Comment EI-32332
Received or sent (printed as 9/27/2022)
My family lived along the Mississippi river between LeClaire, IA and Princeton, IA for 25 years. We lived in a narrow stretch of land between the railroad tracks and the river. This area has a substantial number of houses, sixty I would guess, between the tracks and river. All of the residents that live in the houses are required to use the private crossings that are maintained by the railroad companies in order to reach US highway 67. In the years that our family owned river front property there have been at least three incidences of train/car crashes, that i know of personally, in less than a one mile stretch of track. In those crashes two people were killed and one injured to the point that they were in a vegetative state until their death. The . curve of the tracks near 23005 great river road and the 45 MPH speed limit certainly played a role in the crashes. The area just north of our house is similar in that the homes on the river, between the river and the tracks are required to use private crossings. If this proposed merger goes through and there are three times more trains rolling by there will CERTAINLY be more deaths in this area. There will also be a substantial devaluation of the properties affected in this area. Many of these homes, ours included, that have been in families for nearly a century will certainly lose monetary value and a also lower the daily quality of life for us. The increased value of this property over the years will, no doubt, go down in value substantially if the merger goes through. This would cause many families to lose the wealth that has been generated over the many years of ownership. This could certainly cause some families to lose their properties. Please consider the fact that the diesel smoke, extra noise and vibration from the train traffic (our house shakes when trains go by) will also violate the pristine nature of this beautiful stretch of the mighty Mississippi river
Submitted by: Daniel Bennett · Blue Grass, IA
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-36500/comment/EI-32332 · back to the docket sheet