Assembly committee passes Wiggins' rail bill
The Times-Standard
Eureka Times Standard
Article Launched:06/28/2007 04:18:02 AM PDT

A senate bill enabling the North Coast Railroad Authority to reallocate millions of dollars for environmental cleanup was approved by the Assembly Transportation Committee.

Senate Bill 861, by state Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, was approved by an 8 to 6 vote.

The NCRA was established in 1989 to preserve and restore rail service on 316 miles of the former Northwestern Pacific line between Humboldt Bay and the national rail interchange south of Napa.

The NCRA has been beset by closures due to storms, an erratic freight market and unstable finances. In recent years, the rail authority has suffered severe storm damage, encountered environmental problems, and incurred federal safety sanctions.

The Wiggins bill would enable the NCRA to reallocate $5.5 million, previously designated for repayment of a federal loan that has since been forgiven, to meet clean-up obligations under a court-ordered environmental remediation consent decree, and to address emergency maintenance issues.

”Despite early setbacks caused by the lack of operational funding, NCRA has made considerable progress in 2005 and 2006 toward its goal of repairing the rail line in phases and leasing the restored track to a short-haul rail operator,” Wiggins said. “This rail line has historically played a significant role in the transportation infrastructure of a region of the state (the North Coast) that suffers from restricted access and limited transport options.”

Wiggins says her bill would provide NCRA funding necessary to complete the subsurface cleanup of nine rail yards as required by the 1999 court-mandated environmental consent decree and “address emergency maintenance issues pending the restart of rail operations.”
Those issues include strengthening of levees, repair of highway crossing, weed abatement to address fire hazards, as well as general cleanup of the right-of-way which runs through eight North Coast cities.