Objecting to a planned new rail line in Utah that would connect to Colorado rail lines, and citing the disastrous Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Colorado congressmen appealed to the Secretary of Agriculture to stop it — saying the line would harm the environment and endanger Colorado communities.
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Denver, and Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Lafayette, sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Monday asking him to suspend a special use authorization to build an 88-mile-long rail line to transport oil through 12 miles of the Ashley National Forest in Utah.
“The Uinta Basin Railway Project would enable the shipment of up to 4.6 billion gallons of waxy crude oil per year from Utah through Colorado to the Gulf Coast on as many as five, two-mile-long trains per day,” says the letter.
The congressmen want the permit set aside pending another review of the project and its impacts on Colorado’s environment and communities along the Union Pacific’s heavily traveled Colorado Central Line railroad. The project has been through both an environmental assessment and a full environmental impact assessment, but only for its impacts within Utah.
The congressmen want that assessment expanded to include Colorado impacts as well as national climate issues.
The federal Surface Transportation Board issued final approval for the project in December 2021.
The Utah route is being planned by the Seven Counties Infrastructure Coalition, an independent political subdivision of the state with seven members: Carbon; Daggett; Duchesne; Emery; San Juan; Sevier; and Uintah counties as part of a cooperative program to increase economic opportunities in the Uinta Basin, which also encompasses the Ute and Ouray Reservation.
The rails would run from the town of Duchesne, about 100 miles east of Provo, Utah southwest to Price, Utah, where it would connect with the national rail network and the Union Pacific Colorado Central Line through Colorado.
The Colorado Central Line is the primary rail route from Utah and points west through Colorado to points east. The rails run along the Colorado River for more than 100 miles in Colorado, passing through Grand Junction and small communities along the river and through the Moffat Tunnel to Denver.
“Although we agree it is vital to secure our domestic energy supply, we do not accept that it requires imperiling the Colorado River or the local communities that live along it,” the congressmen wrote in the letter. “The disaster unfolding in East Palestine, Ohio is a terrible reminder that train derailments do occur, and that the damage from transporting hazardous materials by rail can be catastrophic. We urge you to prevent this dangerous project from moving forward until a robust supplemental review can be completed.”
Ashley National Forest Public Affairs Officer Louis Haynes told The Denver Gazette in October that the special use permit is in limbo due to litigation over the project brought against the Surface Transportation Board by the Center for Biological Diversity and Eagle County last August. The lawsuit alleges that the STB ignored both the risks of a derailment and the effects on the climate of shipping as much as 350,000 barrels of Uinta Basin waxy crude oil daily through Colorado to Gulf Coast refineries.
“A train derailment that spills oil in the headwaters of the 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,” write Bennet and Neguse. “It is beyond reckless to expose these sensitive areas of our state to these additional risks.”
According to Union Pacific spokespersons, the line currently carries upwards of a dozen trains per day. Officials declined to say what chemicals, including oil, are carried on trains now, citing security concerns.
Eagle County Commissioner Matt Scherr doesn’t want up to five more trains per day rolling through the county either, especially if they are carrying oil. While Scherr is concerned about derailments, he’s also concerned about the environmental impacts of the increase in the use of the oil itself and the process by which the Surface Transportation Board approved the project.
“(The STB) should be considering the full environmental impacts for activating that line and what that freight will do…which goes quite a bit through Eagle County and a number of other counties and communities in Colorado,” Scherr said in an October interview with The Denver Gazette.
“USDA has received the letter from Senator Bennet and Congressman Neguse and looks forward to reviewing it and providing a response on the issues raised,” said a Department of Agriculture spokesperson in a statement to The Denver Gazette.
The Uinta Basin Railway is a public-private partnership with the Seven Counties Infrastructure Coalition, financed by Drexel Hamilton Infrastructure Partners and operated by Rio Grande Pacific Corp.
A response from the Seven Counties Coalition was not available before press time.
