Oh, Good Idea! Let's Run Oil Trains For More Than 100 Miles Along The Colorado River!
Two Colorado Democrats this week are making a last ditch effort to block a proposed 88-mile railway in Utah that they say would drive up climate emissions and could lead to a catastrophic oil spill in the upper Colorado River, contaminating a vital water supply for nearly 40 million Americans that’s already critically threatened by deepening drought.
The Uinta Basin Railway was approved by the Surface Transportation Board in 2021 and received provisional approval by the U.S. Forest Service last summer to travel through a 12-mile roadless area of the Ashley National Forest. It would connect the oil fields of Utah’s Uinta Basin to the national rail network and refineries on the Gulf Coast. The project is estimated to quadruple the region’s crude production to upwards of 350,000 barrels per day that would be transported by freight via the national rail network, which includes a stretch of railroad that runs directly alongside the Colorado River for more than 100 miles.
But in a letter sent Monday, Colorado’s U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Joe Neguse urged U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack—who oversees the Forest Service—to block construction of the Uinta Basin Railway until a more thorough review is conducted to assess the project’s potential threats to public safety and the environment. “This review is especially critical in light of the recent train derailment and environmental disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, which has laid bare the threat of moving hazardous materials by rail,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter. “A train derailment that spills oil in the headwaters of the (Colorado) River would be catastrophic not only to our state’s water supplies, wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation assets, but also to the broader river basin.”
The lawmakers also expressed concerns that the project could exacerbate climate change, which they say is already wreaking havoc in their state. Many Colorado communities along the proposed railway, they said, are still recovering from extreme wildfires, severe flooding and historically low water levels caused in part by the West’s ongoing megadrought.
EDIT
https://insideclimatenews.org/todaysclimate/a-plan-to-ship-oil-alongside-the-colorado-river-sees-revived-opposition-amid-national-railway-safety-debate/
= new reply since forum marked as read
Getting anything meaningful out of Vilsack. He's the biggest Cabinet mistake in history. If it has anything to do with saying "no" to some industry, forget it.
