Submission Number: UBR-DEIS-00377 -- Oral Comment at Public Meeting 

Received: 12/1/2020 12:00:00 AM
Commenter: Heather Dove
Organization: Great Salt Lake
State: 

Agency: STB
Initiative: Uinta Basin Railway EIS
Attachments: No Attachments
Submission Text
Okay.· Can you hear me?

[pause]

Okay.· Thank you.· My name is Heather Dove.· I am president of the Great Salt Lake
Audubon, which is the oldest conservation organization in Utah.

Our members are very concerned about the extensive habitat loss this project would cause.· We in Utah have already lost a great deal of critical habitat due to urban sprawl and to the extraction industries, including oil and gas.· We do not want to see further loss, especially to an industry that only exacerbates the rise of greenhouse gases and global warming, especially now that we are feeling the very real effects of climate change with drought, massive wildfires, storms and flooding all over the planet.

We are also concerned about the further degradation of public lands.· This state and this country's public lands have already sustained repeated assaults in the last four years.· We think these he -- it is time for these assaults to stop.

We're sympathetic to the needs for economic development and jobs in rural areas of the state, but we should be investing in 21st Century businesses and industries, not in industries that are destined to die.

This project would be a huge waste of public funds and would be devastating to our wildlife and our wild lands.· We urge you to deny this project.