(The following story by Alecia Warren appeared on the Coeur d’Alene Press website on November 13, 2009.)
COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho — The track wasn’t totally clear for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Thursday night, when the company faced its 60-month compliance review for its refueling depot in Hauser.
Although the Kootenai County commissioners lauded the railroad’s efforts to protect the Rathdrum-Prairie Aquifer underlying the facility, they still raised doubts of whether there could be more parameters to prevent problems down the road.
“You’ve done an excellent job in maintaining processes at the facility. You stepped up during incidents and took care of it,” said Commissioner Rick Currie. “But citizens need to have every level of assurance that the facility is living up to the standards that were set.”
Established as a condition of approval when the county granted a conditional use permit for the depot in September 2004, the hearing gauged BNSF’s compliance with the permit conditions to judge whether any new or modified parameters were needed.
After questioning BNSF representatives about their efforts to follow the permit’s 33 conditions, the commissioners voted unanimously to table deliberations until 10 a.m. next Thursday at the county Administration Building.
At the hearing, BNSF presented a summary of its three-pronged approach to prevent fuel leaks at its $52 million facility, including constant maintenance, specialized employee training and a facility protected with two high-density liners and computerized leak-detection monitoring that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“We aren’t sloppy at Hauser,” said Terry Gay, BNSF general foreman.
The railroad representatives also revealed an impressive report card from the facility’s first five years, during which it has pumped more than 290 million gallons of fuel and serviced more than 54,000 trains.
But the commissioners still had questions, specifically about why the facility didn’t shut down when a leak was discovered in December 2004 that reached the underlying aquifer.
They also wondered why the Department of Environmental Quality had to order an injunction for the facility to shut down in February 2005, when BNSF discovered a lost containment, or diesel on a liner.
“At what point do you shut down?” asked Commissioner Todd Tondee. “When the leak passes layer one, layer two, layer three?”
Gay responded that the facility had been in full compliance when the 2004 leak was discovered, as the company contacted DEQ immediately and started excavating contaminated soil that very day.
“We see it as extraordinary that because of a breach of containment or a breach of one liner that we should shut down an entire railroad,” Gay said.
The commissioners weren’t so sure.
“I think what I’d like to hear you say is if it breaches one or two liners that you’re going to shut down and find out what’s going on,” said Commissioner Rich Piazza.
The officials were also concerned with the railroad’s decision to keep three horizontal wells that were drilled to enhance monitoring after the 2005 breach of containment.
Currie worried that the wells now provide a conduit to the aquifer, and that they might not work for back-up monitoring since the company isn’t including them in the facility’s regular monitoring program.
“I don’t want to see 10 years down the line, if there is a problem, to go in and operate one of these wells and find it’s not working,” Currie said.
Only a few members of the public turned out to speak on the depot which garnered heated opposition five years ago.
One Hauser couple neighboring the facility said the constant train traffic has driven down their property value by $100,000 in the last two years.
“The trains always shake our house, damage our house, every few months repairs have to be made,” said Glenda Ulery. “Our cell phones, TV and wireless Internet are utterly unstable. We can’t have one operating for five minutes without disruption of service.”
Gay said BNSF is constantly tweaking its operation to be as efficient and safe as possible.
“We have the attitude of complete sincerity and seriousness to ensure these conditions are met,” he said.