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 106
1 that occur with trains nationally. We just don't hear about
2 it. I think our awareness has been raised recently, and now
3 I'm getting stuff coming across on Facebook all the time,
4 but I want to see those numbers, and I want to see them in a
5 paper. Thank you.
6 MS. STRAUSZ-CLARK: 67, 68, and 69.
7 THE SPEAKER: Mary McDowell, Bellingham,
8 Washington, homeowner and private citizen.
9 This is a picture of my mother, one of the first
10 women coal miners in this country. She died in '80. She
11 did not have black lung.
12 This is a coal-bearing tag from my father, a coal
13 miner. He died at 52. He went into the mine at 8 years of
14 age. He did not have respiratory protection. She did.
15 They were both 200 feet underground.
16 I am pro-GPT. Unless you're 200 feet
17 underground, you have way more than you know to work with.
18 I spent my childhood on the Pennsylvania scene,
19 trains and the mines were a few feet away from our house.
20 My mom and dad both worked around, on, and near tracks,
21 trains, and coal.
22 I played in the lakes and rivers. I rode, sled
23 rides down the hill and dirt bikes on the tail end of the
24 mine, year round.
25 Those areas are now golf courses, parks and