Post by L Roebuck on Sept 19, 2005 8:10:17 GMT -5
Kentucky TriModal Transpark - Is study vital or pretext?
Environmental Impact Statement is called a necessity, or delaying tactic
By JIM GAINES, The Daily News, jgaines@bgdailynews.com/783-3242
Sunday, September 18, 2005 12:48 AM CDT
For years during the development of the Kentucky TriModal Transpark, the project's opponents have called for a federal environmental study to encompass the whole of the industrial park's impact.
On June 15, a group of them filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., seeking to force three federal agencies to carry out such a study, called an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS.
They want it to consider the effects of the entire transpark project, not limit study to the incremental impact of various components of the project and its associated development, according to the suit.
For just as many years, the transpark's backers in local government have resisted calls to have such a study performed. Now much of the project's infrastructure is under construction, and it has its first industrial tenant.
And with development so far advanced, the transpark's operators are resisting more fiercely than ever, joining in the lawsuit to prevent the U.S. government from carrying out the comprehensive analysis.
But if one more environmental study is all that opponents seek, why are the Inter-Modal Transportation Authority, Warren County and the city of Bowling Green so determined to stop it?
"I think that is precisely the question," said attorney Hank Graddy, a Sierra Club attorney representing those calling for an EIS. "The history of this project, that I'm aware of, is that from the beginning the proponents of this project said, 'We're going to comply with all environmental requirements, we're going to do an EIS.' It looked like they were headed in that direction."
The ITA's articles of incorporation, in an unusual move, specifically say that the project will seek support from the Federal Aviation Administration, he said.
"For the first couple of years, it was not a question of postponing it," Graddy said.
Instead, it was only a matter of deciding whether it would be more appropriate for the EIS to be sponsored by the FAA or Federal Highway Administration, he said.
"Only now has the project been so amazingly segmented that the proponents can talk about postponing the investigation to a later date," Graddy said.
That repeated delay is why opponents' suspicions have intensified, resulting in a lawsuit seeking an EIS or an explanation, he said.
"We don't have an answer from the defendants, so we're asking the court to help us get an answer," Graddy said.
Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon, who has pushed for the transpark since before his first term in office, said a major reason for his opposition to an EIS on the transpark as a whole is that it could take three or four years, derailing the development's momentum.
"These people aren't trying to force us to do an EIS," he said. "They're trying to stop the project."
Project planners have already done analyses of every square inch of the site under development and put in place strict environmental controls, Buchanon said.
During his first term, he said, he was criticized for being "too strong an environmentalist" for pushing riverfront and illegal dump cleanup, clearing sinkholes and sponsoring countywide garbage pickup and recycling.
But when the transpark got under way, a collection of not-in-my-backyard opponents joined with extreme environmentalist groups to raise one objection after another, Buchanon said.
"They've followed us all along the way," he said.
Opponents have abandoned several arguments over time, and now have joined with "radical extremists" - whom he declined to identify - to oppose all progress, Buchanon said.
"To spend an extra $1 million and three or four years, just to have them move the target one more time, is just ridiculous," he said.
Environmental Impact Statements on simple projects may take only a few months, but large and complex ones can take two years to complete, Graddy said.
Given the size and potential impact of the transpark, he estimates that a full EIS would take at least a year.
A full EIS would probably halt new construction, but if that happens, transpark backers have no one to blame but themselves, Graddy said.
"The legal requirement is that you're supposed to do your environmental investigation before you break ground," he said. "If they'd done it a couple of years ago, before they started, they wouldn't be complaining now about delay."
Opponents of the transpark have called for a full EIS almost from the project's beginning, long before the August 2003 groundbreaking on the industrial park. They have often said that piecemeal studies of isolated environmental issues and individual components of the transpark or associated development are no substitute for a comprehensive EIS, which would integrate those parts into a picture of the development's total impact.
The proposed development site has shrunk from 4,000 acres in early plans to a total of about 2,100 acres. So far, an 800-acre industrial park is the only part of the plan in place. A replacement Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport and adjacent business campus are still on the drawing board. But a new airport would require millions in FAA funding, and that agency still questions whether one is needed.
Dan Cherry, the first ITA president, said in 2002 that the agency was committed to doing an EIS when airport development was imminent. In October of that year, he said that he hoped work on an EIS would begin in 2003. But at the time, plans called for an airport by 2007.
Karst Environmental Education and Protection, a plaintiff in the current federal suit, asked the Federal Highway Administration in March 2003 for any records regarding its intent to do an EIS related to $1.7 million in federal road funding.
