Submit Your Comments for I-69/TTC Environmental Study
Deadline for comments: March 19, 2008
Comments should be sent to:
TX DOT I-69/TTC
P.O. Box 14428
Austin, TX 78761
Short comments may be submitted electronically on the Keep Texas Moving web site, which also has additional information about the Corridor. The Texas Conservation Alliance has prepared a flyer to provide help on what points to make in your comments.
TransTexas Corridor: Unnecessary and Unrequested
What it it?
4,000 mile-network of super corridors up to 1200 feet wide
Toll ways, freight and high-speed commuter railways, utility lines (Water, oil, gas, electric, broadband and telecommunication lines, car lanes, truck lanes)
Who will build it?
Cintra-Zachry - a company in Spain under contract with TxDOT
How will this $145-$183 billion project be financed?
Private investors who will operate the highways as toll roads
Where is it? Two or more routes proposed
TTC-35: parallels I-35 from Laredo to Oklahoma via Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio.
I-69/TTC: following US 59 from Laredo/Rio Grande Valley past Houston to Texarkana
Did the public request this?
NO
Objections
TTC would consume 146+ acres per mile plus additional acreage in ROW's -- about 1.2 million acres.
TTC would pave over and destroy hundreds of thousands of prime agricultural lands.
TTC would acquire lands through purchase and eminent domain.
TTC would split communities, farms, school districts -- the Chinese Wall Effect with few crossing places for people and none for wildlife.
TTC 69 would go through or near Katy Prairie Conservancy and Legacy Land Trust lands protected in perpetuity from development and fragmentation.
TTC would consume prodigious amounts of land, rock, water, Portland cement, steel, lime, gravel and asphalt, which will be mined from central Texas stone quarries and fossil beds, Texas rivers and streams, destroying even more land and ecosystems.
TTC would require millions of truckloads of materials on county and city road not designed for such heavy traffic.
TTC would create air and water quality problems through increased, concentrated traffic on completed roads, through rock-crushing operations, etc.
TTC's high speed bullet trains will require biocides to kill vegetation besides tracks and repeated application to maintain clear tracks. How will these biocides be kept out of our water?
Arguments
If we allow TTC to transect lands "protected permanently" through private donations, land trusts, and foundation moneys, what effect will that have on future conservation projects?
More time is needed to assess immediate and cumulative impacts of this entire project on Texas and the entire region.
Mitigation cannot replace aquifers emptied, prime farmlands paved over, rare or unique environmental resources destroyed,, e.g. fossil beds.
Texas deserve to have a clear concept of the full environmental and social costs of all portions of this super corridor.
TTC will destroy even more natural habitat ... only habitat for endangered single species, wetlands and historic sites are on the list for attention from planners.
Wildlife? Will there be below-surface crossings for wildlife at regular distances along the corridor? Will there be appropriately located drainages so attractive to wildlife? Larger species will be severely affected by this north-south wall through Texas.
Can we not widen existing highways? Should not utilities and rail systems remain with private companies who would of necessity be wiser and more financially responsible when it comes to speculative new construction?
Sources of Information:
