Activist Works In Overdrive
THE DEPOT DEBATE
Today, Kootenai County commissioners are expected to make a decision on Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway’s controversial bid to build a refueling depot near Hauser.
Because of its location - atop the area’s sole source of drinking water - the depot plan has sparked a regional debate.
Today’s stories examine the work of two people playing key roles in that debate - a railroad employee and a local activist.
Lucy Foeller has a reputation for putting her heart into everything she does.
In 1998, that tendency landed her in the hospital.
The diminutive single mother from Post Falls had already become a driving force in a battle against the railroad refueling depot proposed near Hauser.
The activist lifestyle didn’t do her any good. Along with the depot campaign, Foeller worked at North Idaho College, was trying to finish a bachelor’s degree and while caring for a handicapped son.
Snickers wrappers carpeted her car floor, the remnants of hasty lunches. That year, Foeller spent Christmas night in the emergency room, suffering from dehydration and exhaustion following a year of nonstop activity.
Foeller said she realized how frantic her life had become when she woke up from an afternoon snooze to see worry etched on her children’s faces.
“I had my youngest son and daughter peering at me and thinking I was dying because they’d never really seen me stop moving before,” she says. “That really made me think.”
Her fervor for fighting the depot hasn’t cooled since then, but she’s heeded advice to eat better and reduce stress.
The Foeller home - a melon-orange place the family has dubbed “The Cantaloupe” - overlooks the flat expanse of Rathdrum Prairie where the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway wants to build the depot.
But Foeller, 42, didn’t hurry into the campaign against the depot. After growing frustrated by North Idaho’s political apathy, she said, she needed to know she had public support before getting involved.
Foeller was hooked when arch enemies came together in Friends of the Aquifer, a two-year-old grassroots group battling the depot. Staunch Republicans such as Dee Lawless joined with ardent environmentalists and Democratic party faithfuls like Post Falls farmer Buell Hollister.
“This has restored my faith in the community,” Foeller says.
Taking a break in the North Idaho College student union last week, Foeller seemed to know everybody who passed. Still working on her degree, she also works part-time in the college’s professional development office.
Foeller spent 14 years as a stay-at-home mom, taking care of her four kids: Annie, 21; Paul, 20; Alana, 17; and Great, 14. Paul, she says, suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder.
In the 1980s, she and her husband divorced, and Foeller dove into volunteer work fighting for better utility rates and various health care causes.
Involved with fellow Friends member Wayne Bailey for the last five years, Foeller favors dramatic hats and thick-heeled shoes that lift her to 5-foot-2-inches, tops. At recent public hearings on the depot, she flitted from a front table covered in cookies to last-minute huddles with other members of the group.
Foeller joined a Coeur d’Alene women’s group 11 years ago, and the friends she made keep her mindful of her health.
Julie James, one of the group’s core members, says Foeller is the kind of person who doesn’t just complain about something, she does something about it. Friends are impressed by her integrity, and her ability to listen to any opinions with grace.
“She is a powerhouse packed in a little, little box,” says James. “Lucy is a model of ethics for anyone to follow.”
Regardless of the outcome at today’s county commission decision, Foeller says her hard work is probably over.
The next step is up to attorneys.
If the commission turns down the railroad’s request, the Friends will wait to see if the railroad opts to appeal to the federal government. If the commission gives the railroad the approval it seeks, the Friends, or even the state of Washington, will likely consider legal appeals.
“No matter which way this goes, most of the work isn’t going to be in our corner,” Foeller says. “It’s going to be in the law department’s corner.”
This sidebar appeared with the story:
The issue
Kootenai County Commissioners today are expected to decide whether to permit Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway to build a refueling depot near Hauser.
PRO - Railroad officials - and local economic developers - say a new refueling depot will allow BNSF to compete with other railroads and truckers, as well as combat rail congestion in Seattle. State-of-the-art environmental safeguards mean there is no chance of polluting groundwater, company officials say.
CON - Depot opponents say it poses too great a threat to the Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Aquifer, the sole drinking-water source for 400,000 residents. BNSF cannot guarantee groundwater protection, opponents say, and there are better sites available off the aquifer.