Jim Vance, Cherry's successor as ITA president, said in June 2003 that the agency would delay an EIS until it could be paid for by federal agencies.
Opponents called again for an EIS in late 2003 when Magna International became the first company to announce it was building a factory in the transpark.
The call was renewed in February 2005, when a cave containing Indian remains was discovered beneath the site of a technical school now being built at the transpark.
Should a replacement airport be built at the transpark, an EIS conducted for that would probably cover the whole site, Buchanon said, but he dismissed suggestions that doing an EIS now would finally quiet opponents of the project.
"Would it be one less thing for them to complain about? Sure," Buchanon said.
Opponents of the transpark have always told him that construction would have to stop during an EIS, Buchanon said.
"Their intent is ... to stop progress," he said.
Graddy and Washington, D.C., attorney David Bookbinder are representing Karst Environmental Education and Protection, a Louisville-based group; Warren County Citizens for Managed Growth; Roger Brucker, an Ohio resident, karst group board member and cave expert who has written four books on Mammoth Cave; and Warren County residents Jim Duffer and Gayla Cissell.
They contend that millions of dollars spent by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Tennessee Valley Authority and other agencies on transpark-related projects should have triggered a requirement for formal studies under federal laws.
Their lawsuit says the EPA has earmarked $3.75 million for water and sewer improvements; HUD has spent $1.75 million for a training center under construction; and TVA has acknowledged that "public funds" have been allocated to Bowling Green Metalforming, the manufacturing plant under construction at the site.
TVA has declined to say how much financial support it provided to the manufacturing project.
Transpark backers have responded that federal dollars have gone only to projects around the transpark that will also serve other anticipated development in north Warren County, not to aid the transpark directly or exclusively.
Graddy said that, per federal Judge Ricardo Urbina's request, he filed an amended complaint July 29 setting out the transpark's history and clarifying its record of support with federal dollars.
Plaintiffs will file documents Tuesday detailing what they think should have been done in previous years, and asking that transpark supporters' motions for dismissal be overruled, he said.
The initial exchange of arguments and responses should be done in October, Graddy said.
"At that time we anticipate the court would set a date (for the case) to be heard," he said.
Current ITA President Jim Hizer said he's not certain of the motivation behind the ongoing lawsuit, but that its primary target was not the ITA.
"I think the beef the opponents have is with the federal agencies, because the federal agencies to date have not ordered an EIS for the transpark as a whole," he said. "Obviously, we've intervened because on the advice of legal counsel, it appeared to be the right thing to do."
Plaintiffs cite the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 as requiring a full EIS when a project like the transpark uses federal money.
"We're trying to get the laws that are supposed to govern the use of public funds fully applied," Graddy said.
NEPA establishes environmental policy and goals, and sets up the process within federal agencies for meeting those goals.
"An EIS should include discussions of the purpose of and need for the action, alternatives, the affected environment, (and) the environmental consequences of the proposed action," according to an EPA publication on NEPA. "The role of a federal agency in the NEPA process depends on the agency's expertise and relationship to the proposed undertaking. The agency carrying out the federal action is responsible for complying with the requirements of NEPA. In some cases, there may be more than one federal agency involved in an undertaking. In this situation, a lead agency is designated to supervise preparation of the environmental analysis."
NEPA applies only to federal agencies, dictating when they must conduct EISs, said EPA spokesman Dave Ryan.
A local agency could do studies extensive enough to in effect constitute an EIS, but it wouldn't be official and the local body would have to pay for it, he said.
"If the federal government gets involved, the federal agency has to pay for its own EIS," Ryan said. "But it does not have to pay for the state EIS."
Environmental Impact Statements can't be done by local agencies, or by any entity below state level, Ryan said.
But even if a state does its own analysis, sometimes it can piggyback on a concurrent federal study and get it partially paid for, Ryan said.
An EIS is under way in the vicinity of the transpark, commissioned by the state Transportation Cabinet. But it's limited to considering the impact of various options for a new or expanded interchange on Interstate 65, linked to U.S. 31-W, according to Transportation Cabinet spokeswoman Kiersten Jaggers.
Consulting firm QK4 of Louisville is doing the study, a draft of which should be ready for a public hearing by the end of this year, she said.
The firm is examining the respective impacts of a new connector road, which is shown on ITA materials as bisecting the industrial park on a large berm, revamping Bowling Green's Exit 28 and expanding 31-W, or enlarging U.S. 68-Ky. 80 with a new interchange at Oakland, Jaggers said.
The interchange construction could begin in two or three years, Hizer has said.
