A contingent of Edmonds citizens opposed to coal trains along the Edmonds waterfront will attend a hearing at the Washington State Convention Center in downtown Seattle this Thursday aimed at gathering public comment on the potential environmental impacts of exporting coal from a Bellingham-area port to China

For the past year, local citizen volunteer group Sustainable Edmonds and the Sierra Club have been hosting regular monthly meetings aimed at developing coordinated Edmonds-based opposition to plans to develop one of the largest coal export facilities on the continent at Cherry Point, about 15 miles northwest of Bellingham. The Edmonds City Council has also weighed in on the issue, passing a resolution in November 2011 opposing the coal trains.

Sustainable Edmonds spokesperson Richard Bisbee said that several local carpools that have been organized and some members will meet at the Northgate Park and Ride to catch a bus to the convention center. A rally will be held at 2 p.m. at Freeway Park (off of the Convention Center’s fourth floor) and the hearing runs from 4-7 p.m., Bisbee said.

Officials are estimating a crowd as large as 3,000 to attend the “scoping sessions” sponsored by the Washington State Department of Ecology, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Whatcom County, which is why a decision was made to move the meeting from North Seattle Community College to the larger convention center. Doors will open at 3:30 p.m. for people to find a seat and put their name into a lottery for a chance to speak during one of the 150, two-minute speaking slots. The drawings will occur each hour during the three-hour session.

Under the plan proposed by Carrix/SSA Marine, the Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point would annually export 54 million tons of goods, up to 48 million tons of which would be coal mined by Peabody Energy from the Powder River Basin. Each day, as many as 18 coal trains (nine loaded and nine returning) would shuttle coal from mines in Montana and Wyoming to Spokane, down through the Columbia River Gorge, then up along the coast, passing through Longview, Tacoma, Seattle, Edmonds, Everett, Mt. Vernon, Bellingham, Ferndale and all points in between. Proponents have said that the coal export process will create jobs at a time when people are struggling to find employment.

The “scoping” process is a preliminary step that government agencies use to decide what impacts to analyze during an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed terminal.

“This could be a turning point,” Bisbee said. “This could be a wake-up call, that we don’t have to keep living the way we have been living. We all need jobs, but there are some things that are more important. If we don’t have a planet we can live on, having a job is irrelevant.”

The meeting will be at the Washington State Convention Center, Ballroom 6f.  Map here. You can also submit written testimony by emailing comments@eisgatewaypacificwa.gov. To learn more about Sustainable Edmonds’ efforts related to the issue, email r_bisbee@msn.com.