Comment EI-19300
Received or sent (printed as 1/5/2013)
Docket No. FD 30186 The environmental impact statement for the proposed Tongue River Railroad should analyze the following: •Wildlife: The Tongue River Valley is rich in wildlife habitat and home to outstanding elk and mule deer populations as well as upland birds. Industrializing this valley with a railroad and the coal strip mine it serves will seriously degrade this excellent resource. •Public convenience and necessity: This proposed railroad is not for the “public convenience and necessity” which is what is required in order for a body to get the power of eminent domain and condemnation authority. This railroad would serve only one coal company giant, Arch Coal, which intends to sell the coal to China and other Asian countries. •Flooding: The railroad bed will act as an earthen dam and potentially worsen the flooding problems now experienced in Miles City in the winter with ice jams. •Infrastructure and traffic: Taxes will go up for communities along the rail lines as the coal heads to coastal ports for shipment. This railroad will increase coal train traffic substantially causing traffic delays, noise, and diesel pollution. Requiring expensive over passes and safety crossing which are paid for primarily by local taxpayers. The Tongue River Railroad will allow coal that should stay in the ground to be burned in dirty Chinese plants and will fuel intolerable, decades-long increases in Carbon Dioxide emissions. The greenhouse gas costs of Otter Creek coal go far beyond just burning the coal. It must be mined, hauled by trains fueled by diesel to West Coast terminals, shipped overseas by ships fueled by diesel, and then hauled in China to the plants.
Submitted by: Barbara Rosenkotter · Deer Harbor, Washington
The Board publishes this comment in its environmental-comment table for this proceeding. It is quoted here as printed; nothing is inferred from it, and it states the commenter's own position in their own words, not this record's.
Permanent address docketyard.org/d/FD-30186/comment/EI-19300 · back to the docket sheet