By: Victoria Leistman, Dirty Fuels Organizer
Right now, Puget Sound Energy (PSE) has nearly completed construction on its proposed 8 million gallon Liquefied “Natural” Gas facility in Tacoma. The facility is being built on Puyallup Tribal Land despite the Tribe’s fierce opposition and without a formal government-to-government consultation . This project is climate-destroying and an affront to Tribal treaty rights. That’s why we are standing with the Puyallup Tribe as they lead the opposition against this dangerous project.
With your help, we can still stop this facility from ever going into operation. PSE does not have everything that they need to legally build--they still need to get their air permit application approved by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.
In the fall, the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (PSCAA) held a comment period and a public hearing on a draft of the supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) that accounts for greenhouse gas emissions and a life cycle analysis of fracked gas. However, the report was so flawed that the Attorney General's office submitted a comment criticizing the report, calling some of the material so inaccurate as to label it "fictional." As a result, over 500 people turned out to the hearing and the Air Agency got 10,000 comments stating that the draft SEIS was not using the best available science and needed to be started over again --enough to cause them to announce a delay in their release of the final SEIS in January in order to better evaluate the comments they received.
On March 29th, the PSCAA will be releasing the Final SEIS. Then, based on the statement, the PSCAA will make an initial determination on the air permit which will be accompanied by another comment period and public hearing, likely in late spring. After that, the agency will issue its final determination on the air permit.
Meanwhile, the City of Tacoma still holds some big cards in all this as well. The City has the ability to call for an additional SEIS on the entire project, dealing the project a potentially fatal setback. The Puyallup Tribe is calling for support in pressuring Tacoma to do the right thing for the health of our communities and our environment.
Stand with us against fracked gas and take action right now!
*Send a letter to the City of Tacoma demanding that they require an additional SEIS
*Write a letter to the editor to help boost this topic in the press!
In short, this isn’t over yet and we’re not backing down. This spring, keep the momentum moving and join us to stop PSE in their tracks!
Ratepayers will pay for 46% of this facility, only to benefit from 2% of what the facility is producing. PSE is willing to sacrifice community safety, ratepayer money, and Puyallup Tribe land for a gas project that we do not need. Activists like you have made it clear from the beginning that we don't need or want this LNG facility in Washington. Take action today--together we can shut down this bad project once and for all!