Several Clark County leaders have joined a growing coalition of elected officials across the Northwest who say they want to raise awareness about the risks of transporting coal and oil by rail.
The Safe Energy Leadership Alliance includes more than 150 members from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and British Columbia in Canada. Among them are representatives from the cities of Vancouver, Camas and Washougal.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a coalition like this,” said Vancouver City Councilor Jack Burkman, one of the group’s members. “I can’t think of one that spans that large of an area.”
The new coalition gathered last week in Portland for its third meeting. The group is led by King County Executive Dow Constantine but represents a broad range of interests that span the political spectrum, Constantine said. Its focus includes both coal and oil, but a string of recent train derailments and explosions involving crude oil have shifted much of the public’s attention to oil trains.
“Everyone, I think, is concerned about the possibility of a catastrophic event,” Constantine said.
The group aims to be a unified voice for local communities that are among the most impacted by the recent rise of oil by rail, Constantine said. Those jurisdictions often lack direct authority over the forces that have dramatically changed the energy landscape during the last few years. But joining together can help them influence the state and federal authorities that do, he said.
Vancouver is very much a part of the larger conversation on oil transport, Constantine said. It’s here that Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies want to build an oil-transfer terminal at the Port of Vancouver capable of handling about 360,000 barrels of crude per day, or about four trains daily. Currently, two to three oil trains roll through Clark County and Vancouver each day en route to other facilities.
Vancouver first connected with the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance when Councilor Bart Hansen reached out to the group, Burkman said. Five Vancouver councilors — Burkman, Hansen, Alishia Topper and Anne McEnerny-Ogle and Mayor Tim Leavitt — are now listed among the group’s members.
Burkman, among those who attended the most recent meeting, said the group gives cities a chance to learn from each other and gain new perspectives they may not have considered. Burkman described it as a combination of education and advocacy.
The coalition’s other listed members include Washougal City Councilor Joyce Lindsay. Lindsay hasn’t actively participated in meetings, but said she supported the group’s reasonable approach to the issue.
In Washougal, the city council last month passed a resolution that, among other things, expressed “deep concern” with the safety, economic and traffic impacts of oil trains passing through town. But those worries go beyond coal and oil for a city with five at-grade railroad crossings and only one overpass, Lindsay said.
“The trains are an issue in Washougal no matter what they’re carrying,” she said.
Many opponents of oil transport have pointed to the environmental and safety risks posed by possible derailments, spills and explosions. The issue continues to generate national headlines in the wake of high-profile incidents and regulatory battles.
“We have much more in common than we have differences,” Constantine said. “We’re all facing a rapidly growing challenge from this expansion of coal and oil shipping by rail.”
