An Open Letter to the Bank of Montreal
Youth march around Phil Tagami’s Rotunda Building demanding the coal developer #DeCOALonize Oakland. Photo credit: Sunshine Velasco from Survival Media Agency
Faced with relentless community pressure and increasingly obvious financial risks, the Bank of Montreal has disappeared from the ranks of those continuing to promote construction of coal export terminal in West Oakland. No Coal in Oakland has therefore discontinued the campaign to pressure the Bank of Montreal to stop seeking financing for the terminal. Please sign up for updates below to learn about our current work and campaigns.
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We are residents of Oakland, California and allied communities as well as labor, faith, environmental justice, and community organizations that oppose the construction of a coal export terminal on our publicly-owned waterfront. We have learned that the Bank of Montreal is raising funds to build this terminal, which would endanger the health and safety of the West Oakland community and — by enabling the burning of coal for decades to come — the health and safety of people around the world.
This project was conceived without the knowledge of Oakland residents for the benefit of Bowie Resource Partners (recently renamed Wolverine Fuels), a coal company with mines in Utah. In committing to raise $250 million to fund the project, the Bank of Montreal violated the Equator Principles to which it is signatory by evading the required engagement with our community and failing to require a full accounting of the coal terminal’s local and global environmental consequences.
We ask that the Bank of Montreal honor the Oakland City Council’s ordinance prohibiting storage and handling of coal anywhere in the city. We call on the Bank of Montreal to publicly pledge that the Bank and its subsidiaries will refrain from advising on or arranging financing for the proposed terminal.
NO COAL IN OAKLAND!
Background
- The original open letter sent to Darryl White, Chief Executive, Bank of Montreal, on March 29, 2018, signed by NCIO and the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project
- A background paper that details the Bank of Montreal’s role in raising funds for the proposed coal terminal in Oakland