WASHINGTON – Federal regulators have put a hold on their final environmental assessment of Union Pacific’s proposed 6-mile branch to a new industrial park being built outside Phoenix.
The Surface Transportation Board’s Office of Environmental Analysis, in a decision released on Thursday, said it was delaying a decision indefinitely due to the discovery of “significant ground disturbance and damage to archaeological resources in the area of the proposed right-of-way.”
The Tohono O’odham Nation on Aug. 24 requested the environmental assessment process be put on hold until a damage assessment report is completed, potential mitigation is considered, and other legal issues are resolved. Other tribes had raised similar concerns.
UP told the STB that property owners abutting the proposed right of way in Mesa, Ariz., entered the railroad’s property without permission and construction projects unrelated to the proposed rail line were responsible for the damage. UP was unaware of the damage along the proposed right-of-way.
The railroad asked adjacent landowners to cease work on UP property and to remove equipment from the right-of-way. UP also hired a security service, put up no-trespassing signs, has staked the property boundaries, and is installing fencing.
The proposed rail line is part of the Pecos Industrial Rail Access and Train Extension corridor, or PIRATE, that will be built to serve industrial properties near the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.
I would like to see a definition of what “archaeological resources” are. If it was archaeological objects or ruins I could see, but “resources?” That is painting with a very wide brush in my opinion.
UP should sue EPA to allow use of the environmental standards in place when the Transcontinental Railroad was designed and built.
Those to trust the government are fools.
Even when you try to do something to get new business the Feds step in and block it. Delaying it indefinitely may mean there will never be a green light.
Potential mitigation, time for the big wallets.
What did the trespassers build on the ROW?
USA’s favorite past time. Trespass on RR property. 2nd favorite = encroach on RR property then claim innocence. Evidently UP and maybe SP use or planned to use the non track ROW??