Railroad apologizes for spill

Railroad executives heaped assurances and apologies on Kootenai County commissioners Friday morning during a special meeting focused on the recent wastewater and diesel spill over the Rathdrum-Spokane Valley aquifer.

“We feel terrible about it. I feel personally terrible about it,” said Mark Stehly, Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co.’s assistant vice president for environment and research development. “The full resources of the company are at our disposal to make it right. … We will make it right.”

The spill was reported Dec. 10 at the company’s new locomotive refueling depot near Hauser, Idaho, about five miles north of Post Falls. Although the railroad has been working closely with Idaho regulators, local politicians have complained that the company has not made itself available to answer questions about the contamination.

“It’s been frustrating at times. … I want to make sure the role of the County Commission is not forgotten in this,” County Commission Chairman Gus Johnson told railroad executives. “We need answers also.”

Members of the Spokane City Council share this concern. On Monday, the council will consider a resolution calling for an independent analysis of the spill. The aquifer supplies water to about 500,000 people in the region.

The meeting in Coeur d’Alene was open to the public, but no questions were taken from the audience of about 25 people, more than half of whom appeared to be employed by either the railroad or the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. A few members of the Kootenai Environmental Alliance were present, including the nonprofit group’s director, Barry Rosenberg.

“They have egg on their face. They deserve it,” Rosenberg said. Rosenberg suggested that as part of the remediation agreement, BNSF be required to offset its contamination by preserving green space on the Rathdrum Prairie, which is rapidly sprouting new houses and new threats of contamination. “It would generate good will and protect the groundwater,” Rosenberg said.

Railroad officials told county commissioners that a proposal is being developed to address the spill. The fix will include improvements to the facility’s wastewater system and changes to the inspection process. The spill also has prompted BNSF to consider improvements to wastewater systems at other refueling depots, Stehly said.

“We’re committed to making the most of a bad experience,” he said.

Additional groundwater samples will be taken next week to develop a better picture of how much diesel and engine chemicals were lost through the broken wastewaster pipe, Stehly said. The buried pipe was part of a system that drained water and any spilled fuel from the depot’s high-speed refueling platform. About 25 trains per day are filled with diesel, antifreeze and lubricants at the $42 million facility. Although the platform and fuel storage areas are safeguarded by two or more layers of underground barriers, the drain pipe in question was installed without that additional level of protection.

The 8-inch-wide PVC pipe was crushed sometime during the construction of the facility, likely by a piece of heavy machinery, Stehly said. The depot opened in early September, but the leak was not detected until three months later, after a wastewater drain backed up. The pipes were all air-pressure tested during the construction process, Stehly added.

The facility remains open. Wastewater is being collected and transported off the fueling platform by tanker truck, Stehly said.

The public will have a chance to review the remediation plan, which likely won’t be final for another six months, Stehly said. Until then, BNSF plans to pave the ground above the spill area to prevent additional rain and stormwater runoff from pushing the plume of chemicals closer to the aquifer, which is located about 160 feet underground. The company also hopes to begin using vapor wells to vent some of the hydrocarbons out of the soil.

Soil and groundwater samples show most of the petroleum-related chemicals at a depth of 40 to 120 feet below the surface, but traces were also found at the water table. The tainted groundwater sample was “well below” the state’s danger threshold for human health, said Geoff Harvey, waste and remediation manager for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.

“There’s not a human health threat here,” Harvey told county commissioners, but he also added, “Let me make it clear: There has been degradation of the aquifer.”

Harvey said the railroad has offered “unprecedented” cooperation in addressing the contamination. He addressed concerns that the railroad-financed investigation of the spill could not be trusted. State law requires the accused contaminator to pay for the investigation and cleanup, Harvey said. BNSF has hired the Spokane-based engineering firm GeoEngineers to conduct the investigation.

“These consultants have their reputations on the line,” Harvey said.

The resolution before the Spokane City Council calls for “an entirely independent expert,” to analyze the leak and contamination. The proposal is co-sponsored by Councilwomen Cherie Rodgers and Mary Verner.

“This affects all of us in our region,” Verner said. “The regional aquifer is a priceless resource. We can’t let an incident like this take place without noting the City of Spokane’s displeasure. … We want to send a very strong message.”

After last year’s explosion at Spokane’s sewage treatment plant, the City Council “immediately invested in a third party consultant to come and tell us exactly what happened,” Verner said. “I would like to see BNSF do the same thing.”

Councilman Bob Apple, who plans to support the resolution, noted the council’s recent support of state ballot Initiative 297, which called for a ban on additional nuclear waste imports to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. The city does not have any regulatory authority over what happens at the nuclear storage facility, even though city residents could be put at risk by waste being transported through the city to Hanford, Apple said. The aquifer offers an equally complex regulatory and health conundrum.

“We’re basically going at it full bore to make it known we want the mess cleaned up,” Apple said. “It affects our water table and our water quality.”

Johnson said any Spokane resolution would be “taken under advisement,” but he emphasized that he is confident in the railroad’s plans to address the situation.

“What I heard here I liked,” Johnson said after Friday’s meeting. “I’m comfortable where we’re going in the process.”

Johnson suggested that members of the Spokane City Council worry more about their own back yards. “I respect the council, but they’ve got a lot of problems they need to handle on their own.”