Source: United States Senator for Colorado Michael Bennet
Washington, D.C. — Today, Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet and Colorado U.S. Representative Joe Neguse called on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Administrator for Mountains and Plains Region (Region 8) KC Becker to conduct a supplemental review of the Uinta Basin Railway Project that accounts for the full risks to Colorado’s communities, water supplies, environment, and climate.
The EPA’s review of the Project focused solely on the railway’s risks to Utah and did not evaluate its potential harm to Colorado, despite as many as five, two-mile-long trains of waxy crude oil traveling more than one hundred miles across the state and along the Colorado River every day, if the project is completed.
“EPA’s review of the Surface Transportation Board (STB)’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) of the Project had several shortcomings,” wrote Bennet and Neguse. “First, it focused solely on the Project’s risks in Utah with no evaluation of its potential harm to Colorado, including the risk of a derailment and oil spill in the headwaters of the River. Second, this review also failed to include any analysis of the Project’s effect on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. We urge you to conduct a supplemental review to fully account for these potential harms.”
In their letter, the lawmakers stress that a derailment along the Colorado River would be catastrophic to Colorado’s water, wildlife, outdoor recreation, and communities, and highlight how common train derailments have become, including several that resulted in serious environmental harm over the last few weeks.
“This review is especially critical in light of the recent train derailment and environmental disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, which laid bare the danger of moving hazardous materials by rail. Additional train accidents in West Virginia and Washington within weeks of each other demonstrate that derailments in this country are shockingly common – in fact, there are more than 1,000 per year on average according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics,” continued the lawmakers.
Along with their letter, the lawmakers sent Becker several recent letters of opposition to the proposed railway from the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments Water Quality and Quantity Committee, Eagle County, and a number of state legislators representing the Colorado River Basin. Bennet has received additional letters of concern from numerous other local governments, including the City of Glenwood Springs, Eagle County, Grand County, Gilpin County, Boulder County, and a collection of local governments represented by Colorado Communities for Climate Action. Several non-governmental organizations, including Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Colorado Water Congress, and Trout Unlimited have also raised objections to the proposed oil trains.
Bennet and Neguse have repeatedly urged the Biden Administration to halt the Uinta Basin Railway Project. Earlier this month, the lawmakers urged U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to consider the risks of approving tax-exempt private activity bonds or any other federal financing mechanisms to fund the Project. The lawmakers also called on U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to suspend a decision on the Special Use Authorization for the project until a supplemental review is conducted. In July, Bennet and Neguse called on the Biden Administration to undertake an additional comprehensive review to determine whether previous environmental and risk analyses fully considered the effects of the railway project on Colorado’s communities, watersheds, and forests.
The text of the letter is available HERE and below.
Dear Administrator Becker:
We write to share our ongoing concerns about the risks to Colorado’s communities, water, land, air, and climate from the Uinta Basin Railway Project (the Project). If completed, the 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 trains per day. These trains would run over 100 miles directly alongside the headwaters of the Colorado River (the River) – a vital water supply for nearly 40 million Americans, 30 Tribal nations, and millions of acres of agricultural land.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has an obligation to advise other federal agencies on the adequacy of their environmental analyses pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). However, EPA’s review of the Surface Transportation Board (STB)’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) of the Project had several shortcomings.
First, it focused solely on the Project’s risks in Utah with no evaluation of its potential harm to Colorado, including the risk of a derailment and oil spill in the headwaters of the River. Second, this review also failed to include any analysis of the Project’s effect on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. We urge you to conduct a supplemental review to fully account for these potential harms. This review is especially critical in light of the recent train derailment and environmental disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, which laid bare the danger of moving hazardous materials by rail. Additional train accidents in West Virginia and Washington within weeks of each other demonstrate that derailments in this country are shockingly common – in fact, there are more than 1,000 per year on average according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
A train derailment that spills oil in the headwaters of the River would be catastrophic to our state’s water supplies, wildlife habitat, outdoor recreation, and the broader River Basin. In addition to Denver, major cities outside Colorado rely heavily on the River for drinking water and other critical needs, including Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Tucson, and Albuquerque. An accident on the proposed railway would not only imperil the River’s water supplies, but also increase wildfires as the West faces a 1,200-year drought.
Across Colorado, local and county governments have raised grave concerns about the Project’s local impacts (for example, see attached letters from Eagle County, CO and members of the CO General Assembly). These communities have further noted that the Project has advanced based on a deeply flawed environmental analysis that understated its potential dangers. But even that flawed analysis concluded that, if completed, this Project would double the risk of a derailment in Colorado and produce an oil spill roughly every four years.
We urge EPA to conduct a supplemental review that accounts for the full risks to Colorado’s communities, water supplies, and environment, as well as its effects on climate change.
We look forward to hearing from you on this important matter.
Sincerely,