21st Century Viking: Digging Deeper Into The Coal Train Controversy

Here’s the link to my latest opinion piece for the Ballard News-Tribune.

It is a follow-up to a piece I did last month about the proposal to build coal export terminals on the Washington state and Oregon coats. If these terminals are built, Washington state and the Ballard neighborhood in particular would experience a lot more train traffic.

The environmentalists are vehemently against this project for a variety of reasons and quite vocal in their opposition. For the first piece, I interviewed a railroad union representative who had some real issues with the stances of the anti-coal advocates. For the second, I did some further research some of the union rep’s best points and asked someone from the Sierra Club, which is leading the fight against the coal trains, to see what they had to say.

My intent with these pieces was to objectively present the facts about an emotionally charged issue and hope that the readers will use them to come to their own conclusions.