Comment EI-19461
Received or sent (printed as 1/7/2013)
I am concerned that 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, Arch Coal, which intends to sell the coal to China and other Asian countries. 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 sportsman resource. The railroad bed will also act as an earthen dam and potentially worsen the flooding problems now experienced in Miles City in the winter with ice jams. 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. As a resident of Seattle, I am working in my local community as well to oppose export of coal from our northwest ports. It just doesn't make sense.
Submitted by: Christina Marx · Seattle, 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-19461 · back to the docket sheet