Sierra Club plans to sue railroads, coal companies over coal dust pollution in Northwest

LYLE, Wash. -- At the railroad berm that divides Horsethief Lake from the Columbia River, you can stick your hand between the rocks and come up with fistfuls of crumbly coal-black pebbles and dust.


For the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, such spots are Exhibit A in their case against plans to export coal from Northwest ports.

Today, lab tests in hand, five environmental groups filed their biggest legal blast against coal export so far, warning BNSF Railway and six coal companies that they plan to sue them in 60 days in federal court for polluting Northwest waters without Clean Water Act permits.

The club commissioned tests at nine sites near tracks and the Washington side of the river in the Columbia River Gorge, with additional testing pending along Puget Sound.

It is coal, the lab says, the byproduct of about four uncovered coal train trips a day through Washington's side of the gorge to a coal-fired power plant in Centralia and export terminals in British Columbia.

Horsethief Lake is sacred for tribes, with petroglyphs and historic fishing and village sites nearby. It's also part of a Washington state park and the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area.

"It's a travesty to see this much coal pollution here," says Michael Lang, conservation director for Friends of the Columbia Gorge. "You could imagine 30 coal trains a day through here. It would be atrocious."

Lang's estimate is based on all five coal export terminals proposed in Oregon and Washington panning out -- likely a long shot, industry officials say. One of the five, the Port of Coos Bay, just took its project off the boards Monday.

But if the lab tests are right, there's coal accumulating in depth already from much lower traffic.

The groups have also floated plastic bins on the Columbia near their testing sites in the last three weeks. Accumulation of coal dust and pebbles in those bins shows the train pollution isn't limited to trips of the past, they say.

The coal is thickest at bends in the tracks and places where the gorge's high winds hit the trains, environmental groups say. At a boat dock in the state park, the coal pebbles were thick near the tracks but diminished with distance.

With U.S. demand flagging, coal terminal developers want to export coal to Asia, bringing Montana and Wyoming coal in on mile-plus, uncovered coal trains. The terminals could bring hundreds of millions in investment and hundreds of jobs, they say.

BNSF spokeswoman Courtney Wallace said the company hasn't seen the lab tests, so the allegations are hearsay at this point. The company would run its own tests if it received an allegation, she said.

It's unclear how long the debris has been there, Wallace said, adding that coal trains have run through Washington for decades.

"BNSF does not believe coal or any commodity should be allowed to escape from our containers," she said.

BNSF has estimated about 500 pounds of coal blowing off a single open car, the environmental groups' notice says. But terminal and rail officials say most of the dust is lost near the mines, and the railroads are taking steps to limit dust, which can undermine track ballast and de-rail trains.

Coal mines in Montana and Wyoming's Powder River Basin now load the coal in a "bread loaf" shape that reduces dust. The railroads are also requiring customers to spray the top of coal cars with sticky "surfactants" to limit dust. BNSF says testing shows the spraying cuts dust by 85 percent.

"We believe our rules are very effective," Wallace said.

Coal customers, including power plants, are challenging BNSF's higher tariff for coal dust reduction before the Surface Transportation Board. Among other points, they question the effectiveness of the bread-loaf loading and the surfactants.

In a filing last year, engineering consultant Mark Viz questioned BNSF's testing and said toppersprays are designed for stationary coal piles, not moving trains.

"I have observed from my own field work that casting agents and other toppersprays essentially break apart when a railcar gets shaken or bumped going over the track," Viz told the STB on behalf of the coal customers.

Lang, of Friends of the Gorge, said the evidence is clear in the gorge that coal is still escaping the cars, a thousand miles from the mines.

The effects of coal on water quality is unclear, with little study of coal pollution from trains or coal piles at power plants and terminals.

The Environmental Protection Agency does say rain falling on coal storage piles can flush heavy metals into nearby bodies of water, including arsenic, uranium and lead.

Don McDermott, a vineyard owner along the Columbia near Lyle, says he doesn't want to wait for scientific results.

At his vineyard, McDermott bends down to pick up coal pebbles 20 feet above the tracks. Coal train runs have picked up in recent years as export through Canadian ports has grown, he said.

"It's not acceptable to me to have them littering my property with coal," McDermott said. He considers it "chemical trespass."

Krista Collard, a Sierra Club spokeswoman, said the legal challenge could have a big effect on railroads and coal companies.

"BNSF hauls coal all over the country," she said. "If we're successful with this, which we think we're going to be, they'll have to get (clean water) permits for coal all over the country if they're traveling near waterways."
-- Scott Learn