Groups call for probe at BNSF refueling depot

Two environmental groups called for an independent investigation on Wednesday into a leak at a railroad refueling depot that has apparently breached the region’s drinking water supply.

Friends of the Aquifer and the local chapter of the Sierra Club asked Kootenai County commissioners to investigate the leak at Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co.’s refueling depot near Rathdrum, Idaho.

“I do not trust Burlington Northern to disclose whatever they may find at the depot,” said Rachael Paschal Osborn, an attorney representing the groups. “This is a company that has to be watched closely.”

The railroad has refused to release the results of preliminary soil samples until further tests are completed next week. On Wednesday, in response to a public records request, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality released two pages of the findings but said the other documents would not be available until next week.

The documents show soil samples beneath the depot revealed small amounts of several toxic chemicals, including naphthalene, ethylbenzene and xylene. None of the chemicals were in concentrations that violated state limits, but a state official said other samples showed higher concentrations.

“There has been a release of hazardous material,” said Geoff Harvey, waste and remediation director for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality’s northern region.

A railroad official said an 8-inch plastic pipe that carries wastewater and small amounts of fuel was apparently fractured during construction. The state-of-the-art facility, which provides fuel to locomotives, opened Sept. 1, but the leak was not detected until this month.

The controversial 500,000-gallon facility sits above the Rathdrum Prairie-Spokane Valley Aquifer – the sole source of drinking water for more than 400,000 people in North Idaho and Eastern Washington.

Railroad spokesman Gus Melonas said state and county officials have been apprised of the ongoing investigation.

“BNSF’s engineering department is developing an approach to ensure that the wastewater system will not be compromised in the future,” Melonas said.

But environmental leaders seized upon the leak as evidence that the depot presents an ongoing threat to the water supply. In a letter to county commissioners, the groups asked that BNSF’s permit be reviewed to ensure that the company had met a slew of conditions required by the county in 2000.

The permit stated the railroad company must post a $5 million environmental protection bond and fund a staff position for the state’s aquifer protection program. State and county officials said the railroad has met both requirements.

Kootenai County Commissioners Gus Johnson and Rick Currie said they would not take any action until they received test results from the railroad and state engineers.

Johnson said he is “not a big fan” of the Sierra Club. He said he did not plan to invoke a condition of the permit that allows the county to hire a quality assurance inspector at the railroad’s expense.

“If the Sierra Club wants to pay for that, they can send me a check, and I’ll think about it,” Johnson said.

The environmental groups pointed out that the commissioners’ findings in 2000 stated “(t)here was no scientific evidence that credibly established that the aquifer would in fact be reached by a spill.”

“Those words are ringing hollow at this time,” the groups said in a joint press release.