News & Reviews News Wire Regulators scold Union Pacific for lack of cooperation (updated)

Regulators scold Union Pacific for lack of cooperation (updated)

By David Lassen | November 14, 2024

STB decision regarding delayed Arizona project chides railroad for ‘inabilitiy to … provide timely and appropriate responses’

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Man in suit in front of U.S. flag
STB Chairman Robert Primus

WASHINGTON — The Surface Transportation Board has taken Union Pacific to task for an ongoing lack of cooperation in a new decision regarding an issue with the railroad’s effort to construct a 6-mile rail line in Arizona’s Maricopa and Pinal counties.

The primary matter concerns UP’s request for an exemption for construction of the Pecos Industrial Rail Access Train Extension, or PIRATE, to connect UP’s Phoenix Subdivision main line to industrial properties near the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. But the ruling released today (Thursday, Nov. 14) orders the railroad to rectify deficiencies in submissions as the board looks into whether the railroad engaged in “anticipatory demolition” of historic properties along the proposed route, resulting in damage to archaeological resources.

That damage was discovered as the board’s Office of Environmental Analysis prepared its Final Environmental Assessment, and led to the board placing a decision on the UP request on indefinite hold [see “Regulators pause environmental review …,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 1, 2023]. Last month, UP CEO Jim Vena wrote the board asking for a status update on the matter, saying the railroad and other interested parties have for six months been waiting “for the agency to provide a clear path forward to resolve the harms” and gain project approval [see “Union Pacific seeks update on stalled environmental review …,” News Wire, Oct. 3, 2024]. Eight members of Arizona’s congressional delegation also wrote the board asking that it “prioritize decisions related to the PIRATE project to prevent any additional unnecessary delay.”

The ruling says UP has until Nov. 29 to produce documents the board says the railroad did not provide and to address other deficiencies regarding a log of documents the railroad are covered by a claim of privilege and copies of email with insufficient information, such as dates and the author’s name. And it reinstates a schedule requiring submissions from UP and other interested parties on the “anticipatory demolition” question. Those submissions are due by Dec. 16, with replies by Jan. 13.

The board does not hide its unhappiness with UP. The decision says that “because UP’s conduct thus far has already caused delays in this proceeding, no extensions” of a Nov. 29 deadline to address those deficiencies will be granted “absent extraordinary circumstances that are outside of UP’s control,” and in a footnote says “UP is cautioined to respond with greater clarity and accuracy to any such future orders in Board proceedings.”

The strongest words, however, come in a concurrence to the unanimous decision by Board Chairman Robert Primus. He says the decision “serves as another example of UP’s inability to adhere to the Board’s guidelines and to provide timely and appropriate responses to Board orders.” Responding to Vena’s concerns about delays, he writes. “The Board takes disturbing and desecrating ancestral sacred lands extremely seriously and will not compromise the time needed to thoroughly investigate this matter” and adds, “if Vena needs another reason why this matter has been delayed, he, again, has only his organization to blame, this time for its sloppy responses to the documents requested … UP’s negligence caused the initial delay of this project and its ineptitude further exacerbated it.”

In response to the ruling, Union Pacific said in a statement that it “deeply respects the Indigenous People, and the site is now protected and secured. We are aligned with the STB to grow volume on the network and glad we have a path forward.”

The full decision is available here.

— Updated at 4:08 p.m. CT with Union Pacific comment.

4 thoughts on “Regulators scold Union Pacific for lack of cooperation (updated)

  1. After reading the original pause of environmental statement UP should have immediately taken the ROW encroachers to court. That would have shown the STB that UP was being due diligent.

    However, exactly what kind of disturbances have been done and by who may be difficult to prove. Someone who lives in the Phoenix are might be able to go over there and tell us exactly what was done. If souvenir hunters were involved then there are going to be major problems resolving this problem. Then what Indian tribe(s) were located in the ROW? I can think of Apache, Maricopa, Hopi, Navaho, as maybe some or none.

  2. I might have to tell our government that everywhere you look is someone’s ancestral homeland and quite possibly someone’s place of burial. That includes the places where STB board members and staff, state historical preservation board members and staff, indigenous nations governing legislatures, etc., live travel and work.

    We have set aside a certain amount of “sacred places” such as the Gettysburg battle ground, cemeteries, etc., for preservation to honor the past. But those places merely representative. These ARE NOT a comprehensive inventory of such places, for such an inventory is impossible to compile. Gettysburg was the worst battle ever fought in the western hemisphere — but someone killed someone else just about anywhere else. Those people are also dead.

    The fact is, all of America is built on land that was once used for something else. And that includes former farmland where generations ago family members sometimes were buried on the farm.

  3. Hmmm. Sounds like the same kind of bureaucracy SpaceX and the FAA have been dealing with down in Boca Chica.

    I am sure the STB Chairman will say the same thing, “following the rules is the quickest path to resolution”

  4. 1. The STB shouldn’t have delayed communicating its displeasure with UP.

    2. The STB’s finding makes one wonder how much of he ancestral lands have been disturbed by other nearby construction, especially at the industrial park.

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