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Re: Railroad Newsline for Thursday, 03/29/07
Author: Rick T.
Date: 03-29-2007 - 19:49
In regards to the American River trestle, there has been a lot of misreporting about why the rebuilding is not subject to environmental review requirements.
The first article from today's Newswire erroneously suggests that UP is not bound by environmental review requirements. The second article from Wednesday's Newswire suggests the same thing. The kicker is that the second article mistakenly refers to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) as the State Environmental Quality Act (SEQA), which is what several other states call their version of CEQA.
To set the record straight, Section 15269 of CEQA exempts emergency projects from environmental review requirements. Ergo, all of the references to how much permitting or environmental review UP would have had to do to rebuild the trestle are irrelevant because it would not have been subject to those requirements in the first place. Ditto if a State highway bridge collapsed in an earthquake.
Sorry, but I needed to get that off my chest.
The first article from today's Newswire erroneously suggests that UP is not bound by environmental review requirements. The second article from Wednesday's Newswire suggests the same thing. The kicker is that the second article mistakenly refers to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) as the State Environmental Quality Act (SEQA), which is what several other states call their version of CEQA.
To set the record straight, Section 15269 of CEQA exempts emergency projects from environmental review requirements. Ergo, all of the references to how much permitting or environmental review UP would have had to do to rebuild the trestle are irrelevant because it would not have been subject to those requirements in the first place. Ditto if a State highway bridge collapsed in an earthquake.
Sorry, but I needed to get that off my chest.
