California Delta
Sloughs are my veins, Delta my heart,
Sacramento waters my crown,
Trees leaning, praying over river waters,
Wide and cool, currents cradling,
The San Joaquin carries my soul.
Don't you dirty up my Delta
With backroom deals for hauling crude
Crude oil by rail
One hundred railroad cars passing by
Me, my river, and my children
Filling the air with industry and stench
And struggle to breathe in polluted air
Don't you dirty up my Delta
Filling pipes with fracked crude
And laying them across Pittsburg and
All the way down to Richmond
On this “post-industrial” land where
New homes are built, folks living there
God forbid a cracked pipe, a train
Spills, a fire starts....and dirties up my Delta
Just cause you live somewhere else, upwind
You can let the people downwind smother
In the smoke of your dollars from crude,
From hauling tar sands.
Think twice
Before you dirty up my Delta
The wind can change direction anytime
And your fracking packing pile of crude
Take you and us all in one fell swoop
I'm warning you, don't you dirty up my Delta!
Utah is the 14th-largest coal producer in the United States, with about 16 million tons each year. But American coal mines face a bleak future if they don't find international markets, as domestic power plants switch to natural gas or close due to new regulations. So the state's Community Impact Fund Board endorsed a $53 million investment in Terminal Logistics Solutions on behalf of four counties, three of which produce all the coal in the state, to construct a shipping terminal in Oakland, California. In return Utah will get a guarantee that it can send a certain amount of goods annually through the terminal, such as potash, limestone, salt and hay cubes. The Community Impact Fund Board, under the state's Department of Housing and Community Development, approved the investment with no written reports or studies, only the oral testimony of officials in the four counties. Terminal Logistics plans to build the $250 million Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal at the Oakland Global Trade & Logistics Center, with plans to complete the 35-acre project in 2017. Phil Tagami, the city-designated developer of the project, said his seven years of approvals and environmental entitlements he secured to develop the former Oakland Army Base allow him to lease the space to a private company that can export just about anything except "nuclear waste, illegal immigrants, weapons and drugs." But environment groups are outraged. "We know Oakland doesn't want coal coming through the city," said Jess Dervin-Ackerman, conservation manager for the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club. "We're ramping down the use of coal in the U.S. because we recognize it's a horrible source of pollution, and it contributes to climate change. This is city-owned land, and to us, it's the responsibility of the city to not let coal be exported." TLS president Jerry Bridges said any product moved into the facility will be covered, so no coal dust blowing around in open railroad cars. "I'm not in the business of defending coal, I'm just saying if coal is a commodity that we allow through this facility, it's the cleanest coal available in the world marketplace. We want to make this terminal the most efficient, the most environmentally friendly one there is, so we don't get sideways with the environmental community. We want to make money, but we want to minimize the impacts on the environment."
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