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It is the fundamental purpose of NEPA to ensure the proper consideration of alternatives. And <br />it is precisely this kind of complex interplay among impacts to residents, cost to the company, <br />impacts on the environment, and other relevant factors that NEPA is designed to balance and <br />weigh in a rational and fully informed manner. Mr. Strid says: <br />impacts such as noise, dust, light, etc. are important to the citizens and will need <br />to be determined as port of the analysis. Elements of the analysis important to <br />GCC Energy would include capital/cost of capital, remaining life of the Icing 11 <br />Mine, operating costs and controls which address citizen concerns. This type of <br />analysis is critical input to the Environmental Assessm en t pro cess which is <br />ongoing. Report at 7. <br />Mr. Strid identifies these alternatives: <br />"Generally, transport methods used for moving cool and other bulk commodities <br />include aver -the -road trucks, off-road trucks, conveyor belts, aerial <br />trams/conveyor and pipelines. Each of the methods has advantages and <br />disadvantages. These methods can be described as discontinuous <br />(mobile equipment-) or continuous with relative attributes as summarized in the <br />following table." Report at 4. <br />THE ROAD RUNNER REPORT 15. NOT AN ADEQUATE BASIS FOR DECISION <br />AMONG ALTERNATIVES <br />Mr. Strid has looked at the part of the Road Runner study that looks at coal transport <br />alternatives, and believes that "the level of detail shown ... is not adequate to make a decision <br />considering cost of capital to GCC Energy, operating costs and different impacts to both GCC <br />Energy and local citizens." Report at 7. <br />He also states that "Available information concerning comparison of haulage routes is not <br />adequate for determining the best option as described above." Report at 7. <br />Another observation worth noting is that: <br />'7n the situation of GCC Energy, the number of truck trips across the existing <br />public road is significant because of the small volume of coal (25 to 30 tons) that <br />can be carried by individual over -the -road trucks. This negatively impacts the <br />public road and other users as most county roads are usually not designed and <br />constructed for this level of use considering air qualify, turning radius, grades, <br />line -of -sight, traffic controls and other considerations. The highest annual <br />production reported from King If Mine wos in 2014 at 970,780 tons. Even though <br />this is a high number of over -the -road truck trips, this is a relatively low annual <br />production for a coal mine. <br />2 <br />