(The Associated Press circulated the following article on February 23.)
SEATTLE, Wash. — State officials have sought an emergency court order to shut down a train refueling station that sits atop the source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people in two states — and has leaked twice since last fall.
A state district court judge adjourned proceedings before learning of the filing late Tuesday, and the matter was scheduled for a hearing Wednesday.
The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality sought the shutdown order in Kootenai County, citing an “immediate and substantial danger to the environment,” The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., reported.
Earlier Tuesday, Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. officials met with department representatives to discuss water testing the railroad has done near the depot.
Since opening last September, the railroad’s refueling depot near Hauser has twice leaked petroleum-contaminated wastewater. The depot sits atop an underground aquifer that is the sole source of drinking water for 400,000 people from Coeur d’Alene to Spokane.
State Deputy Attorney General Garrick Baxter cited public nuisance and deleterious material storage laws in asking for immediate closure. “There (are) no longer adequate protections or controls at the Hauser facility,” he wrote.
The lawsuit demanded a halt to operations until the company patches the plastic barriers underneath fuel pipes and shows the containment barriers will not leak.
The state claims at least two of three fuel containment barriers have been breached, the newspaper reported. Railroad officials insist there is no evidence of a leak below the third containment barrier.
Burlington Northern has temporarily suspended 40 percent of fueling operations, and test drilling at the depot indicates no contamination in nearby soil, spokesman Gus Melonas said from Seattle.
The railroad began drilling Tuesday to test for petroleum 10 feet below the barriers, Melonas said.
State environmental directors asked last week that the railroad halt refueling operations at Hauser, and officials in the Washington state Department of Ecology said they supported the Idaho agency’s shutdown demand.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told the Spokane newspaper Monday that the leaks raise several federal issues, including possible violations of the Railroad Act and federal clean water laws.
“The aquifer doesn’t know state boundaries,” she said.
Murray said she did not know what Congress might be able to do but suggested that federal agencies could eventually get involved.
“It is something we would take up with the (Bush) administration,” she said.
A spokesman said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, supports the closure but has no plans to intervene unless the railroad rejects the demand.
Mark MacIntyre of the Environmental Protection Agency in Seattle said Tuesday the regulatory agency is monitoring the situation but considers the question of federal jurisdiction murky.