Submission Number: UBR-DEIS-00392 -- Oral Comment at Public Meeting 

Received: 12/1/2020 12:00:00 AM
Commenter: Lionel Trepanire
Organization: Utah Tar Sands Resistance
State: 

Agency: STB
Initiative: Uinta Basin Railway EIS
Attachments: No Attachments
Submission Text
Hello, and good afternoon.· This is Lionel Trepanire with the Utah Tar Sands Resistance.

I am very thankful for the comments that we've heard this afternoon from concerned citizens wherever they are and residents and visitors to the Basin.

I myself have been a visitor to the Basin for, oh, going on near a decade now.· And I'm going to first address the Surface Transportation Board regarding the Uinta Basin Railway Environmental Impact Statement and ask that the -- and particularly Mr. Wayland, to extend the comment period on this environmental impact statement regarding this oil
railroad.· And there's a lot of reasons to extend this comment period, but let me just talk about a couple of them.

The difficulty registering for the online meetings appoints to increasing the opportunity for a public comment by extending the period.· The difficulty getting into these meetings -- the greatest part I believe has been caused by an unnecessary filtering of participation through registration at Eventbrite.· And I've spoken with Mr. Wayland directly regarding this matter, but I just wanted to be on the record that telling people through the Eventbrite web page, up to an hour prior to that meeting, having told the people that the tickets to the meeting were closed was wrong and prevented public participation in this meeting. I
think that should be corrected in the future and more clear and direct information on how to participate in these electronic meetings should be provided to the public.

Also, the comment period should be extended regarding the oil -- the Uinta Basin oil railroad environmental impact statement by the sheer size of that environmental impact statement and the ongoing health emergency actually declared in the federal government, health emergency, that is the Covid-19. With the size of the environmental impact statements and the limited amount of the ability of people to review that document and materials in a reasonable matter also justifies an extension of the comment period.

[pause]

I am just getting started.· There is so much more to say.· I want to say that this -- that the Board -- I urge you to deny this project, deny a permission for this project because of
the devastating climate change, impacts that the project would certainly cause and also because there's not a -- in the future, there's not the public need to support this railroad.

And finally, I would urge the Board to deny the request for an exemption because the use of this railroad currently is merely speculative.· And the transportation merits proceeding is justified in this instance.·Thank you for the opportunity to comment.