The expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline endangers our region. They are projected to nearly triple capacity of the existing pipeline from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels of tar sands crude oil a day—AND increase vessel traffic through the Salish Sea seven-fold, with each tanker holding more than twenty-five million gallons of oil.
Some of this product could be exported through BP’s dock at Cherry Point. The Army Corps of Engineers is supposed to be evaluating the environmental impact of this dock, but it’s dragging its feet. We need you to speak up and tell the Corps to stop delaying! See below for a form letter you can use to tell the Army Corps of Engineers to protect the Salish Sea from more oil tankers.
The environmental study for the dock should reveal that the permit BP is using for this expansion was issued illegally and that their plans are dangerous. For more than 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers has been delaying cracking down—now it’s time for it to act. We need your help!
BP’s dock enables far more oil tanker traffic than permitted by a 1977 law written by Senator Warren Magnuson. And we’re not talking about just a few more trips than what is allowed—it would be at least 190 more tanker calls a year to the BP refinery. That’s a recipe for disaster in a fragile waterway already crisscrossed by thousands of ships bound to ports in Washington and British Columbia each year. These ships carry millions of tons of hazardous fuels and cargo. The U.S. and Canada do not have the technologies or capabilities to clean up a tar sands oil spill. In addition, advocates of the project have yet to even outline how to best equip first responders in the event of a spill.
Action from people like you recently helped push the Army Corps to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline. We know public pressure can convince the agency to do the right thing. Now, we need to build on that momentum and demand that the Corps of Engineers release the final environmental impact study for BP’s tanker dock.
Form letter for you to adapt:
To: Colonel John G. Buck, Commander, Seattle District, ACOE ([email protected])
Please also Bcc: Katie Fleming, Friends of the San Juans ([email protected]). We will make sure that your letters are also given to Senators Cantwell and Murray along with King County Executive Dow Constantine and Governor Inslee.
Subject: Please release the final EIS for the BP Cherry Point tanker terminal.
Dear Colonel John G. Buck:
We have been waiting for more than 11 years for the Army Corps of Engineers to produce an Environmental Impact Statement for the expansion of BP’s Cherry Point tanker terminal. The Draft EIS, released more than two years ago, failed to recommend a limit on the number of crude oil tankers allowed to call on the refinery terminal, which is a direct violation of the Magnuson Amendment. It should not take more than a decade to conclude that building a second dock doubles the capacity for BP to transport oil.
We are calling on the Army Corps of Engineers to release a Final EIS for the Cherry Point refinery tanker terminal immediately—limiting the tanker traffic to no more than the number that called on the refinery before the second dock was built in compliance with Magnuson.
Puget Sound cannot afford to wait given the approval of the Kinder Morgan tar sands pipeline expansion which will increase tar sands flowing by pipeline to refineries in Washington and exponentially escalate tanker traffic by 700% jeopardizing the region.
Sincerely,
(Photo above by Chris Teren)
