By
Tom Morphet
State Department of Transportation
officials said they’d have a response by week’s end to a federal court ruling
Feb. 13 that threw out permits for a road from Juneau to Katzehin.
U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick
ruled that DOT’s environmental impact statement violated federal law by failing to
consider improvements to the existing ferry system as an alternative for improving Juneau
access.
“Because the EIS did not include an
alternative which improved ferry service using existing assets, (the EIS) failed to foster
informed decision-making and public participation,” Sedwick ruled.
Moreover, Sedwick found that because an
earlier version of the document considered it, such an alternative was “reasonable
and obvious.”
“The omission of such an alternative
is particularly troublesome in light of the agencies’ awareness that such an
alternative was the first obvious alternative and had the fewest environmental impacts,”
as well as the support of the most impacted communities, Sedwick wrote.
The EIS included four ferry options based
on building new ferries.
Released in 2006, the EIS was 14 years in
the making and ultimately recommended construction of the 51-mile road at an estimated
cost of $350 million. Because an EIS is a precondition of federal permits, Sedwick’s
decision effectively negates permits that have been issued for the project and prohibits
federal spending on it.
Lynn Canal Conservation was one of six
regional and national environmental and citizens’ groups that sued the government
over the project. Conservation director Nancy Berland this week said the state clearly
hadn’t done its homework.
“The four (ferry) alternatives the
state looked at weren’t efficient. They didn’t study practical improvements to
the existing ferry system” that would have brought down the pricetag of a ferry
alternative, Berland said. The lawsuit also challenged the EIS on other points, including
for threats to bald eagles, sea lions and old-growth forest.
Berland said the state would likely have
to write a new EIS, but a court appeal of Sedwick’s decision may also be an option.
DOT spokesman Roger Wetherell said his
agency was meeting with the Federal Highway Administration and the state Department of Law
to determine its next move. “We’re not disclosing our options at this time,
until we get to meet with the Department of Law and get their reaction and advice,”
he said.
LCC’s Berland said she’s looking
forward to an independent cost-analysis of the road alternative recently commissioned by
DOT that is separate from the EIS process. “We believe the cost was terribly
low-balled. We just want an honest document, basically.”
.