<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Letter: Oil terminal would be a step back

By Loren Sickles, Vancouver
Published: November 7, 2017, 6:00am

The proposed oil terminal is an idea that is quickly outliving its usefulness, and it isn’t even operational yet. Award-winning journalist Nafeez Ahmed explains, in a recent piece titled “Inside the new economic science of capitalism’s slow-burn energy collapse,” that fossil fuel return on investment has been in a steady decline from its peak in the 1930s and ’40s, costing more energy to extract each barrel of oil than it did before.

Add to this evidence that production of the Bakken oil fields has declined significantly since 2014. It begs the question, what exactly do Texas companies — Tesoro and Savage — hope to achieve by building the nation’s largest rail-to-marine oil transfer station in our community?

It is time for the Port of Vancouver, and all of Clark County, for that matter, to begin acting on what we want our community’s legacy to be. We are at a crossroads. Do we cling to a dying industry with a long history of leaving social and environmental decay in its wake? Or do we move forward with opportunities that stand a better chance of creating a safe, healthy and sustainable community?

Today we’re helping to choose which road will be taken. I choose forward.

We encourage readers to express their views about public issues. Letters to the editor are subject to editing for brevity and clarity. Limit letters to 200 words (100 words if endorsing or opposing a political candidate or ballot measure) and allow 30 days between submissions. Send Us a Letter
Loading...