The issue is particularly important for residents of the coastal towns that ring the Salish Sea, a group of waterways shared by Washington State and British Columbia that includes the Puget Sound. A region that historically has been "at the vanguard of environmental progress globally is right at the cusp of becoming one of the world's biggest fossil fuel export hubs," said Eric de Place, policy director for the Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based environmental think tank.

Speckled with emerald isles and hemmed by snow-capped peaks, the Salish Sea is an ecologically rich marine environment. The area is home to more than 100 at-risk species, a list that includes sea turtles, whales, owls, and sharks. The communities lining its shores