State wants depot shut down
Citing an “immediate and substantial danger to public health and the environment,” the state of Idaho sought an emergency court order Tuesday to shut down BNSF Railway’s refueling depot in Hauser, Idaho.
The lawsuit was filed just two hours after railroad executives met with state leaders in Boise to insist the repeated fuel leaks at the depot did not pose a threat to the region’s sole-source aquifer. The executives apologized for the latest leak, detected nine days ago, and asked the state to not meddle with ongoing refueling operations at the six-month-old depot.
“There’s dirt all over us for this,” said Mark Stehly, BNSF’s director of environment and research development, during the early afternoon meeting in Boise. “We don’t mind it. We are embarrassed, but it still is an extremely good facility.”
The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality begged to differ.
“There is no longer adequate protections or controls at the Hauser facility,” according to the lawsuit filed late in the afternoon by DEQ in state district court in Kootenai County. “More evidence is gathered each day that suggests that the problem is bigger than BNSF believes. Each refueling event represents a new chance for a spill and a chance for a diesel release into the environment.”
Lawyers for the railroad and DEQ waited outside an occupied courtroom for the emergency hearing, but the court action never took place. Because of a miscommunication between the state’s lawyer and court staff, the judge adjourned court and went home for the day – exiting the courtroom, as is customary, from a private door – without being informed of the last-minute addition to the docket.
The case is expected to be heard today in court. In the lawsuit, Deputy Attorney General Garrick Baxter cited public nuisance and deleterious material storage laws in asking for an immediate closure of the refueling depot. The lawsuit demands that the depot remain closed until BNSF repairs holes in the plastic barriers buried below the refueling platform and until the railroad demonstrates the integrity of the containment barriers. At least two of the three fuel containment barriers have been breached, but 120,000 gallons of diesel continue to be processed daily at the site, the state alleges.
BNSF continues to insist there is no evidence of a leak below the third containment barrier. On Tuesday, the railroad began specialized horizontal drilling to explore for petroleum in the soil 10 feet below the barriers, said BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas. This week, BNSF will also begin to seal cracks discovered in the concrete fueling platform.
“Everything is contained,” Melonas said.
State officials are not convinced, saying four petroleum leaks in two months have raised serious concerns about the facility’s design and construction. The first spill was blamed on a crushed pipe designed to drain water and spilled fuel from the main refueling platform. An investigation into the incident revealed two additional wastewater pipe leaks. DEQ officials said the leaks appear to be minor, but their discovery was an important indication of the depot’s problems. The latest leak became the turning point.
There appears to be little trust between the DEQ and the railroad. This was evident in court papers filed by DEQ. One of the exhibits was a letter from BNSF assuring county leaders of the steps being taken to ensure no further leaks occur. In the Feb. 17 letter, BNSF insisted the refueling platforms were being kept dry and that vacuum trucks were on hand to suck up any spills. In the margin next to the statement, someone from DEQ had handwritten the word “Lie.”
Forty percent of refueling operations at the depot have ceased, BNSF’s vice president of engineering, Greg Fox, told state officials Tuesday in Boise.
“We feel the measures we are taking are working,” Fox said during the hourlong meeting. “We are concerned with the precedent it would set if we closed all of our operations.”
Fox added, “This is fixable … we are working very hard to restore the integrity of all our liners.”
In a town-hall meeting last weekend in Kootenai County, Sen. Michael Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, said the depot controversy was the only thing people wanted to talk about with legislators.
“The bottom line was: What were we going to do with the situation out in Hauser,” he said.
Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, said profit motives appear to be overriding public health concerns.
“You can’t put a price on the aquifer,” Nonini told railroad executives during the meeting. “I understand you have to answer to board members, but we have fresh water drinkers to answer to. They’re a lot more important than board members.”
Nonini said he’s still taking heat from some constituents about his support for the depot as a county commissioner.
“This is a state-of-the-art facility that, in your words, would take an act of God to have a problem,” the freshman representative said. “Now we’ve had two problems in eight months. … If there’s a third problem, it might not ever be open again.” Washington lawmakers also are watching the situation, but the issue remains mostly off the radar in Olympia, said Sen. Brad Benson, R-Spokane.
“The majority of people over here don’t realize there is an Eastern Washington,” Benson said. “If this was in Hood Canal, it would be a major issue.”
Along with Benson, Rep. Larry Crouse, R-Spokane, is calling on the depot to close for a complete investigation.
“We just can’t take the risk of losing our drinking water source,” he said. “That’s economic development. If we don’t have good water, what are you going to do?”