Comment EI-25012
Received or sent (printed as 7/15/2016)
Mr Navecky, I am writing to you today as a resident of Wanatah, IN, and a frequent visitor of the Kankakee River/Kankakee Marsh area. I don't know how familiar you are with the environmental history of Northwest Indiana, specifically our industrial burdens of pollution, short-sighted suburban planning, and disappearing natural features. However, my concern for the future of the very region I call home is the reason I am writing this letter. The GLB Railroad board has failed to demonstrate any concern for inevitable consequences of transporting hazardous materials by rail in Northwest Indiana. There have been over 340 train derailments in the United States since 01 January, 2016. A quick look at the proposed GLB maps will show every single possible route going over the Kankakee River at some point in Indiana or Illinois, along with the route going next to and/or through state wildlife/fishing/game preserves. This river, since its discovery by Europeans, has been consistently been abused, neglected, and exploited by heavy industry. It has been channelized, deepened, overrun with silt, and polluted in a way that is difficult to fathom for most people. Still, the river survives and provides water, drainage, and its tributaries (ditches) provide irrigation to the surrounding farmland. The marsh, once at around 500,000 600,000 acres in total area, was one of the largest wetlands in North America. To put that into perspective, it was likely bigger than Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Waterfowl were so plentiful they would blot out the sun during the migratory seasons. Settlement and commercial agriculture have decreased the marsh to around 5% of what it used to be. Couple that with our small Lake Michigan shoreline, dotted with steel mills and a power plant, and add our other channelized rivers such as the Grand Calumet, and you have an entire 3 county area whose environmental inheritance was almost completely destroyed by industry. The good news is that today there are numerous groups, including some of industrial giants of the area and commercial farmers, who want to see as much of the marsh restored as possible. Conservation groups like the Izaak Walton League, the Indiana DNR, the NPS, and the Nature Conservancy all work together to help restore the marsh as land becomes available. For the first time since the steam shovels began draining the Kankakee Marsh over a century ago, the environmental movement has gained serious momentum in Northwest Indiana, and it's only getting better. This project would set back the movement to restore the Kankakee Marsh for another 50 or 100 years. If a highway is built next to the railroad, which many suspect of being shoehorned into the plan at a later date, all hope of restoring the marsh area could be lost forever. As we move forward into the future, it is imperative that we learn from the mistakes of the past. Right now, if you were to dust the land for fingerprints of creation, you could still them in some places. However, with this short-sighted railroad plan, the entire dream of doing right by the land might remain a dream, and I can't think of a single good reason as to why that should even be a possibility. Thank you, Casey Jonas
Submitted by: Casey Jonas · Wanatah, 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-25012 · back to the docket sheet