Comment EI-22028
Received or sent (printed as 4/14/2016)
Stop GLB proposed railroad across Waite's Farm My brother and nephew farm hundreds of acres to support four families in Rock County, WI. They are stewards of the land using crop rotation, minimum tillage, grass waterways for drainage, preserve wildlife areas and build the soil with organic manure and added soil nutients. They raise and pasture sheep, grow corn,soybeans,wheat, oats and alfalfa. They have prime farmland with fragmented areas of natural springs, a year round stream that flows to Turtle Creek,small wooded areas,and small wetlands that support wild life. Their land is flat deep sandyloam soil and rolling ,soil covered, limestone hills. Their land is zoned agricultural by the FARM LAND PRESERVATION ACT of WISCONSIN. The proposed GreatLakes Basin (GLB) railroad will cut diagonally across five parcels of land farmed by my brother and nephew. The first two parcels (130acres) were part of the original 560acres of the Wyman-Rye Farmstead that is recorded in the NATIONAL REGISTER of HISTORICAL PLACES by the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT of the INTERIOR. In 1839, William Wyman was one of the first settlers in Bradford Township (Rock Co, WI) raising sheep and farming the land and built the existing historical house and barn. The third parcel (160 acres) has been in the Waite family for 133 years since 1883 and is recognized by the STATE of WISCONSIN as a CENTURY FARM. This land includes a mid-1800's limestone house. My grandfather Walter Waite was born here in 1895. The fourth parcel (43acres) is farmland and buildings purchased from my brother's inlaws that my brother and nephew farm. The fifth parcel (80 acres) is owned by my sister raising sheep and farmed by my brother and nephew. This proposed GLB railroad will destroy my brother's and nephews entire farm operation. The construction process will go all over the whole acreage making it impossible to farm. If and when it is completed it will leave diagonal fields on both sides of the track in all five parcels with no way to get to livestock and crops on both sides without driving miles. The trains going through will be noisy and cause vibrations disturbing the livestock and damaging the historical buildings and four farmsteads. The local roads will be blocked, and some discontinued, causing public safety issues and wasted time at planting and harvest. The natural watershed of this land will be disrupted causing polution in the wells, streams and Turtle Creek which is a navigable stream flowing to the Rock River. This proposed GLB railroad owned by foreign investors to move oil and nuclear waste through Wisconsin on our family's farmland and to store oil and nuclear waste train cars on the proposed 5 rail line on my family's land is NOT wanted. This will ruin their land, their livelihood, their family legacy and their life. Please stop this . They don't want to sell any of the land!!!
Submitted by: Kathryn Waite Braun · Rock Against the Rail · Clinton, WI
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-35952/comment/EI-22028 · back to the docket sheet