Wednesday, January 10
Rally at 8:30 am, hearing at 10 am
Federal Courthouse, 450 Golden Gate Ave, San Francisco
Courtroom 2, 17th Floor
More information
Join the Sierra Club and No Coal in Oakland for a rally before the court hearing that could put an end to the lawsuit to overturn Oakland’s ban on the storage and handling of coal. The group No Coal in Oakland is planning a spirited and informative gathering before the hearing begins at 10 am.
In the pre-trial hearing, a federal judge will hear arguments for summary judgment from both sides. If the judge doesn’t decide the case in its entirety on January 10, there will be a trial starting January 16; further details would be arranged at a pretrial conference. If you wish to sit in on the hearing, bring your government picture ID such as a driver's license and prepare for airport-style security. Once inside the courtroom we will silently observe the proceedings.
Background:
A portion of the former Oakland Army Base is being developed as a bulk export facility, known as the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal. The project developer Phil Tagami made multiple public promises not include coal as a commodity handled by the terminal, but then solicited a partnership with Utah counties that would have allowed the state to export up to 5-10 million tons of coal from their mines each year. The partnership would make Oakland the largest coal-export facility on the West Coast, and would increase national coal exports by a whopping 19 percent.
After carefully examining the significant health impacts that storing and handling coal in West Oakland would have on nearby families already overburdened with air pollution, the Oakland City Council voted unanimously in July of 2016 to ban the storage and handling of coal and petcoke in Oakland. In December of 2016 developers including Phil Tagami sued the City of Oakland to overturn the ban.
Oakland city officials were well within their legal rights to take a decisive stand against Phil Tagami after he misled the people of Oakland about coal at the terminal. Tagami’s lawsuit ignores the will of the people and the health and safety risks coal poses to community members, especially in West Oakland.
Storing and handling dirty coal at the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal at the former army base on Oakland's waterfront would endanger the health and safety of local communities. Activities such as storing and handling bulk coal and petcoke releases coal dust. Coal dust contains mercury, lead, arsenic, and particulate matter. Exposure to coal dust is linked to decreased lung capacity, increased childhood bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia, emphysema, and heart disease.
West Oakland, where the coal would be handled and stored, is already struggling with the severe air pollution. West Oakland residents are already twice as likely to go to the emergency room with asthma as people in Alameda County overall. Adding coal dust to the mix would make things worse. A recent study found that the economic burden on communities near coal storage facilities is $183 per ton in local health care costs and $202 per ton in local air pollution costs. The coal terminal that developer Phil Tagami wants in West Oakland would conservatively add $1.3 billion in annual health care costs for local Oakland residents.
There is also a huge climate cost to Phil Tagami’s proposed coal-export project: the mining and burning of this coal would result in over 12.5 million tons of greenhouse emissions each year. That's like adding more than two million passenger cars to the road each year, undoing much of the progress California has made to reduce global warming pollution and other harmful air emissions.
We don’t have to choose between good jobs and health for the Army Base redevelopment. The Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal alone will create only an estimated 117 permanent jobs, and they don’t depend on coal at all. If the terminal were to ship other commodities like agricultural products or machine parts like wind turbines, as was originally proposed, the same number of jobs would be created according to the economic impact review prepared for the City in 2012. In fact, studies have found that shipping coal produces fewer jobs per ton shipped than container shipping or shipping other commodities like machine parts.
We also can’t ignore the fact that coal is highly dangerous for workers who handle it. The 117 proposed coal jobs would come with extreme health risks, whereas the same jobs shipping other products would not. By saying no to coal, we can create good jobs while protecting our air quality and public health at the same time.