Link: www.bgdailynews.com/articles/2005/09/18/local_news/news/18newsa.txt
Additional Information: www.tuningoracle.com/shortcreek/index.htm
Environmental Impact Statement is called a necessity, or delaying tactic
By JIM GAINES, The Daily News, jgaines@bgdailynews.com/783-3242
Sunday, September 18, 2005 12:48 AM CDT
For years during the development of the Kentucky TriModal Transpark, the project's opponents have called for a federal environmental study to encompass the whole of the industrial park's impact.
On June 15, a group of them filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., seeking to force three federal agencies to carry out such a study, called an Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS.
They want it to consider the effects of the entire transpark project, not limit study to the incremental impact of various components of the project and its associated development, according to the suit.
For just as many years, the transpark's backers in local government have resisted calls to have such a study performed. Now much of the project's infrastructure is under construction, and it has its first industrial tenant.
And with development so far advanced, the transpark's operators are resisting more fiercely than ever, joining in the lawsuit to prevent the U.S. government from carrying out the comprehensive analysis.
But if one more environmental study is all that opponents seek, why are the Inter-Modal Transportation Authority, Warren County and the city of Bowling Green so determined to stop it?
"I think that is precisely the question," said attorney Hank Graddy, a Sierra Club attorney representing those calling for an EIS. "The history of this project, that I'm aware of, is that from the beginning the proponents of this project said, 'We're going to comply with all environmental requirements, we're going to do an EIS.' It looked like they were headed in that direction."
The ITA's articles of incorporation, in an unusual move, specifically say that the project will seek support from the Federal Aviation Administration, he said.
"For the first couple of years, it was not a question of postponing it," Graddy said.
Instead, it was only a matter of deciding whether it would be more appropriate for the EIS to be sponsored by the FAA or Federal Highway Administration, he said.
"Only now has the project been so amazingly segmented that the proponents can talk about postponing the investigation to a later date," Graddy said.
That repeated delay is why opponents' suspicions have intensified, resulting in a lawsuit seeking an EIS or an explanation, he said.
"We don't have an answer from the defendants, so we're asking the court to help us get an answer," Graddy said.
Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon, who has pushed for the transpark since before his first term in office, said a major reason for his opposition to an EIS on the transpark as a whole is that it could take three or four years, derailing the development's momentum.
"These people aren't trying to force us to do an EIS," he said. "They're trying to stop the project."
Project planners have already done analyses of every square inch of the site under development and put in place strict environmental controls, Buchanon said.
During his first term, he said, he was criticized for being "too strong an environmentalist" for pushing riverfront and illegal dump cleanup, clearing sinkholes and sponsoring countywide garbage pickup and recycling.
But when the transpark got under way, a collection of not-in-my-backyard opponents joined with extreme environmentalist groups to raise one objection after another, Buchanon said.
"They've followed us all along the way," he said.
Opponents have abandoned several arguments over time, and now have joined with "radical extremists" - whom he declined to identify - to oppose all progress, Buchanon said.
"To spend an extra $1 million and three or four years, just to have them move the target one more time, is just ridiculous," he said.
Environmental Impact Statements on simple projects may take only a few months, but large and complex ones can take two years to complete, Graddy said.
Given the size and potential impact of the transpark, he estimates that a full EIS would take at least a year.
A full EIS would probably halt new construction, but if that happens, transpark backers have no one to blame but themselves, Graddy said.
"The legal requirement is that you're supposed to do your environmental investigation before you break ground," he said. "If they'd done it a couple of years ago, before they started, they wouldn't be complaining now about delay."
Opponents of the transpark have called for a full EIS almost from the project's beginning, long before the August 2003 groundbreaking on the industrial park. They have often said that piecemeal studies of isolated environmental issues and individual components of the transpark or associated development are no substitute for a comprehensive EIS, which would integrate those parts into a picture of the development's total impact.
The proposed development site has shrunk from 4,000 acres in early plans to a total of about 2,100 acres. So far, an 800-acre industrial park is the only part of the plan in place. A replacement Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport and adjacent business campus are still on the drawing board. But a new airport would require millions in FAA funding, and that agency still questions whether one is needed.
Dan Cherry, the first ITA president, said in 2002 that the agency was committed to doing an EIS when airport development was imminent. In October of that year, he said that he hoped work on an EIS would begin in 2003. But at the time, plans called for an airport by 2007.
Karst Environmental Education and Protection, a plaintiff in the current federal suit, asked the Federal Highway Administration in March 2003 for any records regarding its intent to do an EIS related to $1.7 million in federal road funding.
Jim Vance, Cherry's successor as ITA president, said in June 2003 that the agency would delay an EIS until it could be paid for by federal agencies.
