I know you have waited with bated breath for the issuance of the draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposed Tongue River Railroad (TRR). Vicki Rutson, the Director of the Office of Environmental Analysis from the Surface Transportation Board said we can expect to see a release of the DEIS at the end of April (yes, this April) and that the dates and locations of the public hearings will be announced at that time which I imagine will be held in southeastern Montana sometime in later May. You should expect to see a extensive…
This week, Montana’s Secretary of State Linda McCulloch went on a tour of the Otter Creek valley, southeast of Ashland, MT, and the Black Thunder Coal Mine, outside of Gillette, WY, with representatives from Arch Coal and other unnamed Montana legislators. She posted a couple pictures on Twitter (see below) and here and here. She seems pretty excited about it. I know when I go to the Otter Creek Valley, the first thing I think is that what the pristine, beautiful and quiet valley needs is actually a big…
I know. I know. It’s hard to call this news since the Tongue River Railroad seems to always be in a perpetual state of delay. But today, representatives from the Surface Transportation Board (STB) announced on the monthly Section 106 Consultation call that the draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposed Tongue River Railroad won’t be out until sometime around April 2015.
It is no secret that Arch Coal and Burlington Northern Santa Fe are pushing to turn the Otter Creek and Tongue River Valleys into an industrial corridor to ship Montana’ s coal to Asia. I have moments of cynicism where it seems that we are at the mercy of international financial markets, political power brokers and men in suits that make a living in a boardroom. I know that, to them, southeastern Montana is nothing but an untapped natural resource piggy bank that they can use to increase…