Treaty rights

Status report on Whatcom County permitting process for Gateway Pacific coal terminal
gpt-project-diagram-doe

Photo of slide featuring the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal project. Slide is from a March 20, 2012 presentation on the Environmental Review Process for the Gateway Pacific Terminal and BNSF Custer Spur Proposal, given by Whatcom County Planning and Development Services, and the Washington Department of Ecology.

UPDATE: This article was updated on February 11, 2017. It was originally published on February 1, 2017.

GPT applicant Pacific International Holdings/Pacific International Terminals, sent a February 7, 2017 letter to Whatcom County Planning and Development Services, withdrawing its three permit applications (two in 2011, and one in 2012) submitted for the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal project at Cherry Point.

Whatcom County Planning and Development Services (PDS) sent a February 8, 2017 email response to PIH/PIT, acknowledging receipt of the company’s February 7th letter in which it notified the County that it was withdrawing its three permit applications for the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal project.

In its February 8th email, Whatcom County PDS let PIH/PIT know the County would be canceling the pre-hearing conference with the Whatcom County Hearing Examiner and notifying the public and other interested parties of the permit withdrawals. 

February 1, 2017

by Sandy Robson

Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT) proponent Pacific International Holdings (PIH) is still at it, trying to bluster and bully Whatcom County into doing their bidding. It seems PIH, formerly known as Pacific International Terminals (PIT), a subsidiary of SSA Marine, wants the County to politely stand by until PIH decides if and how its company would like to force through a project, the construction of which according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, would violate Lummi Nation’s Usual & Accustomed treaty fishing rights. (more…)

“SSA Marine’s actions defined the project as a coal terminal.”

Facebook post sharing a letter to the editor by Sandy Robson, published in the Wall Street Journal on June 12, 2016

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A Letter of Gratitude to the Lummi Nation

Letter by Dena Jensen

lead this journey 081814

On May 12, 2016 this letter was sent to Lummi Nation and to the individuals mentioned by name in the letter:

Dear People of the Lummi Nation:

It was probably about two years ago that I was fortunate to first attend a presentation by members of the Lummi Nation at the Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship. These tribal members, Jewell James and Jay Julius among them, shared information about your cultural heritage, and your connection and sacred responsibility to Xwe’chi’eXen.  I remember being welcomed and empowered by the kind and compelling words of the speakers.  We were asked to bear witness to past struggles and tragedy that the Lummi people have suffered, and the perseverance and bold efforts that propel you forward in your sacred responsibilities to protect your culture, language, way of life, lands, and waters for the benefit of many future generations. (more…)

Press Release: Whatcom County Citizen calls for House Committee on Ethics Investigation into Congressman Ryan Zinke
Page one of the certified letter sent by Sandy Robson to the United States House Committee on Ethics, calling upon the committee to open an investigation into Congressman Ryan Zinke (R-MT), for potentially violating the United States House of Representatives Code of Official Conduct
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March 16, 2016 | Press Release, Coal Stop
Whatcom County Citizen calls for House Committee on Ethics Investigation into Congressman Ryan Zinke 

(Bellingham, WA) March 16, 2016 – Today, Blaine, Washington resident Sandy Robson, sent a certified letter to thezinke official photo United States House Committee on Ethics, calling upon the committee to open an investigation into Congressman Ryan Zinke (R-MT), for potentially violating the United States House of Representatives Code of Official Conduct.

News media in Billings, Montana and Bellingham, Washington, reported that Congressman Zinke had sent a March 15, 2016 letter to Glenn Fine, the Acting Inspector General at the Department of Defense (DoD), asking for an official DoD investigation into Colonel John G. Buck, Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Seattle District, relating to his responsibilities on the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT).

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What Do Coal Port Interests’ Clear Choices Mean?

by Sandy Robson

News broke this past weekend in Whatcom County about a last minute coal terminal-funded PAC, formed by Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT) applicant Pacific International Terminals LLC, to support Charter Review Commission-generated Props 1, 2, and 3, and to oppose citizen-proposed Prop 9, placed on the November election ballot, via ordinance, by the Whatcom County Council. The PAC is named Clear Ballot Choices (Pacific International Terminals, LLC). (more…)

Coal’s dark alliance defames Lummi Nation: Native American treaty rights under attack

by Sandy Robson

owens at panel

Brad Owens speaking at the June 22, 2015 NWJA-sponsored event, “Rebuilding the Middle Class: Working Families and Wages in Northwest Washington and the State,” in Bellingham, WA.

On her September 12, 2015 program, Whatcom Tea Party board member and host for the weekly “Saturday Morning Live” (SML) talk radio show on KGMI, Kris Halterman, interviewed Northwest Jobs Alliance (NWJA) President Brad Owens. Halterman’s program afforded Owens a platform to promote the same idea that NWJA previously purported in its August 20, 2015 letter to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Jo-Ellen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works). That idea advanced by NWJA in the letter, is that there is “an apparent motive behind the Lummi Nation’s opposition to the Gateway Pacific Terminal project (and completion of the EIS process) not connected with treaty rights.” [italicized emphasis theirs] (more…)

Honoring the Treaty: A Visit to Congressman Rick Larsen’s Office

By Dena Jensen

If you were a sleek and colorful little hummingbird who had unrestricted access to the immediate vicinity of 119 N. Commercial Street in Bellingham, both inside and out, on Tuesday, June 16, 2015, what would you have seen? (more…)