The federal Surface Transportation Board has received more than 110,000 comments opposing plans for the Tongue River Railroad (TRR). Northern Plains Resource Council, a conservation and family agriculture group which has been fighting the TRR for 35 years, and other groups in the Northwest have organized members in sending comments to the Board. Commenters cited inadequacies in the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the proposed coal-hauling railroad in southeast Montana.
Other developments just today: the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council voted unanimously to oppose the TRR, and Missoula City Council tonight will vote on a resolution whether to oppose the TRR.
The TRR would condemn up to 90 miles of working family farm and ranch land and industrialize an important agricultural valley in order to move Otter Creek coal toward the West Coast for export to Asia.
“The TRR will only haul coal and is not a common carrier,” said Mark Fix, a rancher on the Tongue River and member of the Northern Plains Resource Council. “They should not have the right of federal eminent domain to condemn and take our property to build this railroad. The TRR will forever disrupt our operations and will bring noise and fires and weeds to our doorstep. And for what? To ship coal to Asia.”
The railroad has faced long years of opposition from southeastern Montana ranchers and tribal members, who have recently been joined by a growing coalition of down-rail cities and towns concerned about the effects of dramatically increased coal train traffic.
Besides disrupting agricultural operations, coal train traffic between Montana and proposed West Coast coal ports would mean more coal dust and diesel exhaust pollution, more derailments, decreased property values along the tracks, and longer waits for emergency services as ambulances and fire trucks are stuck waiting for trains to go by. None of these down-rail impacts were adequately addressed by the draft EIS.
Kate French a Northern Plains member in Bozeman, said “Bozeman, Livingston, and Belgrade are all bisected by the rail line, so even adding five more trains a day will greatly disrupt traffic, emergency services, and day-to-day life in a growing community. I worry about the fact that our hospital is on one side of the tracks, but many families live on the other side of the tracks. How will this work out during an emergency medical situation?
“It’s clear to me that more overpasses and underpasses will be needed to deal with these obvious impacts,” said French. “But who will pay for these costly upgrades? It will fall on us taxpayers — people who won’t be benefitting from this increase in coal train traffic at all.”
In addition to the environmental and economic issues, commenters criticized the informational and analytic failures of the draft EIS. Many of its conclusions were based on economic assumptions that the public wasn’t even allowed to review.
In the end, French said, the project will shove costs onto many people from eastern Montana to Puget Sound, but will only benefit the speculators behind proposed coal-to-Asia projects. That is why opposition has come from so many corners.
