Bellingham Comments from Digital Recorder - EISs for the Proposed ...

GATEWAY PACIFIC TERMINAL EIS SCOPING HEARING VOL. II
COURT REPORTER: BETH DRUMMOND PROCEEDING DATE: October 27, 2012
Page 139
1 past the railroad tracks, and I am an owner of a business in
2 Burlington, and both are impacted by the train.
3 The diesel particulate matter is of great concern
4 to me as well as -- I don't know if it would be an impact,
5 but I'm an avid gardener, and we eat a lot of things out of
6 our garden. And having the trains go by, I'm concerned
7 about how that will impact my home and the organic garden
8 and the foods we eat, as a way of being healthy.
9 Another concern of mine is that my business
10 already, with the increased train traffic -- I've had my
11 business in the same location for over ten years.
12 Just within the last year, almost weekly now,
13 there's somebody who's late. I'm a massage therapist, so I
14 have an hour to give a massage, and I have a short period of
15 time to, you know, change clients.
16 And so the train impacts their health. I see
17 when people come in late from the train traffic, that they
18 are very stressed; that they are anxious about being late.
19 They're paying for a full hour, but, yet, not
20 getting a full hour.
21 So I'm concerned about their health and for the
22 stress that it will increase because of this train traffic
23 -- if you consider the length of these trains is quite a bit
24 longer than most trains that go by, so having to sit and
25 then the stress level, I'm concerned about the health impact