Rail line lawsuit fails in federal court

PALMER — One of two open lawsuits against the Mat-Su Borough’s Port MacKenzie rail spur project was tossed out of court Wednesday morning.

“The 9th Circuit (Court of Appeals) has granted the motion to lift the stay of the Port MacKenzie Rail Extension project, and at the same time denied the Petition for Review filed by our opponents. This means that we win on the merits of the case,” borough attorney Nick Spiropoulos wrote in an email to staff.

He noted that there is still a lawsuit in state court and that the plaintiffs there could, and likely would, ask that the project be halted while the lawsuit is decided.

Until such a request is granted, though, the borough is in the clear.

The federal lawsuit was brought by Alaska Survival, Sierra Club and Cook Inletkeeper and asked that the federal Surface Transportation Board’s decision to green-light the project be reconsidered as it didn’t comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.

The appeals court initially agreed to halt the project while it considered the lawsuit.

“After further review of the record, we have concluded that the STB’s ‘purpose and need’ statement complied with NEPA and that Petitioners no longer raise ‘serious questions’ on this point,” the court wrote.

So the court lifted the stay it had ordered stopping work on the rail line.

The court went on to say that the plaintiffs had been on the weightier side of the “balance of hardships” if the project were to move forward since there could potentially be environmental harm. Now, though, it’s the borough and the railroad that are facing greater hardships.

“Further delay of this project will prevent the award of construction contracts, postpone the hiring of construction employees and significantly increase costs,” the court wrote.

Since the court found the STB had followed the proper process, it felt it could not weigh in and reverse that decision now.

“It is for the STB and not for our court to balance the justifications of planned economic progress in improved rail service against the possibilities of environmental harm from building and operating the rail line,” the court wrote.

Opponents of the spur say the line isn’t necessary and will disrupt hundreds of thousands of acres of salmon habitat in the Mat-Su Valley.

“We already have three tidewater ports in Southcentral Alaska,” said Bob Shavelson, Cook Inletkeeper advocacy director. “It doesn’t make sense to continue pouring hundreds of millions of public dollars into an unneeded project. Port Mac’s business model rests on pie-in-the-sky assumptions, and Alaskans cannot afford another public funding disaster like the Port of Anchorage.”

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