Dear Earth Ministry/WAIPL community,
We know many in the Earth Ministry/WAIPL community have been following the Puyallup Tribe and Tacoma community’s opposition to Puget Sound Energy’s LNG (liquified natural gas) refinery, a new fracked gas facility on the Puyallup Tribe’s ancestral waters on the Tacoma Tideflats. Thank you for your engagement on this important issue of treaty rights and climate justice.
It is with great sadness and frustration that we are writing to share the news that the WA Pollution Control Hearings Board (PCHB) has decided to uphold the clean air permit for this polluting, treaty violating project. This verdict, released late Friday after an almost two-year appeal process, ruled against the Puyallup Tribe and environmental and community organizations Advocates for a Cleaner Tacoma, Sierra Club, Washington Environmental Council, Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Stand.Earth.
The Puyallup Tribal Council has released a short statement, naming that they “expect the decision will embolden companies that start projects that feed climate change and put vulnerable communities at risk.” Power Past Fracked Gas has shared a coalition press release, including a quote by Earth Ministry/WAIPL, and you can read more about this decision in this Tacoma News Tribune article. For a detailed history of the fight against Tacoma LNG, please check out Native Daily Network’s coverage of the resistance, including their full-length documentary film Ancestral Waters.
People of faith have been in a prayerful stance of solidarity supporting the Puyallup Tribe and co-litigants’ appeal of PSE’s immoral project. We are incredibly disappointed that the PCHB failed to make the right decision to uphold the Tribe’s request for further review of this dirty and dangerous fracked gas facility. It feels especially upsetting given that this verdict was delivered the week of Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Day. Our country and legal system has much to do to improve government-to-government relations with Native Nations, and we must sit with and face this moral failing.
We will keep the Earth Ministry/WAIPL community informed as next steps emerge. Litigants have 30 days to appeal this decision, which would take the case to a higher court.
Deep thanks to all of you who have spoken out faithfully against this facility over the past several years. Our collective outcry has elevated the environmental injustice of this facility, naming how its process lacked tribal consultation and community transparency. Though the outcome is not what we had hoped, your action is not in vain.
In solidarity,
Earth Ministry/WAIPL