Comment EI-19679
Received or sent (printed as 1/9/2013)
Dear Mr. Blodgett, I am writing because I have deep concerns about the proposed Tounge River Railroad in eastern Montana, and to urge your agency to make your Environmental Impact Statement as comprehensive as possible for this proposal. Over the holidays, my family and I took a road trip through eastern Montana, on our way to Minnesota. I got to experience firsthand the expansive beauty of this part of our country. I know from reading some of the history of the state, that Montana has a sordid past of mining, in which out of state and overseas companies extract its rich mineral resources saddling local communities with much of the infrastructure and cleanup costs while reaping much of the profit. The Tounge River project would be no different. The railroad would be used to ship coal from the Otter River mine to existing rail, then west to ports in the Pacific Coast, to be loaded onto ships bound for Asia to be burned there. This rail line would thus not serve the public interest of the United States, it would be solely for private profit. As I understand it, this line would have detrimental effects on the land and its wildlife, as well as the landowners, farmers and ranchers on whose land it would bisect. It would also have negative and far-reaching consequences beyond just the beautiful valley it would cut through. It would greatly increase coal train traffic through western Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, a region of our country with some of our most prized natural areas and rich farmland. It would have negative environmental and health effects for these areas, as well as for the towns and cities these trains pass through. I live in one of these cities. Far worse than all of these negative effects would be the effect that burning all of this coal would have on climate change. The western states mentioned above have already been ravaged by forest fires and drought, problems that will become much worse if China and other asian countries were to burn the Otter River coal. I strongly urge you to take all of these factors into consideration in preparing the Environmental Impact Statement. In a deeply interconnnected world, you cannot ignore the larger implications this railroad will have beyond its immediate surroundings. Sincerely, Andrew Letourneau
Submitted by: Andrew LeTourneau · Portland, Oregon
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-19679 · back to the docket sheet