Comment EI-19832
Received or sent (printed as 1/10/2013)
Dear Mr. Blodgett, I was born and raised in the San Juan Islands and have chosen to raise my family and spend the rest of my days here. I am deeply concerned about the mining and shipping of additional coal in the Pacific Northwest and the impacts it will have on communities small and large along the way. At this time I understand that Arch coal has agreements with the proponents (Ambre Energy and Kinder Morgan) of the three proposed terminals on the Columbia River. Those terminals propose to ship a combined 82 million metric tons of coal per year, and would require a minimum of 27 round-trip rail passages from/to the Powder River Basin. All coal bound for the west coast will probably go west through the Columbia River Gorge, including trains ultimately bound for GPT (16 round-trip passages) and Coos Bay (3.6 train passages).That would make the grand total round trip train passages if every train is 1.6 miles long: 46. The Grand total of coal proposed to be exported through the five terminals proposed in Oregon and Washington: 155 million metric tons. This is a seismic shift in U.S. export of this commodity, impacting a region of 5 states with an infrastructure system that was never designed for activity at this level. I agree with the comments made by Debbie Milburn of Montana. The federal government must look systemically at the effect of all these proposals on rail communities in considering impacts to the environment, human health, traffic, economies, etc. Without a programmatic EIS that models all possible rail expansion, regulators have no basis on which to identify indirect impacts or measure cumulative impacts which include reasonably foreseeable future activities. The Surface Transportation Board should stop addressing proposed expansions in the Powder River Basin in a piecemeal fashion, and conduct a rail PEIS so that all potentially impacted populations can be given proper notice of how they may be impacted. Many property owners who will be involved in this development have no way to know how to address potential impacts on their family, their property, and their environment without a systematic determination of how much coal may be extracted from the Otter Creek Mine at peak operations for shipment to terminals on the Columbia River or elsewhere on the west coast of North America. This situation is the same as all residents of rail communities from the Powder River Basin to the West Coast.
Submitted by: N Zack Blomberg · Lopez Island, 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-19832 · back to the docket sheet