Public Comment. Volume III - Montana Legislature

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- and/or operation of the rai.lroad. :.. The .report.also.sho.uld.-.con.tain
..
recommendations for mitigating impacts to each site.
12.0 SUMMARY
The - successful -. mitigation of impacts associated with the
Tongue River Railroad will require cooperation and coordination
among a wide variety of individuals, state and federal agencies,
and local governments. A complex body of regulations applies to
most aspects of construction and operation of such a project. In
order to comply with the regulatory requirements imposed upon the
Applicant, it may become necessary to ad just non-regulated
aspects of the suggested mitigation procedures. It is safe to
assume that certain conflicting mitigation concerns will occur.
In such cases, it is important that lines of communication be
maintained between all parties.
A number of. tasks femain to be accomplished in terms of
development of the Final Mitigation Plan. Most of these .tasks
are presently constrained by the permitting process itself, but
will be accomplished once a decision to proceed is made. These
tasks include, but are not limited to:
(1) Individual ROW negotiations with landowners, to include
site-specific mitigation provisions.
(2) Easement negotiations with the U.S. Department of Agri- B
culture for the ROW through LARRS, to include detailed
mitigation stipulations.
(3) Easement negotiations with the Montana Department of
State Lands, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife,
and Parks, and the U. S. Bureau of Land Management for
ROW across lands under the control of those agencies.
It is assumed that ' numerous site-specif ic mitigation
stipulations will be included in resulting agreements.
(4) Development of a detailed construction traffic control
plan.
(5 Development of' construction mitigation stipulations to
be required of all contractors providing services to
the Applicant.
(6) Conduct field studies of impacted aquatic habitat. . :
(7) Conduct field wildlife surveys.
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-21 8- Volume Ill: Public Comment