The Lummi are fishers and according to an article in the Bellingham Herald are “done talking” about the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal.  I don’t blame them.

When I was a boy, we caught our own herring for salmon bait.  You could catch them anywhere, dipping or with hooks.  Now folks buy them frozen on styrofoam trays at LFS on the way to their boat.  I don’t know where they come from.  Back then I was an avid fisher.  You could throw a hook anywhere and eat off most any beach.  Now I am wary and just want to leave the fish alone. Back then, the water was festooned with flocks of birds sustained by small fish.  They are gone now.

I’m not against jobs but think the coal port is headed in exactly the wrong direction.  We need to restore our natural resources, not continue to wreck them.  The herring feed the salmon orca eat. It’s not just about keeping the whale watching industry alive.  It’s about long-term insurance and provision for survival of our species.  Herring are the backbone of the food chain that sustained human habitation here for millennia.  Failing to understand that is a dangerous psychosis. 

The issuance of industrial permits at Cherry Point wiped out more the 60% of the herring production in all of Puget Sound.  That’s brutal.  The survivors still struggle with health problems.  There’s a natural resources damages claim in this theft and it ought to be prosecuted.  Instead of arguing over whether we can detect the harm caused by yet another increment of pollution, we should be committed to finding the cause of the herrings’ decline and fixing it. ASAP.

Citizens should demand that environmental regulators restore the Cherry Point herring production before issuing any more permits to pollute.