Monitoring oil trains in Oregon and Washington
program: Wednesday Talk Radio
program date: Wed, 03/18/2015
Host Paul Roland talks with Matt Landon of Vancouver Action Network on continuing efforts to halt the transport of dangerously flammable Bakken oil by train through the Pacific NW and to prevent the approval of the Tesoro-Savage oil export terminal on the Columbia River in Vancouver, WA, as well as the more recently proposed New Star Terminal.
Matt is working to bring the OilTrainWatch network, currently functioning in Washington, to Oregon, and is initiating a Listening Project to reach out to people living along railroad tracks where oil trains pass by. OilTrainWatch uses Twitter to track oil trains moving through Washington (and now Oregon). If you see a 100% oil train, tweet the time, city, direction and #waoiltrainwatch (presumable #oroiltrainwatch for Oregon). For more information, visit http://vancouveractionnetwork.blogspot.com More information on oil trains can be found at http://explosive-crude-by-rail.org/
The first meeting of the Oil Train Listening Project will be on Saturday, March 28. There will be a training in the morning, and then pairs of volunteers will go door to door later in the day. If you are interested, contact Matt at vancouveractionnetwork@gmail.com or (503)765-7176.
On Saturday, March 21, Olympia, WA will host the second gathering of railroad workers and environmentalists, "The Future of Railroads: Safety, Workers, Community and the Environment." http://www.railroadconference.org/ Sponsored by Railroad Workers United and the Backbone Campaign, the conference will take place at the Longhouse Education and Cultural Center, 2700 Evergreen Parkway. Contact Jen Wallis at 206-755-9705, wallisjeanette@gmail.com.
For more, read http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/09/exploding-trains-and-crude-oil/
On Friday, March 20 Portland Rising Tide and the JustSeeds Artists' Cooperative will have an all-day workshop on art and activism, at the PNCA Project Space at 511 NW Broadway (entrance West side of bldng)https://www.facebook.com/events/224441024396092/
As part of Gathering Autonomy: Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, the Creative Activism Lab will be coordinating a series of workshops and other programming to foster dialogue surrounding social justice issues addressed within Justseeds work, to ground those issues on a local level, and to make work that can support local actions and action networks.
Our March 20th workshop will focus on issues associated with climate change using Resourced (http://justseeds.org/resourced/), a Justseeds portfolio, as a jumping off point. A group of Justseeds artists will speak about Resourced and other media they created for the People’s Climate March in NYC this past fall. Portland Rising Tide will then present on our current campaigns and actions. We will then all have a roundtable style conversation about what kind of tactical art we can create to best support upcoming action(s), and then, best of all, we will COLLECTIVELY MAKE REALLY COOL TACTICAL ART. Feel free to show up at any time for the duration of the workshop and join us!
On Wednesday, April 1, at 6 p.m., Join Eric de Place of the Sightline Institute for a program on "SW Washington: The Oil Industry's Sacrifice Zone" at the Kiggins Theatre, 1011 Main St. in Vancouver, WA. de Place will moderate a panel including Lauren Goldberg, attorney for Columbia Riverkeeper; Vancouver City Councilor Anne McEnerny-Ogle; Barry Cain of Gramor Development; Cager Clabaugh of ILWU 4; Eric LaBrant of Fruit Valley Neighborhood Association; and a representative from Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility. See http://daily.sightline.org/2015/03/17/event- southwest-washingtonthe-oil-industrys-sacrifice-zone/ for more information.
Finally, let your voice be heard at a public hearing on the proposed Propane Export Terminal in North Portland on Tuesday, April 7, 2:30 p.m. at the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission, 1900 SW 4th Ave. Room 2500a. Sign up to testify at 2:30 p.m. If you can't attend in person, submit your testimony in writing by 5 p.mj. Monday, April 6, by email to psc@portlandoregon.gov. Or submit it by mail arriving by 5 p.m. April 6 to Portland Planning & Sustainability Commission, 1900 SW 4th Ave., ATTN-PSC, Portland, OR 97201.
https://portlandrisingtide.org/propane-exports/
http://columbiariverkeeper.org/?s=pembina+propane+terminal
