Identifying the Next Critical Steps with GPT

James Wells develops systems that support energy efficiency incentive programs. He spends his spare time encouraging people to actively participate in the decision about the Gateway Pacific coal terminal.

For a brief period this past fall and winter, agency representatives voyaged forth to planet Earth from their cubicles over in the Permit Dimension, to meet with us and gather input for the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) about the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal (GPT). During that energized time, concerned people provided over 10,000 individually-written comments about the GPT scheme. In the last few days of the process, organizations such as 350.org marshaled another 100,000-plus comments via their websites, for a total comment count of over 124,000.

In addition to our communication with the regulators, we created a region-wide conversation. This ranged in scale from front-page articles in the newspapers down to individual discussions in the line at the coffee shop between people who had never met before. We made new friends, and we learned a lot about how to respond to plans like those for the GPT.

As a result of our actions, the permitting environment for the coal terminal has been permanently changed. While GPT permitting was once planned as a fast one, a fait accompli by the coal barons to put one over on a sleeping community, it’s now well known that we’re awake and won’t let this one sneak by.

At the preordained end of the public comment process, on January 21 of 2013, the agency people packed up and left, not to be seen again in our part of the solar system — at least for now.

The silence is striking. With that silence, it’s hard for concerned people to know where they can put their energy and time when it comes to GPT. There is no official open channel to have direct input into the process (although this year’s county council elections should be big fun!).

What’s in Scope?

Since the end of the public comment period, a space shuttle did come by and drop off a “Scoping Report,” which is intended to summarize the scoping comments that were provided. However, that report does not contain a very critical piece of information: What’s in Scope?

The entire purpose of the Scoping phase of the EIS is for the agency to determine the Scope of what will be considered in the EIS. So, how will we find out the Scope?

In the worst-case scenario, the public doesn’t get to know the agency-determined scope until it is included in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Draft EIS). It is as if the agency, after spending a few years out somewhere beyond the Oort Cloud, suddenly drops into the inner solar system with the Draft EIS for a few blazing weeks, only to vanish again to prepare the Final EIS.

The Determining Word

We have strong reason to believe we’ll get a better deal. It’s all in one word, and that word is: “Yes.”

As the Scoping Public comment period ended, I was concerned that we wouldn’t know what had become of all our comments until the fateful day of the draft EIS release. So I emailed the agency co-leads, asking how and when the actual scope would be determined. Agency personnel receive years of training in carefully non-committal language, but, after several exchanges, we got to the nubbin of the matter:

JRW: “Will the determination of the scope be published prior to release of the draft EIS?”

Randel Per Identifying the Next Critical Steps with GPT ry, Army Corps of Engineers: “Yes.”

That’s it. No date, no specification of how long it will be before the release of the EIS that we’ll get the word on the Scope determination.

Just: “Yes.”

Scopes in Sight

This exchange was in February, but it’s consistent with other sources. Some time or other before the Draft EIS, we will get the Scoping Determination.

Here’s why it matters. When the Draft EIS is published, we’ll get a limited public comment window, which could be as short as thirty or forty-five days. That’s just a few weeks to read an enormous document and point out everything that is wrong or missing. It will be very tough to do justice to the task.

Here’s how we’ll get a head start: when we get to read the Scoping determination, if an adverse impact is omitted from the Scope, then we will already know that it will be a defect in the Draft EIS. At that point, we can start writing our comments and providing the resources to help other members of the public with theirs.

At the same time, we can use these omissions to once again fire up the community conversation. If the permit agency neglects a key concern, we can figure out how to mobilize to assure that it will be considered, whether that’s in the permit process or by way of other legal or political channels. This could include independent research on those concerns, or could involve pressing candidates for their positions on whether certain concerns should be considered.

Meanwhile, it’s useful to reflect a little on how each of us can continue to expand the conversation.

The Home Advantage

We have been taught by courtroom dramas that the big decisions come at some notable, newsworthy moment, such as an election or a judge’s or agency’s decision. That’s a simple and easy narrative, and of course those decisions matter. But they are not the entire equation, and the ample evidence is that three coal port terminals have been withdrawn — get this — in the absence of any major adverse official permitting decision. In all three cases, the project proponents assessed the lay of the land, including popular opposition, and decided that it wasn’t worth pursuing those schemes.

Similarly, with respect to GPT, there have been no major decisions against the proponent, yet the remaining coal port proposals are generally described as being on the rocks due to fierce opposition.

A simple thing that every one of us can do, even when there is no official permit-related action to be taken, is to have that next conversation with friends and neighbors. The final decisions will be in a year or more, probably in several years, and that’s enough time for us to continue to raise awareness on a person-to-person level. At the final decision time, if there is a general understanding in our region that building big new fossil fuel infrastructure such as the coal port is unconscionable, then it will not occur. We can create that future.