On Monday, Oct. 3, RE Sources for Sustainable Communities filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue SSA Marine for “gross negligence and illegal behavior clearing of 9 acres at Cherry Point this past August.” This is filed under the citizen suit provision of the Clean Water Act.

SSA Marine is in the process of completing an environmental impact statement that would not be completed until 2013, said Department of Ecology Spokesman Larry Altos, limiting the state’s role in the meantime.

The company, which specializes in building and running cargo terminals, wants to build a bulk shipping terminal at Cherry Point, a coastal area about 20 miles northwest of Western, most famous for its oil refinery. The port’s main export would be coal from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming.

Bob Ferris, executive director of RE Sources, a nonprofit environmental education organization, did not mince words in accusing the company.

“They violated county law, they violated state law, and they violated federal law,” Ferris said. “The feds have acknowledged that this is a violation of the Clean Water Act but haven’t taken any steps.”

SSA Marine Senior Vice President Bob Watters has expressed doubts regarding the nature of the lawsuit and said RE Sources and its supporters have motives beyond the Clean Water Act.

“RE Sources opposes further industrial development at Cherry Point in spite of the fact that the Whatcom County shoreline and zoning ordinances have for decades designated it as the place for more good jobs,” Watters said in a press release in early October, in response to the announcement of the lawsuit against SSA Marine.

“In no place did he say that they didn’t break the law,” Ferris said, regarding Watters’ statement.

SSA Marine is also being sued by the environmental advocacy group Puget Soundkeeper Alliance for allegedly violating clean-water rules at Terminal 18, another cargo port in Seattle that is, according to SSA Marine, “the largest container facility in the Pacific Northwest.”

SSA Marine has signed a contract with Peabody Energy, agreeing to export coal from its proposed terminal. Peabody Energy wrote in a July 19 press release that 24 million tons of coal could go through the Gateway Pacific Terminal every year.

SSA Marine plans to transport the coal on trains through Bellingham, along Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks that already run through the city. These tracks have never been used as heavily as SSA Marine’s project would demand and thus upgrades would be necessary, according to the terminal project information document from Pacific International Terminals, Inc., SSA Marine’s subsidiary corporation.

Supporters of the Gateway Pacific Terminal say the economic benefits of the project are more than worth the disruption it could cause in the city.

The construction of the terminal would create as many as 1,700 direct jobs annually, and terminal operation would create up to 280 more long-term jobs, according to the official website for the Gateway Pacific Terminal. The site also states construction of the terminal will bring in between $75 million and $92 million in state and local tax revenue. Once open, it will bring in between $8 million and $11 million each year in additional tax revenue.

But other people are urging Bellingham to consider other effects the terminal and coal trains could have on the city. Ferris said he was concerned about some of the serious health effects that could result from coal dust and diesel particulates the trains.

“The diesel particulates emitted by those trains are going to be extremely significant,” Ferris said. “The pollution, the diesel particulates coming out, is going to be about 10 times as much as was coming through here in 2002.”

This conflict has been raging since SSA Marine first submitted preliminary documents on the project to Whatcom County, Washington state agencies and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in February. The project was in the process of being examined by the county and the state for environmental and structural concerns that would need addressing, and citizens were lining up on either side of the debate, when things got complicated.

In July, Whatcom County Councilmember Carl Weimer was walking his dog at Cherry Point and found that SSA had cleared forest and wetlands to make room for roads. At the time, SSA Marine had not officially applied for the state or federal permits, nor had the required environmental impact studies begun.

Their permit requires SSA Marine to complete an Environmental Impact Statement — a complex study on what the preparation for, construction of, and running of the terminal would do to the surrounding environment. This statement is then used by governmental bodies that grant permits to the company.

However, Ferris said SSA Marine was not doing enough to rehabilitate the environment, and the roadwork was disrupted and destroyed.

Ferris said he thought many Bellingham residents are opposed to the terminal on a philosophical level.

“Bellingham, as many students know, has a reputation of being at the forefront of sustainability,” Ferris said. “What happens to that reputation, what happens to property values, what happens to people’s psyche when you go from being the leader in sustainability to being the largest exporter of greenhouse gases in North America?”

In the meantime, the premature roadwork that had the county in an uproar has become the cornerstone in a debate built upon the already tense subject of the Gateway Pacific Terminal.