Yakama Nation chairman travels to Seattle to protest coal export plans

May 15 - McClatchy-Tribune Content Agency, LLC - Kate Prengaman Yakima Herald-Republic, Wash.

 

The chairman of the Yakama Nation joined tribal leaders from Washington and British Columbia on Thursday to oppose the proposed Cherry Point coal export terminal north of Bellingham.

Yakama Tribal Council Chairman JoDe Goudy said in an email that he had participated in the protest at Seattle's Ballard Locks to raise awareness of the environmental consequences of substantial increases in shipments of coal, oil and other fossil fuels in Puget Sound and along the Columbia River.

The Lummi Nation has been fighting the proposal for three years out of concerns that the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal would interfere with the tribe's treaty-protected fishing rights in the area.

"The proposed terminal will result in irreparable harm to our important crab and salmon fisheries," Tim Ballew II, chairman of the Lummi Indian Business Council, said in a prepared statement. "Our tribes stand in solidarity with one another to protect our way of life for generations to come."

The project's developer, SSA Marine, says that once constructed, the multi-commodity cargo facility would create 1,250 jobs in Whatcom County and have limited environmental impacts. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is conducting an environmental review of the project.

"In the Yakama language, we have no word for 'mitigation,' no word to describe repairing lands and waters that have been degraded or destroyed," Goudy said in a statement. "There is no price you can pay, no repair you can make that would make our lands whole again once the coal companies have done their damage, collected their money and disappeared. We call on the U.S. Army Corps to honor the treaties."

Goudy expressed similar concerns at a protest gathering in May of last year when Yakama and Lummi tribal members formed a fishing party in the Columbia River to demonstrate against a proposed coal export terminal in Boardman, Ore.

www.yakimaherald.com

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