Public Hearing - EISs for the Proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal ...

11/3/2012
1 tourism would be affected. And everything that makes
2 these islands our home, and also the home of the
3 orcas, and all of marine life would change forever.
4 Orcas and other marine mammals getting
5 struck by the tankers or coal dust affecting their
6 health or the health of humans also deeply worries me.
7 Thank you.
8 o-O-o
9 DEBORAH GILES: (No card.) Hi. My name is
10 Deborah Giles and I'm a graduate student researcher
11 studying the Southern Resident Killer Whales.
12 My dissertation focuses on the Southern
13 resident group behavior and the potential impacts of
14 vessel distance, density, and activity on group
15 cohesion.
16 I am opposed to the construction of the coal
17 export terminal at Cherry Point because of the
18 associated vessel traffic increase through the
19 critical habitat of these whales that we call the
20 Southern residents.
21 The increase in vessel traffic would
22 significantly increase the possibility of both small
23 and catastrophically large oil spills, either of which
24 is unacceptable within the critical habitat of the
25 already struggling mere 84 individual Southern
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