Borough wants in on rail fight

PALMER — A trio of environmental groups have taken issue with federal decisions to approve a rail line to Point MacKenzie, but the Mat-Su Borough is hoping to intervene.

“This rail line will bring great economic diversification to the state of Alaska, and we’re going to advocate for it on behalf of our citizens,” borough mayor Larry DeVilbiss says in a prepared statement.

The complaint, filed with a federal appeals court, claims that the federal Surface Transportation Board, when it issued a decision allowing the project to move forward, did so in violation of the nation’s environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act.

“Petitioners respectfully submit that the court should reverse the board’s decision and remand the matter for further proceedings,” according to the complaint, filed Jan. 20.

The petitioners in question are Alaska Survival, a Talkeetna-based group that has most notably tussled with Alaska Railroad over pesticide use near railroad tracks, the national environmental group the Sierra Club and Anchorage-based Cook Inletkeeper.

Currently, the lawsuit involves just the federal government and those three groups. But on Tuesday, the borough assembly directed borough attorney Nick Spiropoulos to file to intervene.

The approval from the Surface Transportation Board came in November 2011. The borough has begun building the rail line on the Point MacKenzie end with plans to push further north. The idea is to hook in with the main Alaska Railroad line somewhere near Houston.

Bob Shavelson with Cook Inletkeeper said Thursday that attorneys on his side of the case have told him not to get into the specifics of just how the process violated environmental laws, but he wasn’t shy about sharing his opinion of the project.

“You’re going to fill in hundreds of acres of wetlands and you’re going to cross dozens of salmon streams,” Shavelson said. “The salmon population of the Mat-Su Valley are already under extreme pressure.”

The borough counters that the project has already received a thorough vetting from an environmental standpoint, posting a picture of the project’s 650-page Environmental Impact Statement to its website.

“The decision by the STB is based on the highest environmental standards,” borough manager John Moosey says in the same press release that quotes DeVilbiss. “And we are confident that the decision will stand up to a court challenge.”

Shavelson said he also questions the need for the project, which has long been pitched as a means to make a viable port in the Valley for importing and exporting bulk commodities. Rail backers say a shorter route to tidewater will make resources like limestone and metals economical to develop in the state’s Interior.

Shavelson disagrees, saying he thinks the project has been rushed through to construction.

“It’s the ‘build it and they will come’ philosophy, but there’s also the notion that you’ve got to get the shovel in the ground fast because once you’ve started nobody’s going to want to pull that funding back from you,” he said.

He also questions the cost, saying he thinks the estimates of somewhere north of $200 million to build the line are low with major unaccounted-for costs when it comes to running and maintaining the route.

“We’re trying to understand better what the operations and maintenance costs are going to be for this one, because it’s so important for the public to make an informed decision,” Shavelson said.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at Andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.