{"id":39550,"date":"2022-07-11T17:49:17","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T23:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/utah-crude-trains-could-roll-through-colorado-after-forest-service-denies-objections\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:50:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:50:35","slug":"utah-crude-trains-could-roll-through-colorado-after-forest-service-denies-objections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/utah-crude-trains-could-roll-through-colorado-after-forest-service-denies-objections\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah crude trains could roll through Colorado after Forest Service denies objections"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A Texas railroad company plans to route crude oil trains from Utah\u2019s Uinta Basin through Gore Canyon along the Colorado River near Kremmling. (Jason Blevins\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

It\u2019s looking likely that heated train cars loaded with a waxy crude oil will be rolling through Colorado after the Forest Service last week rejected objections to the proposed new rail line in a section of roadless forest in Utah.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to continue to fight this terrible project with every tool available to us,\u201d said Deeda Seed with the Center for Biological Diversity, which has spent years battling to stop the proposed Uinta Basin Railway, an 85-mile stretch of new railroad that would connect the oil fields of northeast Utah with the national rail network.<\/p>\n

A consortium of environmental groups earlier this year filed objections to the Forest Service\u2019s draft plan to allow the new railroad to traverse about 12 miles of roadless area, with new bridges and tunnels in the Ashley National Forest. Last week, the agency dismissed those objections, ruling that the yearslong Environmental Impact Statement conducted by the federal Surface Transportation Board, which approved the new railroad in December 2020, adequately addressed environmental concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our view, the totality and essence of the reasonably foreseeable environmental effects were fully and clearly disclosed\u201d in the environmental review, Deborah Oakeson, the Forest Service\u2019s deputy regional forester, wrote on July 5 to attorneys representing the environmental groups.<\/p>\n

That was a final regulatory hurdle for the railroad\u2019s backers. Houston-based Drexel Hamilton Infrastructure Partners and railroad operator Rio Grande Pacific Corp. plan to build the $1.5 billion railroad for Utah\u2019s Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, which has spent years studying how to move the viscous, waxy crude oil from Uinta Basin to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The plan could move as much as 350,000 barrels a day \u2013 up to 5 billion gallons a year \u2013 in train cars that need to be heated to keep the crude from solidifying. The crude is too thick to push through a pipeline and production has been limited by rules limiting numbers of oil trucks.<\/p>\n

If the railroad is built, it will connect with Union Pacific Railroad track that runs along the Colorado River from Grand Junction, through Glenwood Springs and Gore Canyon, to Granby and then through the Fraser River Valley through the Moffat Tunnel into Boulder County and Denver.<\/p>\n

\"A
A 500-year-rain event in July 2021 sent mud and debris across Union Pacific railroad tracks and into the Colorado River in Glenwood Canyon along Interstate 70. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Eagle County earlier this year joined several environmental groups in an appeal of the Surface Transportation Board\u2019s approval of the Uinta Basin Railroad. That appeal, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., argues the board failed to look at indirect impacts of the oil train traffic on the Colorado River and communities along the river corridor.<\/p>\n

Rio Grande Pacific Corp., which is contracted to operate the railroad, in 2020 asked the Surface Transportation Board for expedited review of a plan to open the long-dormant Tennessee Pass Line, which runs from Dotsero to Ca\u00f1on City. Many communities and environmental groups along that line strongly objected to the idea of train traffic on the mountainous railroad that winds along the Arkansas River from Leadville to Pueblo. Rio Grande Pacific Corp.\u2019s newly formed Colorado Midland & Pacific Railway Co. promised it would not ship oil on the tracks and would only move passengers and nonhazardous commodities on the railroad that closed in 1997 after a history of derailments. The surface board in March 2021 denied the expedited approval, forcing Rio Grande Pacific to pursue lengthy environmental review if it wanted to revive train traffic over Tennessee Pass.<\/p>\n

\u2018Bold actions to restore forests\u2019<\/div>\n

Two weeks ago the head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the chief of the U.S. Forest Service issued a memo that said the agency would be taking \u201cbold actions to restore forests, improve resilience and address the climate crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A Texas railroad company plans to route crude oil trains from Utah\u2019s Uinta Basin through Gore Canyon along the Colorado River near Kremmling. (Jason Blevins\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The new Forest Service push for \u201cimmediate and near-term actions to build carbon stewardship and climate resilience\u201d in national forests was in response to President Joe Biden\u2019s executive order to strengthen national forests with wildfire mitigation, ecosystem restoration and reforestation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut here\u2019s the agency that absolutely has the discretion to stop a project that will contribute significantly to the climate crisis, but they choose to do nothing and literally throw gasoline on the fire that is the climate crisis. The alarm bells are ringing,\u201d said Seed, whose group last year sued in Utah state court to block the railroad project arguing the railroad project illegally used funds from the state\u2019s mineral leasing account to permit the new railroad when those funds were meant to mitigate the impacts of mineral extraction.<\/p>\n

Mark Michel, the co-founder and managing partner Drexel Hamilton Infrastructure Partners, said there is \u201can insatiable need and desire by not just energy consumers here in the U.S. but across the globe for a stable supply and increased reliability of \u2026 energy opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Utah is \u201cextraordinarily blessed to have the geological fortitude\u201d to have access to this type of crude, Michel told the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition during a hearing in Utah\u2019s statehouse on Friday.<\/p>\n

Michel said his team has found increased demand for this waxy crude from oil refineries eager to produce domestic energy as well as demand from makers of cosmetics, lubricants and plastics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe market has responded and I think, frankly, it\u2019s been a wonderful opportunity as an American developer to bring this product to market to satisfy the security need of our allies throughout Europe as well as Asia as well as providing for the energy needs of Americans,\u201d Michel told the coalition, describing the railroad \u201cas a very important project for the national security of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A passenger train in November 2021 passes through Gore Canyon along the Colorado River. A proposed new railroad in Utah could direct heated oil trains on the same tracks through the remote canyon. (Jason Blevins\/Colorado Sun)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Keith Heaton, the executive director of the coalition, said \u201cwe would do much good with these products if we can just get them to the market.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world will be a better place both environmentally and economically with these products,\u201d Heaton said.<\/p>\n

Coalition board member Jack Lytle, a commissioner from Utah\u2019s Daggett County, one of seven counties working to build the railroad, said the coalition\u2019s multiyear work on the railroad is \u201ca tremendous model for the state and other commissions on how things can get done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis can be duplicated,\u201d Lytle said.<\/p>\n

Opponents of the rail line estimate the production and use of the Uinta Basin crude could increase greenhouse emissions in the U.S. by 1%. And then there are concerns with rolling heated oil along more than 200 miles of the Colorado River through Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cApproving this is the opposite of bold action,\u201d said Ted Zukoski, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity who organized the lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals. \u201cIt\u2019s just flabbergasting. The priorities of our government are not about combating the climate crisis. They are about knuckling under to the power of the oil and gas industry. There is a disconnect here between the rhetoric and the action of this administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Environmental groups could file a lawsuit objecting to the Forest Service\u2019s final approval of the railroad through the Ashley National Forest. And then there are the lawsuits in Washington and Utah, which could stop or slow the project. But perhaps the best hope for environmental groups is with the market, where investors could be wary of long-term plays in fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an expensive thing to build,\u201d said Seed, who called the initial projected construction cost of $1.5 billion \u201ca significant underestimate\u201d in light of recent economic shifts. \u201cWhere is that money going to come from? There is a real concern that they will start building this and not finish it. Or it gets built and then doesn\u2019t get used.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/div>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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