With five coal export terminals under consideration in Washington and Oregon, Northwest residents are grappling for the first time with issues that are old hat in coal states like West Virginia and Kentucky. One of those issues: coal dust. How much of it will escape along the journey from mines in Wyoming and Montana to proposed export terminals on the West Coast? And what might that dust mean for public health?
In the first of our two-part series on the impacts of coal dust we look for insight at Westshore terminal near Vancouver, British Columbia, the largest existing coal export terminal on the West Coast.