Proposed Oakland Coal Export Terminal

Earthjustice, representing a coalition of environmental and community groups, urges the City of Oakland to reject the development of a coal export terminal at the former Oakland Army Base. The letter asserts that the project would disproportionately burden the low-income, predominantly African American community of West Oakland with particulate matter and diesel pollution, while violating California's greenhouse gas reduction goals. It argues that proposed mitigations, such as covered rail cars, are ineffective and that the project is an economic risk due to declining global coal demand. Finally, the document claims the project lacks necessary environmental review under CEQA and NEPA and that the City possesses the legal authority to ban the terminal to protect public health.

• The proposed coal terminal would exacerbate existing health burdens in West Oakland, a low-income, predominantly African American community where residents are exposed to three times the amount of diesel particulate matter compared to other residents in the air basin and face significantly lower life expectancies than those in the Oakland Hills.
• Coal transportation and storage pose significant safety and health risks, including the release of 60,000 to 240,000 pounds of coal dust per train and the risk of spontaneous combustion and explosions due to the combustible nature of coal dust.
• The project would undermine climate goals; exporting 10 million tons of coal would result in 26 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, contradicting Governor Jerry Brown's April 2015 executive order to reduce state greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
• Proposed mitigations, including covered facilities and the use of surfactants, are deemed insufficient; air modeling for a similar 'state of the art' covered facility in Oregon showed major exceedances of national ambient air quality standards for particulate matter and nitrous oxide (NOx).
• The terminal is described as a risky economic investment because global coal markets are declining, and evidence suggests coal terminals create fewer jobs than other commodity terminals, with one analysis showing only one job created for every $2 million spent.
• The project has not undergone required environmental studies under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) or the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), as coal was not mentioned in the original environmental review documents for the Oakland Global project.
• The City of Oakland has the legal authority to ban coal exports using its zoning and police powers, similar to bans on fracking in Dryden and Middlefield, New York, and San Benito County, California, or the crude oil loading ban in South Portland, Maine.

APA

Earthjustice (2015). Proposed Oakland Coal Export Terminal. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/earthjustice_letter_to_oakland_city_administrator_09-02-2015.pdf

Chicago

Earthjustice. Proposed Oakland Coal Export Terminal. 2015. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/earthjustice_letter_to_oakland_city_administrator_09-02-2015.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |author=Earthjustice |title=Proposed Oakland Coal Export Terminal |date=2 September 2015 |url=https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/earthjustice_letter_to_oakland_city_administrator_09-02-2015.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{earthjustice2015proposed, author = {{Earthjustice}}, title = {{Proposed Oakland Coal Export Terminal}}, publisher = {Earthjustice}, year = {2015}, month = sep, url = {https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/earthjustice_letter_to_oakland_city_administrator_09-02-2015.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }