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Thriving Communities

Coalitions And Partnerships

Our work is strengthened by partnering with other dedicated organizations and individuals across sectors.

Our deep roots and broad connections in the region enables us to mobilize historic numbers of people — all to take action for the places we love and values we stand for. Working in coalitions and partnerships to catalyze this community action is perhaps our most important strategy; it creates a lasting impact.

RE Sources’ collaborations regionally and across sectors have produced some of our most salient victories over the decades. We participate in committees and boards, we attend public meetings, and we table at community events — we show up.

With our community-action and science-based approach, RE Sources is indispensable regionally — offering strategy, expertise and creativity to accomplish our shared goals. We are committed to holding respectful conversations, seeking collaborative solutions, and partnering with a broad array of interests and views to find common solutions.

  • Waterkeeper Alliance
  • Climate Alliance for Jobs and Clean Energy
  • BlueGreen Alliance
  • Stand Up to Oil
  • Salish Sea Collective
  • Cherry Point and Fidalgo Bay Aquatic Reserve Citizen Stewardship Committees
  • Puget Sound Environmental Caucus
  • Department of Ecology
  • Common Threads Farm
  • Wild Whatcom
  • North Cascades Institute
  • Surfrider
  • Whatcom Marine Resources Coalition

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Coalitions

Power Past Coal is an ever-growing alliance of health, environmental, businesses, clean-energy, faith and community groups working to stop coal export off the West Coast. Over 100 organizations are part of the coalition.

North America’s largest proposed coal export facility, the Millenium Bulk Terminal in Longview, WA, would handle up to 44 million metric tons of coal each year, with 16 coal trains a day proposed to run through Washington state, worsening traffic problems in communities along the rail lines. The state draft environmental impact statement found that the proposed project would have environmental impacts in 21 of the 23 areas studied, including water quality, fish and wildlife, groundwater and local communities.

TAKE ACTION: Learn more about the Millenium Bulk Terminal proposal on the Power Past Coal website.

On May 9, 2016, after careful review, the US Army Corps of Engineers issued a landmark decision to deny federal permits for SSA Marine’s proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal, a coal export facility at Xwe’chi’eXen, also known as Cherry Point, Wash. In January 2015, the Lummi Nation asked the Army Corps to reject the project because of its significant harm to their treaty-protected fisheries and ancestral lands.

The historic decision marks the first time that a coal export facility has been rejected based on its negative impacts to the treaty rights of a tribal nation.

Read the Power Past Coal press release here. Read the Bellingham Herald story and watch a video of Lummi tribal members listening to the phone call from US Army Corps of Engineers here.

Read more about the economic, environmental, cultural, social, and health impacts of the project at our Gateway Pacific Terminal archive page.

Stand Up to Oil is a growing coalition of groups opposed to new oil terminals and an increase in oil transport through the Northwest, while working to improve safety measures for oil currently traveling through the region.

Tesoro Corp. and Savage Corp. are proposing an oil by rail terminal in Vancouver, WA that would be the largest in the nation, handling 360,000 gallons of crude oil per day. Four full trains would arrive per day from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and would then be shipped down the Columbia River. Scoping comments have been submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pointing out that this terminal does not comply with the Clean Water Act. Tesoro Savage’s proposal is opposed by the Vancouver City Council, ILWU Local 4, Columbia Waterfront LLC, the Cities of Washougal and Spokane, the Columbia River Inter-tribal Fish Commission, the environmental community, and people from all walks of life across the Northwest.

There is one proposal remaining in Grays Harbor to receive oil by rail. Westway currently operates a bulk terminal at the Port of Grays Harbor, and is proposing a retrofit to receive 48,860 barrels of crude per day from oil trains. Since the company is proposing to retrofit their existing facility, there are relatively few permits required. Of all the places in the Pacific Northwest that would be affected by a ramp-up in oil transport, none stands to be as profoundly transformed as Grays Harbor, which has limited deep water areas to stage ships or tugs. A surge in oil vessel traffic, in a place not suited to them is inviting disaster. A major oil spill could wreak havoc on the Dungeness Crab fishery and many other natural resource-based industries in the area.
TAKE ACTION: The Washington Supreme Court breathed life into the Ocean Resources Management Act (ORMA), a state law that protects coastal ocean resources, and ruled that the law’s strict permitting requirements apply to crude oil shipping terminals. The ruling will effectively block the proposed crude-by-rail terminal. Read the press release.
On October 6th, Shell Puget Sound Refinery dropped its plans to construct an oil-by-rail facility in Anacortes. Originally proposed in 2014, community opposition and legal challenges forced Shell and Skagit County to undertake a full environmental and public health review under the State Environmental Policy Act. That delay, growing local and regional opposition, and uncertain economics contributed to Shell’s decision. The proposal would have brought six trains a week, each with 102 cars, through Spokane, Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, Mount Vernon and Burlington on the way to the refinery.