October 18, 2007
Draft EIS Given on Caliente Rail Corridor and Alternatives

By Dave Maxwell

Photo by Dave Maxwell
Vaughn Higbee at County Commissioners meeting explaining about impacts on alternative rail routes.

Considerable impacts to range users and private property owners in Lincoln County are going to be experienced if any of the proposed or alternative railroad routes to take spent nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain repository are built.

Robison/Seidler, Resource Concepts, Inc., and L & H Consulting, made a joint presentation of their findings in the draft Environmental Impact Study at the County Commissioners meeting Monday.

Ace Robison said the final analysis of all three groups shows that no matter what route DOE selects, “There are considerable impacts to the range users and to private property owners and I think we’re increasingly going to see that as far as the allottees and range users, there really is no way to mitigate the impacts.”

A number of charts and graphs were shown at the meeting explaining what the impacts are expected to be on:

• grazing allotments and planning,
• fencing,
• water rights,
• stock waters and associated infrastructure,
• existing fences and capital improvement,
• roads and trails,
• vegetation and forage,
• loss of livestock,
• wildlife,
• wild horses,
• and several other factors.

The Department of Energy first proposed what is called the “Caliente Corridor” rail line through Lincoln County to Yucca Mountain back in 1992. For the past several years, the Lincoln County Commissioners have had Robison/Seidler, Resource Concepts, and L & H Consulting looking for alternative routes to that first one by doing studies on geographical and environmental impacts all the routes would have on ranchers and their livestock.

After considerable study, investigation, and interviews with ranchers and range users, Vaughn Higbee and Larry Lytle of L & H Consulting made their recommendation earlier this summer of two alternative routes called Cottontail Pass and the Short Route, with Cottontail being the most preferred. However, the latest findings show that route is the least liked by those it would impact. The Short Route had more potentially promising features to impact less private property.

Along the Cottontail route, Higbee said they learned that on some of the farms, the rail line “would impact their ability to use pivot irrigation necessary to make it productive.” The rail corridor would cut little sections off. “In order to mitigate that,” Higbee said, “the people we talked to simply said the only way that they could be mitigated would be to buy them out.”

He reported that generally, people prefer the rail line should avoid private property to the maximum extent. Many also mentioned using truck transport as a preferential mode within the state. If a rail line is to cross private property, many of those who would be impacted want just compensation for the entire parcel of land they own as the right-of-way often renders the property useless in the owner’s opinion. The consensus, Higbee stated, “is that the federal government must fund, in advance, items such as infrastructure upgrades, service-related expenses caused by the influx of people associated with the rail line, training, personnel and equipment for emergency services, i.e., fire, police and rescue. And that the DOE should revise the procurement process to provide maximum benefit.”

Jeremy Drew, who gave the PowerPoint presentation for Resource Concepts, Inc., said many of the people who will be impacted by any of the rail lines, expressed concern that the railroad would have too much of a detrimental effect on their operations. “Half of them said, ‘We hate to see this, but we can work with it.’ And the other half said, ‘I don’t see how we can work around this.’” One man, Drew said, told the researchers, “Tell them to buy me out so I can go somewhere else and not worry about this stuff!”

Some ranchers told RCI, they could work around the idea of Southern Nevada Water Authority wanting to put a water pipeline through their property, “but you put rail through the middle of three of my pastures and I’m in trouble.”

Retired railroad builder Jerry Parker reported that if the Antelope Canyon option could be added to the Short Route it would greatly lessen the amount of private landowners in Meadow Valley, and they would “not have to get involved with private property at all.”

Candice Jordan, of Robison/Seidler reported that DOE expects to run about 17 one-way trains per week through the county once the rail corridor is built. The plan, she said, is to “Transport 9500 nuclear waste casks, 29,000 rail cars of construction material, diesel fuel and supplies over a 50-year period. Cask trains would be comprised of 2-3 diesel electric powered engines, a buffer car, 1-5 cask cars, another buffer car and one escort car with security personnel.”

In addition to these studies, BLM has developed four visual resource classes as to how the topography and view of the land would be changed by the rail line. Class 1 preserves the existing character of the landscape. Class II retains the existing character of the landscape, although some minor changes might be noticeable. Class III still retains the existing character of the landscape, but management activities probably would attract attention of the casual observer. Class IV requires that major modifications to the landscape be made and this would dominate the view and be the major focus of viewer attention. In Class IV, BLM says an attempt should be made to minimize the impact of activities through location, minimal disturbance, and repeating the basic elements.

The DOE’s proposed Caliente Rail Corridor has only one Class I visual impact. It has 12 each in Class II and III, and 18 in Class IV. In other words, the view of the landscape along the rail line would be changed somewhat in most places, and in 18 areas, it would be changed considerably.

The same presentation was repeated Tuesday night at the regular meeting of the Joint City/County Impact Alleviation Committee in Caliente.

The next step, Ms. Jordan said is the public comment period on the EIS statement from November 1 – 11 with a final report to be given to the County Commissioners on Nov. 30. Additional meetings with Commissioners and JCCIAC might be held, if necessary, to consider adoption, revision or no action on the final EIS document to be submitted to the Department of Energy.