Erroneous impact numbers require withdrawal and reissue of I-495 & I-270 environmental document

Erroneous impact numbers require withdrawal and reissue of I-495 & I-270 environmental document

Riverdale, MD -- In a letter sent today to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT), Sierra Club Maryland Chapter has raised the issue of gross errors in the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS), which significantly understate the environmental impacts of the preferred alternative. The impacts presented in the Executive Summary are wrong by orders of magnitude and are directly in conflict with another table in the SDEIS.

Disclosing environmental impacts is a core requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, and the SDEIS should be a document that informs rather than confuses the public.

The incorrect impact numbers come on top of major traffic modeling issues raised by community groups, a national traffic modeling expert, and the Montgomery County Council and U.S. Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen and U.S. Reps. Anthony Brown and Jamie Raskin.

Sierra Club argues that the SDEIS currently available for public comment has errors so substantial that the only adequate way to address them is to withdraw the SDEIS for comment, correct the errors, and reissue the corrected SDEIS with a new 45-day or more comment period. 

The full text of the letter can be reviewed at this link.