Letter: Imbalance comparing risk vs. gain

Tesoro and others want oil terminals in Vancouver. My concerns are as follows.

1. Explosions, derailments, human error and the variety of reasons causing multiple oil-by-rail catastrophes in the past year. (You saw the latest in the downtown area of Lynchburg, Va., on April 30, right?)

2. Oil cars, to be replaced with safer designs, but operational until then — and the news that the “safer” ones are also failing.

3. Emissions from oil transfer and from oil cars “burping.”

4. Fracked oil’s increased combustibility and fracking’s damage to the earth.

5. Rail tracks degrading naturally, but especially from daily coal dust contamination.

6. Oil shipped through the Columbia River Gorge spilling into the river. It could shut down river traffic, fishing, tourism, water supply projects and port jobs for years.

7. Tesoro’s track record. They banned Chemical Safety Board inspectors from their facility in California.

Risk vs. gain? A clear imbalance. Submit comments to the Department of Energy to study cumulative impacts of proposed terminals at all rail communities until May 27 to http://www.ecy.wa.gov/geographic/graysharbor/terminals.html.

Let’s have a beautiful waterfront project and jobs; not an economy built on disaster cleanup.

Jan Verrinder

Vancouver