one in Veneta has spoken out.”

One of my best friends and her husband routinely take their canoe out to Warren Slough, part of the Fern Ridge’s corridor of channels that lead through a very special wildlife viewing area. To get to the fishing areas south of the Reservoir, a canoe will have to pass directly under the rickety train trestle. Any coal dust spoiling a wetland, lake or stream would boost the acidity of the water and introduce heavy metals and pollutants that would, in turn, threaten aquatic life. As a consequence, the birds (and the people) that feed on the local fish would be harmed.

Trainsong Park, near the train tracks, is just one of many locations that would be impacted by coal train traffic

Here are just a few other landmarks that have meaning for me…

• Steward Ponds – a protected wetlands only .6mi from the coal train track.

• Peterson Community Center – site of many community events, classes and sporting activities. Barely .6 mi from the coal train track.

• Greenhill Humane Society – dogs and cats that already have some trauma in the their lives would be subjected to train whistles and the heavy rumble of the train day and night – only .5mi separates the animals from the tracks.

• The Fern Ridge Bike Trail actually crosses the train tracks, so that if you are out for a pleasant bike ride and some exercise, you can take in a lung-full of diesel particulate and coal dust too!

I agree with Eric de Place from the Sightline Institute who put the coal train issue so well, “I think you’re looking at a sort of degraded Northwest that doesn’t look like the kind of Northwest we’ve seen in the past. The region has not been a heavily fossil-fuel-dependent economy ever in its history … all of a sudden (it would will be) very much embedded in the economy of the coal industry.” A degraded Country Fair and Fern Ridge Reservoir is not the vision I have for my community.

What’s your vision? What places do you care about? Please share with me.

And please join us this Saturday to march in the Eugene Celebration Parade. Our theme is “Raise the Roof! King Coal and the Fossil Fools.” We need lots of folks participating to make a big impact. We’ve got costumes! Just show up!

Read more about how to find us!

Lisa Arkin, Executive Director
Beyond Toxics

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Victory for small (and honest) non-profits in the battle against the giant (and manipulative) coal industry!

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Beyond Toxics and No Coal Eugene talk to Mayor Piercy at Coal Protest

Beyond Toxics and No Coal Eugene talk to Mayor Piercy at Coal Protest

In spring of this year, Beyond Toxics submitted a Public Records Request to the Port of Coos Bay to learn the details of plans to haul coal through Eugene for export to nations in the Far East? Remember that they demanded $22,000 to get what should be public information? If that wasn’t enough, the Port of Coos Bay tacked on a long list of intrusive questions, demanding the disclosure of our members’ names and addresses.

This week, a Coos Bay judge ruled that non-profits like Beyond Toxics and Sierra Club do not have to obey the demands of the coal industry by turning over the names of our members! The Port of Coos Bay’s excessive inquisition of small non-profits was thrown out of court!

This important victory is just one step along the legal path to give the public all the facts about hauling dirty coal through the Columbia River Gorge, the Willamette Valley, and out to the coast via downtown Eugene. Both the Oregon Sierra Club and Beyond Toxics filed records requests and were answered with back-breaking fees and aggressive demands. Sierra Club filed a claim that there is a pattern and practice of subjecting public requesters to invasive questioning, and pointed out it had also happened to Beyond Toxics. Both groups are awaiting the outcome of the case to proceed with our public records request.

The Port has been and continues to be secretive and dismissive of public inquiries on coal exports. It is highly doubtful that the Port or their coal partners will release the requested documents before the Eugene City Council meets to vote on the issue on September 10.

In a new twist, on July 9, the Port of Coos Bay asked the Eugene City Council to approve a resolution they (or probably their lawyers) wrote, specifically stating “Be it resolved by the City of Eugene that The City strongly supports the use of the Coos Bay rail line for the movement of freight in western Lane, western Douglas and Coos counties…” and furthermore that “The City will work with the Port and other regional and transportation stakeholders to identify and recruit additional opportunities for the development of rail…”

Why should residents of Eugene support the dirty, destructive and polluting coal industry? Why should we agree to foul our air and poison our lungs, and destroy climates by burning more fossil fuels?

Do you want to stand up to Dirty Coal? Then join us in the Eugene Celebration Parade where we will march as King Coal and the Fossil Fools! We need a big group!  To sign up, send an email to info@BeyondToxics.org. Let’s show Big Dirty Coal where Eugene stands when it comes to envisioning a clean energy world!

-Thanks for standing with us,

Lisa Arkin, Executive Director