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

GATEWAY PACIFIC TERMINAL EIS SCOPING HEARING VOL. I
COURT REPORTER: GWEN BRASS PROCEEDING DATE: October 27, 2012
Page 55
Thank you.
MR. STURTEVANT: Okay. 37, 38 and 39, please come to
the microphone.
THE SPEAKER: My name is Kenneth Kaliher. I live at
1207 Chuckanut Drive, just outside the City, Whatcom County.
And the railroad crosses my property, our property, about
100 feet from our house horizontally and about 50 feet below it
vertically. And I learned from the official Department of
Ecology last year that several -- many homes along Eldridge
Avenue sit high above the railroad tracks down there, are in
seriously bad condition. People are concerned about the
foundation of their homes, slipping. It's on clay. It's
susceptible to heavy rains.
And also a neighbor that's not far south from us
failed to sell his house last year when the purported buyer
one day after the GPT plant was announced canceled the sale and
pulled out.
I ask the EIS to study the impact on the integrity and
the stability of such high grounds adjacent to the railroads,
the impact caused by quantum increase in traffic and longer,
heavier trains than anything passing through Bellingham today.
And not just through Bellingham, but along the 1,000 plus miles
of railroad tracks from the Powder River Basin.
Thank you.
MR. STURTEVANT: 38, 39, and 40. 38 up.