BNSF sues to avoid heightened environmental safeguards at Hauser refueling station.

In what will clearly be the next chapter in the decade-long and bitter controversy over the siting of a major railroad refueling station above the Spokane Valley/Rathdrum Prairie aquifer, the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe railroad is suing Kootenai County.
According to the Spokesman-Review, the suit filed in late October is in response to new regulations and other measures the north Idaho county would like to put in place in order to mitigate the potential for contaminating the relatively shallow aquifer. The aquifer is the greater Spokane area’s “sole source” of drinking water. BNSF contends that the County simply doesn’t have the authority to regulate operations or facilities that are part of an interstate transportation system.
The Coeur d’Alene Press reports that the new measures proposed by the county include:
*A cessation of operations at the facility during a fuel leak that compromises containment measures.
*improved on-site test well maintenance.
*providing funding for a full-time, state staff position for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (IDEQ)’s aquifer protection program.
As reporter Kevin Taylor recounts in the November 4th edition of The Inlander, the $42 million refueling facility is infamous for the “virtually leakproof” guarantees offered by the railroad, even though it appears to have begun leaking fuel even before it opened. Contamination from the 2,000 gallon spill reached the aquifer below the facility and, according to an Idaho Department of Environmental Quality official quoted by Taylor, can still be detected in the groundwater.
Spokane lawyer and Center for Environmental Law & Policy executive director Rachel Paschal Osborn, one of the leaders in the fight to stop the siting of the BNSF facility above the aquifer, is quoted extensively in Taylor’s story.