Encouraging News: The Uinta Basin Railway Project has lost an important approval:
On 1/17/24, the US Forest Service formally withdrew a federal permit for a key section of the Uinta Basin Railway Project. This part of the oil train route would have plowed through the protected “Inventoried Roadless Area” of Ashley National Forest in Utah. The loss of the USFS permit combined with an August 2023 Appeals Court defeat means that railway construction can not start unless the Surface Transportation Board and Forest Service complete a new public process correcting their inadequate Environmental Impact Statement, and the Fish and Wildlife Service completes a new biological opinion, and the Surface Transportation Board and USFS re-approve the project. Those are a LOT of very high hurdles for this project to overcome!
- 1/29/24 ARTICLE: Millions of Americans face risk of toxic “bomb train”
- 1/18/24 ARTICLE: Forest Service withdraws key permit for controversial Utah oil-train project opposed by Coloradans
- 1/18/24 ARTICLE: Forest Service pulls right-of-way permit that would have allowed construction of Uinta Basin Railway
- 1/17/24 ARTICLE: Forest Service withdraws permit for Uinta Rail project that would send crude oil though Colorado
What is the UBR?
If approved, the UBR will haul millions of barrels of hot waxy crude oil across Colorado by rail as it travels hundreds of miles along the Colorado River. Up to 10 trains per day – each one up to 1-2 miles in length with an estimated 100 cars – will rumble through Grizzly Canyon, Gore Canyon, the Moffat Tunnel and downtown Denver on the way from Utah to the Gulf Coast for refinement. With the frequency of wildfires, rockslides, mudslides, avalanches, and flooding throughout the west, a derailment poses an unthinkable threat to the 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River to survive. Check out our UBR page here for more background.
