County leaders want meeting with BNSF
Kootenai County leaders are demanding a meeting with railroad and state leaders to discuss changes made at BNSF Railway Co.’s refueling depot on the Rathdrum Prairie.
But Gus Johnson, County Commission chairman – who vowed Monday to fight for a permanent closure of the facility – tempered his remarks Thursday when flanked by his fellow elected commissioners, and he retreated from an earlier request for a full-blown public hearing on leaks at the depot.
Johnson explained that he needed to gather more facts before deciding whether to try revoking the depot’s operating permit.
“There’s a process to everything we do here in government,” Johnson said during a county meeting Thursday in Coeur d’Alene. “We need to know where and what and how everything has transpired up to this date.”
The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, which succeeded in shutting down the depot for nearly three months because of cracks found on the fueling platform and leaky pipe seals, agreed to the facility’s reopening Monday. Trains have again started to roll through the site, where BNSF says it has spent about $10 million on repairs. Prior to the repairs, small amounts of diesel leaked from the depot to the region’s drinking water aquifer 160 feet below.
Hours after the state declared the depot safe to reopen, Johnson said he wanted it permanently closed, citing powers specified in an operating permit granted by the county five years ago. Johnson’s fellow commissioners have not publicly supported the call to close the facility. But all commissioners agreed that the county needs more information on the repairs made at the site, as well as additional details on a monitoring agreement that expands Idaho Department of Environmental Quality’s regulatory authority over the depot. The $42 million high-speed fueling station opened Sept. 1.
“We’re all in need of some answers,” Commissioner Katie Brodie said. “We’re all anxious to know what happened from September until today that makes it different. And that’s my biggest concern. What’s in place that gives us the assurances we are looking for? Hopefully those are the answers we’ll get at the meeting.”
A date for the meeting has not yet been set, but a BNSF executive attending the meeting said the company is willing to meet with the county and provide tours of the site. Commissioner Rick Currie said county leaders must take an active role in ensuring safety of the aquifer.
“There has been overwhelming public concern over the state of the facility,” he said.
The county could face a difficult and costly legal battle if it tries to revoke BNSF’s operating permit, predicted Spokane attorney and water law expert Rachael Paschal Osborn, who represented an unsuccessful lawsuit in 2000 to stop construction of the depot.
“I don’t think it would come without a fight,” Osborn said. “BN has made it clear they’ve done what they’re going to do.”
Railroads are granted strong legal shields under federal interstate commerce rules, but Osborn added that several agreements between railroads and local governments have withstood federal court challenges.
Whatever meeting occurs between the county and the railroad will be open to the public, but public testimony will not be taken, Johnson said. Several critics of the depot complained that the meeting would not be a formal public hearing.
“He backed off,” longtime depot critic Buell Hollister said of Johnson.
A different set of county commissioners approved the depot in 2000, and Hollister said he doubts the current leaders can do anything to prevent further trouble from occurring, other than “just pray that there’s not another major leak.
“They can’t do anything. They can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “A terrible mistake was made, and it may be irreversible.”
Renata Moon, a pediatrician, said she is angry no public hearings have been held since leaks were first reported in December. “We’ve been completely left out of this,” she said.
Moon said she no longer drinks the water, even though state officials insist the contamination is at levels that pose no threat to human health. BNSF says the contamination has not spread farther than 40 feet from the point of the leak and special air vapor wells have been drilled to suck the estimated 2,000 to 3,000 gallons of fuel off the aquifer.
BNSF executives met with the editorial board of The Spokesman-Review Thursday afternoon in an effort to begin rebuilding public trust.
“The aquifer is safe,” said Mark Stehly, the company’s assistant vice president for environment and research development.
Stehly added that the depot has more leak protections and electronic monitoring devices than any other business atop the aquifer, including massive fuel storage tank farms in Spokane, where millions of gallons of gasoline are stored. Three separate fuel protection barriers exist at the depot, but most storage tanks elsewhere have only a single sheet of steel between the fuel and the aquifer.
“They’re not required to have liners, they’re not required to have monitoring,” Stehly said. “With the protections we’ve got, it will remain safe.”
BNSF searched around the world for products and engineers to help fix flaws found at the depot, said Steve Millsap, assistant vice president for structures. At one point, a top scientist from Germany was flown to North Idaho to help apply special sealants atop the fueling platform. BNSF has blamed the problems on faulty construction and engineering practices and says it intends to file lawsuits to recover its repair costs.
Millsap said he and other senior BNSF managers hoped the Hauser refueling depot would become a model facility. He said he still has hope the changes will set an industry standard.
“I’m embarrassed,” Millsap told editorial board members. “I truly am.”
At the same meeting, however, company spokesman Gus Melonas complained of “hysteria” surrounding the leaks and said the site is now perceived in the same category as the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill.
“In reality, the media blew this out of proportion,” Melonas said. “There’s been a mountain made out of a molehill.”