(The Associated Press circulated the following article on March 3.)
SPOKANE, Wash. — Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. crews have removed the rails from the Hauser depot fueling platform and expanded their search for leaks.
Kootenai County Commissioner Rick Currie said BNSF had to cut through a second section of concrete in the primary containment basin at the fueling platform to check for a leak in a plastic layer below.
“It wasn’t leaking where they first thought,” said Currie, who was advised Thursday by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality about work at the depot.
The $42 million depot, completed in September, was closed last week by court order because recent leaks threatened the Rathdrum Prairie-Spokane Valley Aquifer, which flows 150 feet below the fueling area and provides water to 500,000 people in two states.
One leak was discovered Dec. 10 in a wastewater pipe and a second leak was detected in February.
A court hearing is scheduled Wednesday to determine whether the shutdown order should be changed or continued.
BNSF has had to bring additional equipment to drill horizontally under the containment barriers to check for leaks, said Marc Kalbaugh, who is overseeing the work for the state environmental agency.
BNSF and state workers are taking soil samples from beneath the containment layers to be analyzed for contamination. Rails have been removed from the fueling platform, and all concrete is being sealed with several layers of resin, Kalbaugh said.
“They are resurfacing the whole platform,” he said.
BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas said the railroad has assigned 80 workers at the depot to investigate and repair the leaks, more than the number employed to build the operation last year.