(The following article by Dan Daly was posted on the Rapid City Journal website on February 16.)
RAPID CITY, S.D. — It took eight years, but Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad now has the official blessing of the federal Surface Transportation Board to build its $2.5 billion coal line.
The STB issued its decision granting DM&E final approval to build a 280-mile rail line from Wall to the coal-rich Powder River Basin of northeast Wyoming. The project also involves rebuilding DM&E’s existing rail line east into Minnesota.
In approving the request, the board also imposed 147 environmental conditions that DM&E must meet in order to build its line.
“We are satisfied that these environmental mitigation conditions (previously estimated to cost as much as $140 million) are reasonable and feasible measures to reduce, or in some respects, eliminate the potential adverse impacts of this major rail construction project,” DM&E officials wrote in their decision. “In our view, this mitigation will provide appropriate safeguards to ensure safe operations and protect the environment to the extent practicable.”
DM&E filed its application with the STB in February 1998.
The STB environmental staff spent nearly four years doing an exhaustive environmental review. Staffers wrote a 5,000-page draft environmental-impact statement in 2000. They received 8,600 written statements and staged a dozen public meetings attended by 1,700 people.
The project met with strong opposition at both ends of the line. Ranchers and landowners in western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming fought to stop the railroad from taking their land. People in Pierre, Brookings and Rochester, Minn., bristled at the prospect of 37 long, fast-moving coal trains running through their neighborhoods.
Others, including Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., sided with the railroad. They said the railroad would create thousands of jobs and give farmers access to far-flung grain markets.
“The STB’s approval today of DM&E’s proposal should come as no surprise, as it’s been eight years since DM&E first submitted its application,” Thune said. “The DM&E project could transform South Dakota’s economy for generations. A project of this magnitude could have a massive economic impact throughout the state and region. This is the type of development that South Dakota needs to build and strengthen our economy.”
The 2,500-page Final EIS was published in November 2001, and the STB approved the project in January 2002. Opponents of the project appealed the decision to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 8th Circuit returned the case to the STB for more work. Among the questions was what impact will Midwest power plants burning DM&E-hauled coal have on air quality?
The STB’s environmental staff drafted a supplemental EIS that addressed the new questions. And on Wednesday the STB reiterated its 2002 decision, that the project’s benefits still outweigh its environmental impact.
“The Board recognized that, even with this mitigation, some significant adverse impacts would remain,” STB wrote in its decision. “Nevertheless, the Board did not find the impacts severe enough to warrant disapproving construction of the proposed new line, in view of the significant transportation and public benefits from the proposal.”
The decision becomes final in 30 days. The railroad still has many hurdles ahead. For one, it must win a controversial $2.5 billion loan for the Federal Railroad Administration. Then, it must acquire land — most likely through condemnation — and create viable markets for Wyoming coal.
But Wednesday’s decision was a significant step forward, DM&E president Kevin Schieffer said.
“This is a great day for DM&E,” he said in a written statement Wednesday. “It’s been a long time coming, but we are pleased with the end result. This project will have a tremendous positive impact on agriculture, grain prices and economic development in our area. And it will help lower energy costs and expand rail capacity nationally. The STB’s decision today affirms the project’s overwhelming public benefits.”