[noirbot]

Sure, but it's not just the construction. The concern is the long-term damage of moving freight over the line and the potential for accidents later, just like oil spills. There's plenty of hazardous freight that could be a problem in the case of a derailment, especially with over-head tracks where a derailment would be far more catastrophic.

It's also not just contrarian NIMBY folks - there's plenty of pushback on putting lines through places for well-supported reasons. Nowhere is "the middle of nowhere." Someone lives there, often people who have been displaced to there because of bad policy elsewhere.