(The following story by Kevin Wright appeared on the Kansas City Star website on August 9, 2009.)
OLATHE, Kan. — Environmentalists say there are several discrepancies and flaws in a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers health-risk evaluation of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway’s proposed Intermodal Hub and Logistics Park.
And this should concern all residents living within the vicinity of the proposed 413-acre hub in southeast Johnson County, they said.
A panel of national and local environmentalists, scientists and environmental lawyers presented information Thursday night about the health ramifications associated with the hub that will transfer cargo from freight trains to trucks.
In a preliminary report, the corps said the intermodal would have adverse effects on traffic, air and water quality, but that pollution would not increase the risk of people getting cancer.
The major flaw with the report is that it underestimated the number of trains and trucks using the Kansas hub and the amount of toxins those numbers will produce through diesel fuel emissions, said Andrea Hricko, an associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine.
She said the report also fails to discuss environmental effects data already collected from scientific studies of other intermodal hubs, particularly California, where millions of freight units are offloaded at ports and shipped directly to Kansas, she said.
Jennifer Peel, assistant professor of epidemiology at Colorado State University, said diesel fuel emits 100 of the 187 recognized toxic air pollutants in the form of particulate matter that produces significant health risks.
And there’s also evidence that the health risks associated with rail yards and the trucking industry are greater because the predominant fuel used in operations is diesel, Peel said.
The corps said it has determined the risk for most toxics related to the hub, but not diesel fuel because the Environmental Protection Agency has found insufficient data to establish a protective cancer-risk threshold.
Hricko said that is an insufficient answer, especially based on what she and other environmental scientists know about the health risks associated with intermodal hubs in the United States.
Craig Volland, a qualified environmental professional, said the modeling the corps used to assess the air particulates was insufficient and based on readings that failed to take in other particulate matter the intermodal hub will produce.
Peel does admit that the Johnson County hub cannot be entirely compared to the intermodals and the associated environmental problems in California. Population mass and environmental conditions are much different in the two states. Pollution is pollution, however, and diesel fuel emits the same toxins in California as it does in Kansas, she said.
Air quality is not the only concern.
Elaine Giessel, a marine ecologist and wildlife biologist, said the risk to drinking and recreational water is also a concern. BNSF plans to obtain a permit to fill in natural streams located on the property and build a “conservation corridor,” which is a storm water gathering system. BNSF also will treat water at the facility.
Nowhere in the environmental assessment did the corps measure the system’s capabilities, Giessel said.
The intermodal hub and logistics park will convert agricultural land into a concrete jungle, which is a surface that does not soak in water. Giessel questions the capacity of this system.
“The problem with concrete and asphalt surfaces is that water has nowhere to go. Can (the system) handle 2 inches of rain, 3 inches of rain” before it overflows and goes into streams? She’s also concerned where there will be adequate monitoring systems for the water the intermodal will treat and release.