Officials of the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. don’t get it yet.

They think the BNSF refueling depot at Hauser is all about faster transportation times and profits – not protecting the region’s drinking water, as they promised when they appeared hat in hand to lobby for the project permits. Now that the depot has proved to be the environmental hazard many feared, the railroaders want to downplay their original pledges. They want the overhauled depot reopened immediately despite concern by state officials that it still could be leaking.

Rather than gripe and rush to return to business as usual, BNSF officials should welcome tough scrutiny by the state to protect their operation from future closures. In court proceedings this week to decide when the depot would reopen, BNSF representatives appeared more concerned about the bottom line than underground water purity.

Apparently, railroad executives don’t grasp that they’ve blown their chance to make a good first impression by opening a leaky depot above the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer. Not only does the railroad need to improve its image by taking the time needed to reopen a leak-proof depot, but it should build as much good will as it can by inviting intense state and public inspection of the facility. As an act of good will, the railroad also should consider forfeiting a $5 million bond, for aquifer protection, and quit fighting to close temporary monitoring wells once it completes reconstruction.

Activists have good reason to worry about the railroad’s abysmal environmental history.

In a two-part series, Spokesman-Review staff writer James Hagengruber revealed BNSF has contaminated sites in dozens of cities across the West. At Livingston, Mont., railroad pollution from solvents and diesel has been blamed for diseases, miscarriages and early deaths. More than 20 years into negotiations, Montana still is trying to get the railroad to remove several feet of diesel floating on top of the aquifer beneath Livingston. In North Dakota, meanwhile, the central business district in Mandan has been nearly destroyed by an estimated 3.6 million gallons of diesel that leaked from railroad operations into the aquifer.

In pushing to reopen its Hauser depot, the railroad has confirmed the words of environmental activist Jim Jensen, who has been working for nearly two decades to get the railroad to clean up polluted Montana sites.

“BN means bad news,” Jensen told The Spokesman-Review. “Every place they operate they contaminate the water. You can’t trust them. The only thing you can trust with BN is they will contaminate your water and they will try every political trick to keep from being regulated and to keep from being prosecuted.”

Underscoring Jensen’s words, BNSF argued in court this week that any further delays in reopening the Hauser facility would violate its federal right to conduct business across state lines. But they didn’t mention spoiling the aquifer across state lines. Also, railroad representatives complained BNSF was being singled out by the state for harsher scrutiny than other businesses above the aquifer, including truck stops. In other words, they don’t like being forced to fulfill the promise that they could build and operate a state-of-the-art, fail-safe depot above a sole-source aquifer.

They’re still operating with a 19th century mentality in the 21st century.