Depot gets fix; cracks in credibility remain

Fresh concrete is hardening, new sealants are drying and the steel rails soon will be ready to once again guide transcontinental locomotives to a fuel stop at Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway’s depot near Hauser, Idaho.

The company expects repairs to be completed by Monday, a week in advance of an April 5 court hearing in Coeur d’Alene, where future operations of the facility will be determined. Fuel leaks and design flaws have plagued the depot since it opened six months ago.

Even if a judge allows the refueling depot to reopen, the railroad will have a hard time regaining the trust of many local residents, said Post Falls resident Kristy Reed Johnson, who helped lead a failed effort to stop construction of the refueling depot. Johnson said she’s been surprised by the amount of opposition expressed in the last month.

Since the depot was proposed in 1997, there have always been critics, Johnson said, but most people seemed willing to give BNSF the benefit of the doubt. That changed when fuel was found leaking into the aquifer in December, and the opposition gathered firestorm strength when additional problems were discovered last month. A judge ordered the depot shut down on Feb. 23.

The reason for the anger is simple, Johnson said: “We’re one of the few places in the country where you can actually drink the water without treatment.”

The response by local and state politicians was swift and entirely bipartisan following February’s public outcry, said Duane Rasmussen, an attorney and president of the North Idaho Pachyderm Club, a Republican organization.

“Even the Republicans like to drink clean water,” he said.

Although the motivations of the critics might be clear, the cause of the depot’s repeated failings remains hazy. BNSF Railway spokesman Gus Melonas has repeatedly declined to answer questions about the origins of the problems. State and county officials, as well as court documents, have pointed to shoddy construction as one of the major causes of the leaking pipe that was discovered in December and of the many cracks discovered last month in the refueling platform.

According to a man who worked for the railroad for more than 20 years, the problems stem largely from the railroad’s own operating practices. The employee, who insisted on remaining anonymous, gave several interviews in recent weeks by telephone and in person at his home. Cracks began appearing and pipes began breaking at the facility because of excessive speed as trains passed through the building, he said.

The facility allows for fast refueling because locomotives are able to pull into the depot without uncoupling their long line of cars. Once the locomotives are fueled, oiled and loaded with traction sand – usually in less than 45 minutes – a green light is given and the trains leave the depot. By the time the last car passes through the depot, the trains were typically traveling about 25 mph. Workers were told this was the top safe speed for trains to rumble through the depot, the worker said.

A few months after the depot opened, trains began exiting the fueling platform at higher speeds, the worker said. By the time some trains rolled through the depot, the last cars were traveling at nearly 50 mph, he said. The entire depot would shake and bounce from the vibration.

“Almost every day there would be warning lights going off on every building out there,” he said. “The way I see it, (the speed) pretty much voided the warranty” on the depot.

Members of a machinists union sent a registered letter to a BNSF executive in early February warning of the problems being caused by the high speeds, the man said. Workers believed the quicker speeds were motivated by a need to reduce bottlenecks and delays during a time of record freight volumes – much of it Chinese goods brought in through West Coast ports to feed the nation’s seemingly insatiable appetite for cheaper foreign goods.

“It all comes down to corporate greed,” the worker said. BNSF “is far from innocent.”

Calls to a union representative were not returned. BNSF spokesman Melonas called the allegation “a rumor” and said there is no evidence speed caused the cracks.

“That has absolutely nothing to do with speed,” Melonas said. “It’s a high-speed-designed facility.”

BNSF will continue to investigate the cause of the cracks, Melonas said.

Marc Kalbaugh, an official with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, said he was not aware of any letter warning about excessive speed. The reasons for the failed concrete remain under investigation.

“It could be the chemistry, the compaction, the aggregate that’s used or the location where they get the concrete,” Kalbaugh said. But he added that it’s plausible that operating speeds and vibrations could have played a role in creating the cracks.

The cracks appear to originate from where the steel tracks are secured to the concrete platform, Kalbaugh said. Although the design documents for the depot are hundreds of pages thick, a review did not find a speed rating for the facility and Kalbaugh said he was unaware of a specific top speed for safety.

Kalbaugh said it should be noted that BNSF is devoting a massive amount of money and resources to fixing the problems, including completely redesigning the underground leak detection system. Two dozen wells have been punched into the ground below and surrounding the depot. The state will continue to monitor the depot operations and take water samples from the wells for at least 10 years.

“There’s not going to be too much that goes through this facility that’s not going to be picked up by these wells,” Kalbaugh said.

Critics and environmental groups are ready to pounce again should there be even a whiff of a problem. Some groups, including the Kootenai Environmental Alliance, are now circulating petitions pushing for a permanent shutdown of the depot. The idea has long been advocated by many residents in Hauser, including members of the City Council and the local water district, said Wes Michael, a board member of the Hauser Lake Water Association, which draws drinking water from wells about a mile from the depot

“Anything short of moving the installation is kidding ourselves,” he said. “My question is how long is this thing going to go on? How long are people going to tolerate it?”

Moving the depot is not likely, said Ken Lustig, the retired environmental director of the Panhandle Health District. Lustig, who opposed constructing the depot over the aquifer, said eagle-eyed oversight is the best response possible now.

“It’s like finding out you’ve got diabetes,” Lustig said. “You’ve got to learn to live with it.”

Spokane attorney and longtime depot critic Rachael Paschal Osborn said trying to shutter the depot would be a quixotic quest requiring an act of Congress. Because of railroads’ role in interstate commerce, the industry occupies highly protected legal real estate, she said.

Osborn said she feels frustrated by the lack of local control over railroad safety, but she said the depot problems have helped re-energize public support for protecting a largely invisible resource.

“Our decision makers have forgotten how important the aquifer is,” Osborn said. “One thing we can thank Burlington Northern for is they’ve brought it into the public view.”