Comment EI-30104
Received or sent (printed as 8/3/2019)
When I think about the Uinta Basin Railway proposal, my mind keeps going back to when I was an undergrad at BYU almost 20 years ago. I took a class in the Geography of Subsaharan Africa. The underlying theme of transportation infrastructure for most of Africa is a study in imperialism, where roads and rail lines extend from the port on the coast and run inland to whichever natural resource was being extracted. No consideration or thought was given to economic development for the locals. It is disturbing that this kind of imperialistic thinking still goes on. In 2019! In Utah! It is disturbing that this is being labeled as "rural economic development." Yes, this will bring jobs to the Uinta Basin, but, considering the boom and bust cycles of this industry, who knows how long those jobs will last. It is irresponsible to gamble such a large public investment on a single industry. It is a recipe for creating ghost towns. But I am open to compromise. I'd be willing to support a rail connection to the oil fields, if the proposal also included an extension that would actually serve the towns in the Uinta Basin, which would support broader economic development and also the possibility of passenger rail.
Submitted by: Michael Christensen · Salt Lake City, 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-30104 · back to the docket sheet