Comment EI-24990
Received or sent (printed as 7/15/2016)
I'm am opposed to the GLB railroad. I am a Farmer in Yellowhead Township of Kankakee County and someone who owns land in the footprint of the 15,000 acre rail yard in Sumner Township. So I am directly effected by this in several ways. It would have an extremely negative impact on Farming. The taking of 15,000 acres would cause the Farmers who have lost their Farms to seek land to buy and rent. This will raise both rent and land prices for a 50 mile radius. There is also at least 2 cemeteries dating back to the mid 1800's in the footprint of rail yard. The negative environmental impact is unquestionable. How would they keep from contaminating surface and ground water? Drainage runs from the north to the south in the area of the rail yard. How would they pass runoff from the north without contaminating it? What will they do with the runoff from the site. An inch of rain is just over 27,000 gallons of water per acre. That means the 15,000 acre site would generate over 407,000,000 gallons per inch of rain. Will they have to test and treat any runoff from site? Will they have to build lakes to hold that water until it can be tested and treated? Will they have to line said ponds to protect ground water? Will they have to drill wells to test ground water quality? How often will they have to test ground water and surface water? Who oversees their testing? Would the County, state, and federal government all have water testing abilities? What if they contaminate the surface or ground water? Last June saw over 30 inches of rain, that is over 12,000,000,000 gallons of water that fell on the 15,000 acres. 80,000 people in Kankakee County get their drinking water from the Kankakee river. The water from the 15,000 acre rail yard drains directly to the Kankakee river just a few miles away. It is also a source of recreation for 1000's of people. We don't want it to become a Flint Michigan river. Many of us get our water from the underground aquifer. If it gets contaminated what do we do? Stop our nightmare and stop this project. It is not needed or wanted. It makes no sense to destroy 1000's of acres of Farmland, killing hundreds of jobs. It makes no sense to destroy 100's of homes and Farmsteads, some which have been in families for 5 and 6 generations. I'm against this proposal 100%. Thanks, TOM.
Submitted by: Tom Forburger · Momence, Illinois
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-24990 · back to the docket sheet