Stop the Coal Money: sign Open Letter to Bank of Montreal

  • Image credit: Code Rood action at the OBA Coal Terminal in Amsterdam, CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

No Coal in Oakland welcomes individuals and organizations to sign onto an Open Letter to the Bank of Montreal, which has mired itself in raising funds for the Bowie Resources sponsored effort to build a coal terminal in West Oakland, a project fronted by Oakland’s coal developer Phil Tagami.

We’re calling on the bank to “honor the Oakland City Council’s ordinance prohibiting storage and handling of coal anywhere in the city” and pledge to “refrain from advising on or arranging financing for the proposed terminal.”

The open letter follows up our letter to the CEO of the bank, sent on March 29, 2018. A detailed background paper describes the Bank of Montreal’s role in raising funds for the proposed coal terminal [UPDATE: the background paper is available in Spanish translation: Datos pertinentes sobre la terminal de carbón propuesta en Oakland, California].

Here’s the text of the open letter, followed by links where you can sign on:

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, 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!

Individuals can sign on via this Take Action page on our website.

If you represent an organization that will join in demanding the Bank of Montreal withdraw from its role raising funds for a coal terminal in Oakland, scroll down on the Take Action page to the Organizational Signers section.