The unanimous “nay” vote by our county Board of Supervisors re the proposed BNSF intermodal yard, the largest of its kind in America, was welcome news for Wittmann and beyond.
Each supervisor expressed their reasoning, pointing out that BNSF was not forthcoming with details and an overall lack of communication.
While BNSF touted the benefits, they were deathly silent re any mitigation of the many negative impacts identified, just one of which is that county staff made it very clear that Grand Avenue/U.S. 60 is already beyond capacity, is rated as “failing” and that traffic backups mean a higher risk of accidents; for example, the recent fatality on Loop 303.
BNSF’s position has been that they do not have to be forthcoming; that they can, and are in fact on record, that they will still proceed based on circa 1870 laws intended to expand the nation’s infrastructure. (It is noted that at that time, 37 states were yet to be admitted to the union!)
This means that BNSF is not going away. They have options. In the meantime, we would do well to persuade federal politicians and judges that those antiquated laws were never meant to get a forever-free pass to disregard local land development regulations, create health and safety risks and so on.
In closing, a big shout-out to Bud and Jane Meador for all their hard work!
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