Coal Road to China

Coal Road to China filmmakers Jan and Harold Hoem – Contributed photo

The Friday Harbor Film Festival and the FRIENDS of the San Juans are sponsoring the screening of the film, Coal Road to China on June 2 at 7:00 pm. This visually powerful film gets to the heart of coal company plans to strip mine Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming and transport the coal by train to Washington and Oregon where it would be loaded onto massive cargo ships bound for Asia.

The Gateway Pacific Terminal at Cherry Point, near Bellingham Bay could ship as much as 48 million metric tons of coal to Asia every year. This added shipping traffic passing through the waters surrounding the San Juan Islands would greatly increase the threats of collisions, air pollution, spills and global climate change.

According to FRIENDS of the San Juans:

“…burning this coal would create 96 million metric tons of CO₂ every year and would more than double our state’s total annual greenhouse gas emissions!”

The filmmakers, Jan and Harold Hoem spoke with ranchers, Native Americans, activists, scientists, a former coal mine manager and physicians to tell the story of the environmental impact of mining, transporting and burning this coal.

As Nobel Laureate and leading climate scientist Steve Running of the University of Montana states in the film, “The pollution from coal burned in China comes back to us on air currents faster than the ships that took it there!”

For more information on Coal Road to China, check out the Friday Harbor Film Festival’s website www.fhff.org. To find out more about local efforts to “Power Past Coal”, visit FRIENDS of the San Juans at www.sanjuans.org.

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