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The Board of County Commissioners of Indian River County, Florida Comments on Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Section 4(o Evaluation for the All Aboard Florida, Orlando to Miami, Florida Intercity Passenger Rail Project The Board of County Commissioners of Indian River County, Florida (the "Board") respectfully submits these comments to the Federal Railroad Administration ("FRA") with regard to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement ("DEIS"), and Section 4(f) Evaluation dated September 2014 prepared for All Aboard Florida, Orlando to Miami', Florida Intercity Passenger Rail Project (the "Proposed Project"). The Proposed Project's sponsor, All Aboard Florida — Operations LLC ("AAF"), has applied for $1.875 billion dollars in federal funds through the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing ("RRIF") program, which is administered by the FRA.' The DEIS was prepared to assist the FRA in satisfying its obligations with respect to the Proposed Project under the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA"), 42 U.S.C. � 4321 et seq., and applicable NEPA requirements, including the regulations adopted by the Council on Environmental Quality ("CEQ"), appearing at 40 C.F.R. Parts 1500-1508, FRA's NEPA regulations appearing at 49 C.F.R. � 260.35, FRA's "Procedures for Considering Environmental Impacts published at 64 Fed. Reg. 28545 (5/26/99) ("FRA NEPA Procedures"), and Order 5610.1C "Procedures for Considering Environmental Impacts" issued by the United States Department of Transportation ("USDOT") (9/18/1979) ("USDOT NEPA Procedures"). NEPA requires that "to the fullest extent possible" an environmental impact statement ("EIS"): (i) disclose and assess the impacts of major federal actions significantly affecting the environment; and (i) consider the reasonable mitigation measures and alternatives to such actions that would avoid or minimize those impacts. See 42 U.S.C. § 4332; 40 C.F.R. � 1502.1. The fundamental purpose of these requirements is to ensure that federal decision -makers understand the short and long-term impacts of their actions, and how such impacts might be addressed, before they take action. For the reasons discussed in detail below, the Board believes that the DEIS does not take a "hard look" at the environmental impacts of the Proposed Project, and fails to provide FRA with the information needed to satisfy its obligations under NEPA. In particular, the Board has identified a number of potentially significant environmental impacts that were not adequately addressed in the DEIS, and others that were not examined at all. Moreover, the DEIS contains information intended to satisfy Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act ("Section 106"), which requires federal agencies to consider the effect of their undertakings on historic resources, through a consultation process that requires that local governments be invited to participate. FRA failed to follow this mandatory process by electing not to invite most local governments, including Indian River County (the "County"), to participate. As a result, the DEIS missed several historic resources within the County, and probably many others in On March 15, 2013, A -AF submitted two RRIF loan applications to FRA for a total of $1.875 billion. 1824679 Page 1 November 14, 2014 3Oi- A- I