Today’s meeting of the North Coast Railroad Authority’s Board of Directors saw plenty of impassioned arguments, lots of squabbling over legalese and at least two cases of hurt feelings. The two most notable results were these:
1) The board voted 8-1 to delete key parts of a 2011 resolution, thus invalidating an environmental impact report that it filed just two years ago and which was financed with $3 million of public money from the California Transportation Commission, and
2) The board joined a long list of government agencies in approving a resolution in support of a feasibility study for the mythic east-west rail line, but only after scratching out some of the language and adding some terms of its own.
By backing away from the environmental impact report, the board hopes to sidestep a legal challenge from two environmental groups — Friends of the Eel River and Californians for Alternatives to Toxics — that are suing the state agency, alleging that the report doesn’t comply with state environmental law. (See the groups’ letter to the board here.) It’s also an apparent admission by the board that it has no plans in the foreseeable future to rebuild the north-south rail line through the Eel River Canyon, which has been out of commission since 1999.
Hurt feelings No. 1: Scott Greacen, executive director of Friends of the Eel River, was offended by what he felt were derisive comments from board member John McCowen about environmental groups. But he was more offended by the board’s actions.
Those groups weren’t the only ones upset. Leishara Ward, a transportation planner with the California Department of Transportation, stepped to the lectern to say that the board should either abide by the terms of the EIR or return that $3 million.
In response, NCRA board members and staff made a curious argument: They said that even though they don’t believe their agency is bound to comply with the terms of the EIR, the $3 million in public funds that paid for it wasn’t a waste because, hey, there’s still a lot of good data in there. As NCRA legal counsel Chris Neary said, “The environmental impact report will stand as an informational document.”
Hurt feelings No. 2: Board Chair Paul Kelley said he was annoyed that it took the Land Bridge Alliance, the organization pushing for an east-west rail study, so long to approach the NCRA board. This was quickly smoothed over.
At board member Bill Kier’s suggestion, language was added to the resolution stating that a) the feasibility study should include the existing north-south right-of-way as a viable alternative, and b) it should address financing for the project.
Kier made a veiled reference to a certain local businessman who said in a radio interview last October that the whole project “pencils out” with private funding. Proponents are now advocating a public-private partnership, and Jan Kraepelien, one such proponent, suggested financing the study through the Headwaters Fund.
This article appears in On the Lake.
The fact that similar dreams were recently dashed in Coos Bay, OR should offer a a hint of what is not possible here. The railroad, port, and overseas buyers of coal all existed and were in negotiations, and it failed because it was still too expensive to upgrade that line to bring coal down from Portland.
So, the NCRA + local support is telling us that wasting money on thinking about building a brand new line is reasonable use of public funds? Where are the tea-partiers now?
Ask Green Diamond or Humboldt Redwood what it would cost to build a haul road from here to Red Bluff, my money says they would laugh in your face.
More hit pieces from NCJ yuppie editors and their writer clones and all of it aimed at hurting job creation and employment for Humboldt County workers. These selfish people have theirs economic support systems in place, have helped destroy all of Humboldt County anchor businesses that used to employ thousands of workers and not stopping there, actively campaign, propagandize, and promote more evil job destruction, such as Hodgson’s and clone Ryan Burn’s obsession with stopping any potential job creation for local workers.
Judy and Ryan, stop being a-holes to the workers of Humboldt County! What is the matter with you two? Such utter selfishness in political attacks, just non-stop from the this rag that’s now nothing more than propaganda and political attacks against people trying to help ALL of Humboldt County citizens, not just the Arcata/SoHum Progs and enviros, most of whom are only here to wage social warfare instead of actually joining the community as helpers. Please, someone else take over the NCJ and make it become a real news magazine that cares about Humboldt County people.
Steven Lewis is a joke
Why not finance the whole thing–beginning, middle, end–with seized drug money? Every day I turn on the news, there’s always something like $250K in cash found at a drug bust. Seems like, at that rate, we could fund any study or any project.
There you go. Good idea, Samantha. Why not take that idea farther and have Humboldt County citizens demand all pot growers for profit contribute their share as businesses to Humboldt County services instead of using them like crooks without paying their fair share.
Or how about this: instead of our forking out huge salaries plus retirement pay of our public officials in high office compared to the people they rule over, we get people into said office who actually want to help the community more than make money better spent on Humboldt citizens, dozens of them compared to one over-paid official.
Good points Helper.
The moment our public courts stop serving corporate interests, you can bet that these “conservatives” on the NCRA will want to drown them in a bathtub too!
“Every corporation deserves its decade in court”.
“Also, we have a small out of the way population that isn’t attractive to most investors.” Well, you’re spot on there, but only in the sense that the population’s attitude isn’t attractive and has solidified the Redwood Curtain Principle. There is absolutely a cargo shipment need that could be serviced via Hum Bay and a connecting EW rail service, but the county’s reputation for fierce opposition to…well, just fierce opposition, keeps investors away.
“I already did this “study” for you… I will repeat it (again) for free.
There is this geographic feature of the North American continent called the “Great Salt Lake” which is approximately 600 miles due east of Eureka. All east-west transcontinental rail traffic must split east of the Great Salt Lake, and the northern route proceeds to Boise and then Seattle, while the southern route goes to Reno and then Oakland. The truth is that Redding is just as far from markets as Eureka is. So even if it is true that Eureka is a half day’s sea travel closer to Asia, it is at least a day farther from markets by rail. A half day or more would actually be lost by using the Port of Eureka, even supposing that a rail car could make it from Eureka to Redding to Oakland in one day. Most likely it will be two or three days.
There is nothing that we can do about this. So there you go, by accident of geography Eureka will never be a competitive deepwater West Coast port. … Then there are other issues. Could the railway to Redding actually be built? Yes, if you want to spend enough money. …You might be able to lay a new rail line across flat prairie or desert for $5 million a mile but not through those mountains. A half dozen tunnels and a half dozen bridges will cost $500 million all on their own.
This project, technically feasible will cost anywhere from $3 to $5 billion, minimum. The line would have to be heavily taxpayer subsidized or it could not exist and it will never be profitable, because of the geographical facts above.
If in some fantasy world this line was actually completed what would it haul? Although no Asian shipper of manufactured goods would use the port (because of the geographical facts above) shippers of dangerous, explosive or hazardous materials would like to have a lightly populated port to ship through. So we would get the nuclear waste, the caustic industrial chemicals and industrial acids, petroleum distillates, and military munitions. That’s your upside…
There’s your study.”
OK since I am an opponent of this fantasy east west railroad I would love to hear better, non-simplistic, more complex arguments against the east west railroad, anon 515. Please share your thoughts with us, I guess I need better arguments.
have a peaceful day,
Bill