Letter: Stop more oil trains

I can say with a fair degree of confidence that any official would prohibit children from swallowing cocaine-filled balloons and smuggling them across borders. By the same reasoning, Gov. Jay Inslee should prohibit trains from carrying oil-filled tank cars through the main artery of our region, the Columbia River Gorge.

The comparison of oil to cocaine is apt as each is desirable, each is economically lucrative, each is addictive, and each is toxic.

There are differences, however. Oil is harmful to all life whereas cocaine is harmful only to humans. And, transportation and consumption of oil is legal whereas transportation and consumption of cocaine is not.

Why is one of these addictive, toxic substances legal when the other one isn’t? Because at some time, an elected official admitted that the hazards of cocaine exceeded the economic benefits, and he had it banned.

In this era of recovering salmon runs and rising global temperatures, the highly flammable oils from the Bakken and Three Forks formations in North Dakota present risks to the region and the planet that far exceed the rewards to any but oil’s distant owners. Therefore, please, for the health of salmon, the health of people of the Pacific Northwest and for the health of Earth, ban all shipments of oil (and coal) through the Columbia River Gorge.

Peter Wright

Lake Oswego, Ore.