Comment EI-30048
Received or sent (printed as 7/13/2019)
Air pollution in the Uinta Basin has already reached dangerous levels due to oil and gas development. By quadrupling oil extraction in the region, the railway would exacerbate this problem, resulting in more asthma attacks and other harmful conditions that can lead to premature death. The extraction and combustion of four times as much oil from the Uinta Basin would threaten our ability to avoid the most disastrous effects of climate change by staying under 1.5°C warming. Fossil fuel development requires large amounts of water. At a time when water security for the region is more tenuous than ever, increased oil development unleashed by the Uinta Basin Railway would threaten the region's water supply. The new development needed to create a fourfold increase in oil development in the Uinta Basin will result in major impacts to the region's landscapes, including on public lands. New oil train traffic will create increased inconvenience, air pollution, and risk of derailment in the communities through which the trains travel.
Submitted by: Ben Badger · Ogden, UT
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-36284/comment/EI-30048 · back to the docket sheet