Bellingham Comments from Digital Recorder - EISs for the Proposed ...

GATEWAY PACIFIC TERMINAL EIS SCOPING HEARING VOL. II
COURT REPORTER: BETH DRUMMOND PROCEEDING DATE: October 27, 2012
Page 20
1 We pay family wages and benefits to our 26
2 employees. If I were using SSA maps, that might be 150
3 employees.
4 Half of our people commute across the tracks from
5 Bellingham, Mount Vernon and elsewhere at grade level
6 crossings that are already subject to delays.
7 When the trains come, everything stops. There's
8 no way around. All of our freight, both inbound and
9 outbound, moves through the same crossings. Further, we
10 purchase most of our logs in Alaska and barge them to Smith
11 Island near Everett, where they are transferred to land and
12 loaded on log trucks.
13 To access this port, log trucks must deal with
14 another grade level crossing, one that's already very
15 congested.
16 Pacific Rim Tonewoods is only one small business
17 20 miles in the BN tracks. If I were to put the cost number
18 to the additional delays that would be caused to pit stops
19 by long coal trains, the number would be large.
20 If we allow GPT trains to shear us off from our
21 working waterfronts and to obstruct the east/west flow of
22 traffic in our several counties, the good jobs that we have
23 now will, certainly, become fewer.
24 MS. STRAUSZ-CLARK: 5, 6, and 7. 5 you're at the
25 microphone. 6 and 7 you're at the desk.