Comment EI-23470
Received or sent (printed as 6/7/2016)
Mr. Navecky, I have a lifetime association with Northwest Indiana area farming and an additional decade fighting a multitude of Hebron's ongoing drainage issues as a member of its storm water management board. Proper areawide water drainage should be your most primary consideration. Nothing about these clay soils and their delicate drainage balances is easily corrected once the landscape has been transformed. Historically (until the ditching and straightening of the Kankakee River) this was known as the Everglades" of the north. Unfortunately (because of court decision blockages) the Kankakee is filling in and gradually returning to its original state. Into this transitional state lets build a railroad. Lets build it on high water table soils where we wouldn't even want houses. I mean what could possibly go wrong? Interview as many area drainage experts as you can. You will learn from all of them. Privately all of the Lake and Porter county drainage people will admit that this is a zero sum game i.e.. anywhere or anytime you prioritize drainage for one thing the water will then flood somewhere else until our filled in river can handle it. Keep this in mind. The Great Lakes Basin Railroad will engineer themselves to the high ground.and avoid being flooded but that water has to go somewhere as it works its way south."
Submitted by: Frank Stalbaum
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-23470 · back to the docket sheet