Comment EI-22369
Received or sent (printed as 4/30/2016)
I live in Bradford Township less than one mile from where the great Lakes basin railroad is proposing train tracks. The proposal includes crossing Turtle Creek and the running parallel (and less than one half mile from the creek) for about six miles. The track is going to be located hundreds of feet higher than the creek, so a spill most certainly would make it's way into the creek. This creek and the surrounding woods and farm fields are on the migratory path of geese, herons, cranes and occasionally great white owls. This area is also home to eagles, which are nesting here for the first time in over 50 years This train has the potential to create catastrophic consequences for a lot of wild life. The noise of 115 trains per day would discourage birds from making this a stop every spring and fall or the herons from nesting here each summer. Turtle Creek is also the home to thousands of turtles, a species especially susceptible to pollution or some type of chemical spill. The railroad is also proposing to cross Carvers Rock Road along this same path. The crossing would be less than a tenth of a mile from the crest of the hill..thereby necessitating that the train blow a warning whistle each time it crosses the road...or 115 times per day!!!! Even with a gate..the crossing would not be visible (going 55 mph) until it was too late to stop. I live in an area where I will literally not be able to go in any direction without having to cross the railroad tracks. This cuts us off from police and fire protection. I have tried to figure out how many minutes we will have between trains. 115 trains per day means one train about every 14 minutes. With the time spent from when the gate stops traffic until 50 cars go through and the gate goes up...I figure drivers will at the best only have 8 minutes between trains. That is going to be A big hardship..especially during commute times and when one is waiting for police, ambulance or fire truck to arrive. Highway 140/67 is an alternate to Interstate 39/90, the highway wide load translorts use, the corridor that DeLong (seed, fertilizer, ammonia provider) travel on to distribute their products, the artery used by school buses and lastly the road heavily traveled by farm equipment. How can this busy road, only be accessible for 32 minutes a day because a train chose the most populated, heavily congested part of southern wisconsin to locate their tracks on? Why should taxpayers have to accommodate a train company to this degree? Why should wildlife be forced to migrate differently than they have for 100's of years? Why should my health and welfare be in jeopardy because the responders got held up at the train crossing. Why do I have to be subject to all this noise pollution? Is it fair that my property value decrease and home insurance costs increase, because some private investors want to make huge profits? s
Submitted by: dorothy heitke · 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-22369 · back to the docket sheet