Comment EI-22582
Received or sent (printed as 5/10/2016)
Proposed Great Lakes Basin Rail Line: The chemicals that railroad ties are treated with can pose a problem to private & community water wells. One common treatment is creosote, an insecticide, sporicide, miticide and fungicide that penetrates deeply into pressure-treated wood for a long time. The creosote may ooze out, leeching the soil and killing plants, insects and small animals. Creosote also pollutes the local watershed and can be dangerous to health with prolonged or frequent contact. Wood oozing creosote should be disposed of immediately as municipal solid waste. Wood coated in chromated copper arsenate (CCA), which appears green, can be even more dangerous. This preservative protects against rotting with chromium, copper and arsenic, and it is a common alternative to creosote for treating railroad ties. The arsenic in the wood is toxic, making it a danger to plants and wildlife that have prolonged contact with it. CCA- treated railroad ties should be disposed of through municipal means. Soil surveys that are taken along other railroad right aways come back with additional severe issues such as lead and arsenic. These harmful chemicals can be left behind in freight corridors, as they are produced from coal ash and cinder. Severity and extent of contamination will not be known until it is too late and entire towns will be devastated. These issues are from regular train traffic and do not even begin to address what will happen if there is a train derailment. With these areas having very extensive underground drainage pipes to control the ground water in the fields this contamination can be spread far beyond the proposed railroad right away. For these reasons alone you should not allow the construction of the proposed rail line. You have ability to stop this from happening by denying the request to construct this railroad.
Submitted by: Daniel Kloos · Lowell, IN
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-22582 · back to the docket sheet