Video: Portland Move Beyond Coal Campaign Rally
author: Jim Lockhart
Portland Oregon rally at Pioneer Square as part of the Move Beyond Coal Campaign of the Oregon Sierra Club.
Moderated by Robin Everett of the Oregon Sierra Club. Speakers include L.J. Turner, a Wyoming rancher and Otto and Barbara Braided Hair, Montana Cheyenne.
Move Beyond Coal Rally
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Both the ranch and the traditional Cheyenne lands are being devastated by coal mining, now facing Bureau of Land Management designs to expand this resource extraction in the near future.
Robin begins with the effects of coal mining on people and communities: ".....people getting sick; .....kids being unable to bathe in their own water; .......kids with asthma and autism; ....... mountain top removal mining, strip mining and people's land being taken over for our energy use."
The coal which feeds the Portland General Electric Boardman coal fired power plant comes from the Powder River Basin coal mines in Montana and Wyoming. "We burn 300 tons of coal every single hour at the Boardman coal plant. We need to end this."
According to some of the background information at the booths, this Basin represents one of the most threatened landscapes in this country. For decades it has been at the center of a conflict that pits rural farmers, ranchers and American Indians against the American appetite for coal fired energy. The U.S. burns about one billion tons of coal annually. And further, according to their posters, this Basin supplies alone supplies 40% of the coal in this country, accounting for nearly 12% of the total U.S. global warming pollution.
Here in the Northwest, 40% of Oregon's energy comes from coal; while in Washington state, it's 22%.
After brief remarks and before introducing the speakers for the event, Robin spoke a little about the mock coal train marching around Pioneer Square before loading coal into a chute at the mock Boardman coal fired power plant.
L.J. Turner, the first speaker, spoke about the devastation to his ranch brought on by coal mining. Turner says that they have not received any financial compensation for the forced mining on their land. "We had the idea that we were going to get the land back after the coal mines were through with it. So far we have lost about 6,000 acres of grazing land, and we've never had an animal that has gotten a mouthful of reclaimed land grass."
"It's strictly a one way street, with the coal companies and unfortunately, we don't have much choice in what's done. In Wyoming we have the best Legislature and the best laws that money can buy."
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in this area is "now doing an Environmental Impact Study of a major expansion of the coal mines there. Yet, According to the BLM in the past, coal mining has dropped the surface water levels by 5 feet." This may not matter here in Oregon, but "out here in the dry country, you sure do."
Additionally, "every water well in the Powder River Basin has gone down. And the closest test well to our ranch is about 20 miles away, and it shows a 600 foot drop."
"We have to guarantee the rights of our children and our grandchildren to know some of the clean air and the clean water that we've grown up with and expected........and the only way that we can do it is to start looking hard at the energy that we're using today. We're going to have to try to find different ways of doing things...I hope you'll all go home and think twice about what the act of turning on your light bulb out here is destroying the country that I've grown up and loved all my life."
Barbara Braided Hair spoke next. After beginning with a few words in her native tongue, she recounted her upbringing by her grandmother in the Otto Creek Tracts, "which are now being threatened by coal development. "Based on a lie we were moved from our home, and we now live on what we call the reservation."
Promises were originally given to the Cheyenne people that they would receive their land back, that the forced move was only temporary. "To this day we have never been able to move back to those Otto Creek Tracts, where our families are buried, where ceremonies were held, where our family was raised. Right now it is being threatened."
"I come here today from Montana, away from my family, away from my people, to plead with you to get the word out and say no more coal, no more development."
Next, Otto Braided Hair speaks about the environment and what's going on. "The Cheyenne have a strong, deep connection, relationship to the environment, ceremonial and spiritual. And it can not support destruction to the elements that are in our environment, the water, the plants and the animals. I'm here to talk against that destruction, to our environment, to our home"
"It doesn't matter if it's in Montana, or here, anywhere in the U.S., anywhere in the world. We cannot continue the destruction.
"As people, as Americans, we've accomplished so much, we've built so much, we have to put our minds and hearts together to find something better for our homes. And it is just not as human beings; the plants live here too, the animals, the insects........Our old people made decisions for generations ahead, not just for today, not just for the present day, not just for the children, but for grandchildren and great grandchildren. They made decisions for them."
We need to tell whoever is in charge to think about the generations ahead, so that they can enjoy these lands, so that they can live and grow in a nice decent environment."
Robin concludes saying that "we are not building a sustainable future for the next generation......we here at the Sierra club are actively working to get coal out of Oregon and the Northwest.....and we feel that this starts with shutting down Oregon's only coal plant, the Boardman Coal Plant."
Portland General Electric runs Oregon's only fired coal plant, which releases 5 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air every single year, not to mentions lots and lots of toxins. We want to end that."
If you wish to take part in our regions energy planning, the regional energy body, The Northwest Power and Conservation Council, who helps decide the regions energy mix will be taking public comment until November 6, 2009 on their Draft Sixth North West Power Plan.
And keep your ear to the ground, because early in 2010, the Oregon Public Utility Commission will be looking at PGE's plan to continue burning coal for another thirty years at the Boardman plant in Oregon.
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