July 28, 2015 Dena Jensen
Okay, let’s get down to it. In Montana the problems of the people facing the Otter Creek Mine and Tongue River Railroad are all our problems as well.
Those people are being bulldozed and lied to by corporate interests and are being promised pie-in-the-sky mitigation just like we are. Less than one month is left till the deadline for comments on the Tongue River Railroad Draft EIS. Many gave testimony at hearings in June. Here is the info for submitting your comment: http://www.tonguerivereis.com/draft_eis.html – There’s also a comment workshop at RE Sources in Bellingham on Monday August 3, at 3:30 p.m.
In the meantime here is Hank Coffin’s testimony. He was the first speaker at the June 8, 2015 Public Meeting for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Tongue River Railroad in Ashland, MT:
HANK COFFIN: Yeah, my name is Hank Coffin.
One of the things I want to get back and make it plain
in the report of transportation, ICF, when they come up
to our property, they told us that there was nothing of
any significance on our property. That railroad line,
from border to border, the right-of-way is over 900 —
or is at 900 feet wide.
There was significant things up there. There
is a grave of a medicine man that was probably a
Sioux Indian. That top line up there has natural rocks
up there formed on it that the Sioux honored The Most
Living Kind God within their culture, the same thing
that you folks and I do when we go to church. They just
did it a different way.
The Cheyenne Nation was there too. That is
heritage to us. My wife on her mother’s side is Sioux
Indian. On her father’s side, my wife is Northern
Cheyenne. She has got the card. She is registered such
as the Northern Cheyenne. That is our heritage. We’re
going to lose 900 feet of that, and all that is going to
come out of there.
There was another group that come up there and
reviewed it, and they found all that as significant, but
ICF said no, there was nothing significant. I’d like to
have that on the record. Thank you.
noisy waters northwest 