Fw: WE NEED YOUR HELP IN DOCUMENTING I-69 RELATED PROBLEMS!

[Greg Buck]

Sharing is most welcome.

 

Greg Buck

ecot...@yahoo.com (gets more attention than ecoth...@gmail.com)

Campaign for Sustainable Economics
www.sustainableeconomics.org 

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Individuals & Organizations:

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Clearinghouse for Actions Against Interstate 69 in Indiana
http://groups.google.com/group/clearinghouse-for-actions-against-i-69-in-indiana

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Thomas & Sandra Tokarski <ca...@bluemarble.net>
Date: Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 9:40 AM
Subject: WE NEED YOUR HELP IN DOCUMENTING I-69 RELATED PROBLEMS!
To: Susan Sammis <sam...@bluemarble.net>

Friends and Supporters--WE NEED YOUR HELP!

We have received numerous accounts of heavy sedimentation in streams and springs around the I-69 corridor now under construction in Monroe and Greene Counties.  We have witnessed and documented such contamination ourselves. These problems are a violation of state erosion control regulations and of the Karst Agreement that is supposed to regulate construction in Monroe and Greene Counties. As most of you probably know, karst areas develop where buried limestone is slowly dissolved away by running water, creating sinkholes, springs, sinking streams and caves. Karst areas are very environmentally sensitive.

 

We are sure there are many more such violations that we have not seen or heard about. Unfortunately, INDOT is attempting to hide these problems.  For example, INDOT and the state have convinced Judge Frances Hill and the Monroe County Circuit court to order the Tokarskis off that part of their property where they documented and reported serious erosion control violations. We need help in documenting and reporting these types of violations that are found elsewhere. We need a thousand eyes and ears focused on this threat to our communities.

Violations of erosion control measures are a serious problem. Surface waters, springs and possibly wells can be contaminated by runoff from the I-69 construction site.  Indian Creek used to be one of the cleanest streams in southern Indiana; we now have pictures of the water so filled with sediment that it is a dark, murky orange. This heavy sediment load can have a very harmful impacts on stream life. Some people in Monroe and Greene Counties rely on wells and springs for there drinking water. Some springs  that have always been clear have now  been gushing muddy, orange water after a rain. One large spring in Monroe County has been heavily contaminated with sediment. Input to that spring was dye-traced to sinkholes in the I-69 right-of-way. In 2011 an aquifer in Daviess County was broken into and the result was a massively eroded gully and loss of a water source for livestock.

Of equal concern, but hard to see, is the contamination of the water table and underground karst system

WE NEED YOUR HELP IN DOCUMENTING I-69 RELATED PROBLEMS. Please keep your eyes and ears open, and your camera handy. If you drive around the I-69 construction area watch for places where rainwater and other runoff from the site can get into surface waters off the site. Take notes.  If you hear of anyone complaining that previously clean streams, springs, ponds or wells are now discolored or cloudy with sediment, please take notes. Photos and videos are especially helpful. Contact us with any information, even if you are not sure it is related to I-69. We need to document the abuses so we can report them to the regulatory agencies, You can also report the violations yourself, Call the IDEM Complaint Coordinator, (800) 451-6027, ext. 24464.

OR File a complaint on line:  http://www.in.gov/idem/5275.htm

These are very serious and apparently widespread environmental/quality-of-life problems. We need to work together to put an end to this before it leads to even more disastrous abuses to our environment and our way of life.

Thank you for your continued support.

Thomas & Sandra 

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Thomas & Sandra Tokarski

CARR

PO Box 54

Stanford, IN 47463

ca...@bluemarble.net

812-825-9555

800-515-6936