Opponents called again for an EIS in late 2003 when Magna International became the first company to announce it was building a factory in the transpark.
The call was renewed in February 2005, when a cave containing Indian remains was discovered beneath the site of a technical school now being built at the transpark.
Should a replacement airport be built at the transpark, an EIS conducted for that would probably cover the whole site, Buchanon said, but he dismissed suggestions that doing an EIS now would finally quiet opponents of the project.
"Would it be one less thing for them to complain about? Sure," Buchanon said.
Opponents of the transpark have always told him that construction would have to stop during an EIS, Buchanon said.
"Their intent is ... to stop progress," he said.
Graddy and Washington, D.C., attorney David Bookbinder are representing Karst Environmental Education and Protection, a Louisville-based group; Warren County Citizens for Managed Growth; Roger Brucker, an Ohio resident, karst group board member and cave expert who has written four books on Mammoth Cave; and Warren County residents Jim Duffer and Gayla Cissell.
They contend that millions of dollars spent by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Tennessee Valley Authority and other agencies on transpark-related projects should have triggered a requirement for formal studies under federal laws.
Their lawsuit says the EPA has earmarked $3.75 million for water and sewer improvements; HUD has spent $1.75 million for a training center under construction; and TVA has acknowledged that "public funds" have been allocated to Bowling Green Metalforming, the manufacturing plant under construction at the site.
TVA has declined to say how much financial support it provided to the manufacturing project.
Transpark backers have responded that federal dollars have gone only to projects around the transpark that will also serve other anticipated development in north Warren County, not to aid the transpark directly or exclusively.
Graddy said that, per federal Judge Ricardo Urbina's request, he filed an amended complaint July 29 setting out the transpark's history and clarifying its record of support with federal dollars.
Plaintiffs will file documents Tuesday detailing what they think should have been done in previous years, and asking that transpark supporters' motions for dismissal be overruled, he said.
The initial exchange of arguments and responses should be done in October, Graddy said.
"At that time we anticipate the court would set a date (for the case) to be heard," he said.
Current ITA President Jim Hizer said he's not certain of the motivation behind the ongoing lawsuit, but that its primary target was not the ITA.
"I think the beef the opponents have is with the federal agencies, because the federal agencies to date have not ordered an EIS for the transpark as a whole," he said. "Obviously, we've intervened because on the advice of legal counsel, it appeared to be the right thing to do."
Plaintiffs cite the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 as requiring a full EIS when a project like the transpark uses federal money.
"We're trying to get the laws that are supposed to govern the use of public funds fully applied," Graddy said.
NEPA establishes environmental policy and goals, and sets up the process within federal agencies for meeting those goals.
"An EIS should include discussions of the purpose of and need for the action, alternatives, the affected environment, (and) the environmental consequences of the proposed action," according to an EPA publication on NEPA. "The role of a federal agency in the NEPA process depends on the agency's expertise and relationship to the proposed undertaking. The agency carrying out the federal action is responsible for complying with the requirements of NEPA. In some cases, there may be more than one federal agency involved in an undertaking. In this situation, a lead agency is designated to supervise preparation of the environmental analysis."
NEPA applies only to federal agencies, dictating when they must conduct EISs, said EPA spokesman Dave Ryan.
A local agency could do studies extensive enough to in effect constitute an EIS, but it wouldn't be official and the local body would have to pay for it, he said.
"If the federal government gets involved, the federal agency has to pay for its own EIS," Ryan said. "But it does not have to pay for the state EIS."
Environmental Impact Statements can't be done by local agencies, or by any entity below state level, Ryan said.
But even if a state does its own analysis, sometimes it can piggyback on a concurrent federal study and get it partially paid for, Ryan said.
An EIS is under way in the vicinity of the transpark, commissioned by the state Transportation Cabinet. But it's limited to considering the impact of various options for a new or expanded interchange on Interstate 65, linked to U.S. 31-W, according to Transportation Cabinet spokeswoman Kiersten Jaggers.
Consulting firm QK4 of Louisville is doing the study, a draft of which should be ready for a public hearing by the end of this year, she said.
The firm is examining the respective impacts of a new connector road, which is shown on ITA materials as bisecting the industrial park on a large berm, revamping Bowling Green's Exit 28 and expanding 31-W, or enlarging U.S. 68-Ky. 80 with a new interchange at Oakland, Jaggers said.
The interchange construction could begin in two or three years, Hizer has said.
Link: www.bgdailynews.com/articles/2005/09/18/local_news/news/18newsa.txt
Additional Information: www.tuningoracle.com/shortcreek/index.htm