Comment EI-19909
Received or sent (printed as 1/11/2013)
Dear Surface Transportation Board, Thank you very much for asking for comments on FD 30186, regarding transporting an estimated 1.3 billion tons of coal from and through Montana and the Northwest, for shipment to Asia. The negative impacts of teh Tongue River Railroad shipping proposal far outweigh any possible benefits. The costs to area farmers and ranchers and to the mining area's water quality and quantity alone exceed the profits of this proposal. But this proposal also is a lose-lose for all but a handful of people. It's a lose-lose for Montana's wildlife, people throughout the state, as well as people throughout the Northwest and Asia. In essence, it's not so much that just coal is burned, but the land, itself, and all that depends on it, is being ransomed for short term gain. Of course, as Montana is, for the most part, downwind" for China, Montanans will bear a tremendous amount of the brunt from burning this coal in terms of reduced air quality, which translates into reduced water quality, impacting fish and wildlife, as well, on which many Montanans depend. What is the sense of exporting this coal and, at the time time, building a pipeline from Alberta, Cananda, through part of Montana, to import tar sands oil? To at least temporarily stop this type of "development" until there is a true national energy policy in place that embodies long term common sense rather than short term extraction is paramount to both our health and economic viability. With that said, please deny the permit to build the Tongue River Railroad line necessary to transport this coal."
Submitted by: Steve Guettermann
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-19909 · back to the docket sheet