Monday, Dec. 21, 2009

BNSF cleared to build rail hub near Gardner

The federal government has cleared the way for BNSF Railway to start construction of a massive rail hub that critics say could hurt the environment.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has issued the permit that BNSF has been waiting on for months to start construction of a 418-acre rail yard off Interstate 35 near Gardner.

“The corps determined that the project is in the public interest, is the least environmentally damaging practicable alternative and will not significantly impact the human environment,” the agency said in a brief statement.

The corps’ decision is bound to anger environmentalists who have questioned the health risks posed by the freight yard, which is one of the biggest economic development projects in the metro area.

Environmentalists have contended that the corps has underestimated the health impacts of the rail yard. They say that the corps didn’t fully assess the cancer risk tied to the BNSF Railway project and that the corps’ predictions of diesel emissions were much less than what’s generated at rail projects elsewhere. In a preliminary report issued last summer, the corps found that a person had a better chance of getting cancer in a typical lifetime than they would from pollution from the freight center near Gardner.

The report said the project would have some moderate to significant adverse effects on air quality, traffic and streams, but said BNSF had plans to reduce any negatives effects.

At that time, the corps acknowledged it didn’t quantify all cancer risks because there’s insufficient data to do so.

Although the Environmental Protection Agency has classified diesel emissions as a likely cause of cancer, it hasn’t specified a threshold of exposure where the cancer risk rises.

Regulators say they measured potential diesel emissions at the Gardner site, but didn’t specifically examine the related cancer risks.

But environmentalists argued that data are available for the corps to do its own evaluation of diesel emissions. They point to California studies showing that residents living near rail yards face an increased cancer risk.

Earlier this year, the railway put its intermodal plans on hold because of the economy, but if it gets $50 million in federal stimulus money, it will begin construction as soon as possible, BNSF said.

A decision on the stimulus money is expected early next year. BNSF Railway is planning a shipping hub to move goods from trucks to trains and from trains to trucks. Next door will be a logistics park of warehouses for storing goods until they are shipped.

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