Eastern Washington feeds the world.

We send grain, fruit and other agricultural products to countless recipients at home and abroad, thanks in no small part to our region’s rail connections. For decades, railways have carried our goods across the nation, both west to Washington seaports and east to domestic markets. Even as traffic congestion and limited long-haul truck availability challenge other commodities, trains have been a reliable means for our products to reach markets on time. In fact, for many of us in agriculture, it isn’t an exaggeration to think of the rails as a lifeline between our region and the rest of the world.

Just ask Quincy.

Earlier this year, Quincy-based Cold Storage shut down, taking 80 local jobs with it. Cold Storage couldn’t deliver Eastern Washington fruit to market on time anymore. In a single year, company officials had seen their three-day delivery window rise to six days.

In its announcement, Cold Storage identified the problem’s source: rail congestion from increasing numbers of coal and oil trains. How did BNSF Railway respond after Cold Storage ceased operations? It terminated intermodal service to Quincy altogether.

Yes, coal trains made a real economic impact in Washington this year: They helped kill off their first local company.

We may not be able to alleviate rail congestion if numerous oil terminal proposals and two coal export facilities (Gateway Pacific’s Cherry Point facility and Millennium Bulk Terminals’ Longview facility) receive approval for their dirty, unwanted port projects. Combined, the terminals would add up to 57 additional trains per day through Eastern Washington.

Getting crops to market is only part of the picture. Farmers also rely on products shipped by rail to grow healthy, bountiful crops. They face bleak seasons when feed, fertilizer and large equipment fail to arrive on time.

The economic blows go beyond the farm: Passenger trains, too, are suffering. Amtrak’s Empire Builder line is late almost 70 percent of the time, with three- to five-hour delays on average.

U.S. taxpayers like us already give up hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to coal companies, even as major coal consumers like China announce landmark commitments to clean energy. Around the world, coal is heading the way of its dinosaur progenitors. Yet Gateway wants us to look at the “benefits” we’ll reap from its Cherry Point coal terminal.

So here’s what Spokane and other communities in our region will receive from Gateway: traffic congestion from as many as 18 1.5-mile-long trains clogging our cities every day, blocking emergency responders and severing access to rail-line businesses. Derailment risk will increase as heavier coal and oil trains stress aging infrastructure, and coal dust makes tracks slicker. There will be more exposure to toxic coal dust blowing off open-top rail cars that pass by our schools, parks and backyards. Coal dust in our rivers and streams. Mercury pollution in our fish and smog in our air as the byproducts of burning coal drift back across the ocean. A handful of jobs compared to other uses of port space that would create bigger, better and less polluting economic development opportunities, like shipping distribution centers.

Sounds like a great deal, doesn’t it?

Many Eastern Washington families have grown food for generations, sending it around the world and keeping their incomes here in our region. It’s foolhardy for Gateway Pacific to ask that we risk everything for a terminal across the state.