Public Comment. Volume III - Montana Legislature

EQC Eminent Domain
Subcommittee
May 4,2000
Exhibit 17
I would like to offer my perspective on an aspect of eminent domain I've been involved with for
over 20 years. In the late '70s I worked for a biological consulting company gathering baseline
data for the Montco Mine permit. Our firm also provided technical input on the northern portion
of Tongue River Railroad in the early '80s and the southern portion in the early '90s.
While gathering biological data for the Montco permit, I naively thought that because we were
objective, our work could make a difference in the environmental outcome of the project. Our
company was fired for refusing to alter or 'color' our data.
We foolishly had the same feelings about our technical reports for TRR to be used by the
ICCISTB in their EIS. The light should have gone on for us when there was no time allocated for
data collection for either of the segments being considered for permitting. Data available to us
was old, anecdotal or non-existent. Lots of extrapolation was used to describe the affected
environment and speculations were made to generate a section on potential impacts. There was
minimal science involved. There was sad lack of 'proprietary' information gathered. However,
that didn't stop TRR fiom threatening me personally with a law suit claiming I used such
information in a letter to U.S. Representative Pat Williams that described my incredible disbelief
in the god-like power of the ICCISTB through the eminent domain process.
Early in my involvement with the EIS on the southern portion of the route, I met with the person
responsible for the EIS at the STB. I asked her how the EIS intended to represent the interests of
the residents of Tongue River Valley. She said the STB did not have to consider the impacts to
the few relative to the benefits for the many. She was right. Landowners along the entire length
of the Tongue have not been considered in the process. And new EISs continue to 'tier off the
laughably inadequate and nearly 20 year-old EIS that somehow authorizes STB to slap Tongue
River Valley residents in the face while their hands are tied behind their backs.
I continue to be stunned at the cavalier and arrogant attitudes of developers and the STB in regard
to the lives of Tongue River Valley residents. The woman working for the STB tried to explain
to me that there was an economic need for the TRR. There is already a railroad serving the coal
industry for all the country that would be served by TRR. How does this translate into 'need' for
anyone except the few TRR employees who have milked that system for over 20 years and hope
to laugh their ways to the bank in the future. There are no 'common' people in the U.S. who
could possibly benefit h m this.
I'd like to share the words of a wise Tongue River rancher who lives on East Fork of Hanging
Woman Creek. ''The use of eminent domain should have gone out during the time we stopped
making witches walk on redhot plowshares and stopped hanging horsethieves in the cottonwoods
at the forks of Hanging Woman Creek." I assume this was a long time ago.
That the STB can use an ancient EIS to somehow provide flimsy paper justification to usurp
private property for the benefit of a few strikes me somehow as an incredible human rights
violation. Please help us eliminate the outdated and oppressive use of eminent domain.
Thank you for this opportunity to comment.
Steve Gilbert
72 1 2" St.
Helena, Montana 5960 1
443-2259
-260- Volume Ill: Public Comment