Railroad response plan awaits approval

DOVER — BNSF Railway is finalizing a geographic response plan for hazardous materials spills in the Panhandle’s three northern counties, according to Bob Howard, director of Bonner County Emergency Management.

The plan is a site-specific initial spill response strategy that takes into account water intakes, fisheries, recreation facilities, sensitive habitat and other resources. The plan addresses spills in both aquatic and terrestrial environments.

The county has had a geographic response plan for the Pend Oreille Basin since 2005, but sought to develop a plan that focused on rail transportation due to increasing oil train traffic from North Dakota.

The county obtained federal grant funding through the Idaho Bureau of Homeland Security to draft the plan, but BNSF has since elected to take the lead on the response plan.

The county is now pivoting its response planning to address areas outside of rail corridors, Howard told the Idaho Lakes Commission on Thursday.

“We focused the consultant to the areas that the railroad didn’t plan for — Priest Lake, Highway 57 — to work on plucking data and information so we could develop plans for those areas,” Howard told commissioners.

BNSF contracted with Kennedy/Jenks Consultants, a national engineering and scientific services firm, to develop the geographic response plan within rail corridors.

Serena Carlson, another consultant who does work with BNSF, said the plan will be released to the public once the railroad gives its final approval.

“The GRP planning has been finalized from a railroad standpoint,” said Carlson.

In the meantime, Howard said the county is identifying funding to help facilitate the geographic response plan by extending boat launch ramps further into Lake Pend Oreille and the Pend Oreille River when they’re drawn down during winter.

Howard said BNSF is also providing first-responder training and stationed a hazmat response trailer at the Selkirk Fire Rescue & EMS in Sandpoint. Tabletop training exercises are slated for this summer and a full-scale, scenario-based exercise in planned for the fall.

The county collects nearly $1 million in annual property tax revenue from the railroad. Members of the public are calling for that revenue to be used to eliminate at-grade rail crossings on North Boyer Avenue, which slows emergency response times.

“We have fire engines, ambulances and police cars going to a hot call. To turn around and have them go around could be deadly for whomever they are going after,” said Tom Suttmeier, a former Bonner County commissioner.

Current county Commissioner Todd Sudick said the county receives approximately $165,000 of that annual revenue and the rest is distributed among all the other taxing districts.

“We can’t take that and put it anywhere else,” said Sudick.

Carlson said conflicts at at-grade crossings could be reduced with another bridge across the lake at Sandpoint, a project which BNSF has penciled in for 2018. Carlson said the economy will ultimately influence when the new span is built because it will be costly.

“It costs about a million dollars to build a mile of track, and that’s plain track on the ground. So when you’re actually put it over water, those costs tend to increase quite a bit,” Carlson said.