Submission Number: UBR-DEIS-00058 

Received: 11/27/2020 5:00:00 PM
Commenter: David Grainger
Organization: 
State: Utah

Agency: STB
Initiative: Uinta Basin Railway EIS
Attachments: No Attachments
Submission Text
As a citizen and voter in Utah, I am very concerned with the proposed Uinta Basin Railway draft EIS. The draft focuses solely on mineral extraction as the only benefit, but public lands and diverse Utah communities and citizenry interests are profoundly and negatively impacted.
 
Let’s consider the neglect from this profit-driven proposal:

1. Waterways and water quality across thousands of miles of the Utah route are needlessly risked and poorly protected.
2. Poor air quality in the Basin that is already national news and routinely exceeding federal statutes given current energy industry neglect is even further worsened.
3. Much public land is traversed without regard to current inhabitants, human or animal, nor general Utah citizen input. Easements don’t accommodate needed protections for either people or wildlife. Only Uinta Basin is served.
4. Further fossil fuel-based energy extraction does not promote energy self-sufficiency nor exit from the dying fossil fuels industry or its environmental calamities. We need to move beyond oil, gas and coal.
5. Uinta Basin needs to think 50 years downline, not 5 years downline, with regard to safeguarding the welfare of its citizens and communities.

This is short-sited out-of-state profit-taking proposal at the expense of the rest of Utah’s 99% population that receives only adverse impact. Tax revenues are marginal compared to the environmental costs.

Ultimately, the draft plan benefits few Utah residents, primarily out-of-state investors and commercial interests and a relative minority of Basin residents, while adversely impacting many other Utah citizens. This results in a lopsided, ill-conceived and disingenuous impact to Utah citizens. Most oppose it. I oppose it.

Please do not support the draft or the Uinta Basin Railway EIS.

Sincerely,
Dave Grainger
Citizen and Utah voter