Lawsuits threaten to delay or derail California high-speed rail
By Stephanie RiceCalifornia Watch
Published: Monday, Sep. 19, 2011 - 12:01 am | Page 3A
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Even if state officials can scrape together the billions of dollars needed to fund California's ambitious high-speed rail plans, lawsuits from local cities and opposition groups still could delay, divert or derail the project altogether.
In the Bay Area, cities and nonprofits are suing over issues with the route and environmental studies. In Southern California, the city of Palmdale has gone to court over fears that rail officials will pull a planned Antelope Valley line through the city and reroute the tracks up Interstate 5 instead.
Perhaps the hardest-fought battle is yet to come in the Central Valley, where Kings County officials and residents say they'll do everything in their power to stop a 100-mile stretch of track from wiping out thousands of acres of prime farmland between Fresno and Bakersfield.
The biggest obstacle facing the beleaguered bullet train is probably its uncertain financial future. But lengthy court battles also could affect the project by delaying construction, increasing costs and altering the course the train takes through the state.
At the moment, ground zero for anti-high-speed rail sentiment is Kings County. It's a crucial region for the project because federal requirements attached to nearly $3.5 billion in stimulus cash dictate construction must begin in the Valley. If rail officials are unable to spend those funds by September 2017, the federal government could divert them elsewhere.
Lawyers there already are preparing legal objections to a recently released draft environmental study. Local officials and residents say that if their complaints fall on deaf ears during the legally mandated public comment period, they are ready for a fight.
At the heart of the county's frustrations is the California High Speed Rail Authority's refusal to consider running the high-speed trains along the Highway 99 corridor.
Instead, the line veers off the highway south of Fresno to follow the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway freight line. Then it breaks away again just before Hanford to swerve through farmland, dairies, homes and anything else in its path, eventually meeting up with the highway again near Corcoran.
Last month, Kings County supervisors sent Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo a 21-page letter complaining that state officials illegally shut local agencies out of the planning process and ignored laws protecting prime farmland.
"This top-down, agenda-driven type of land use planning will not stand in Kings County," the supervisors wrote.
Theo de Haan, who sits on the local farm bureau's board, said much of the anger in Kings County stems from the perception that residents were tricked. "It was sold on the premise that they would follow existing corridors," de Haan said, referring to the ballot language in voter-approved Proposition 1A.
Like many residents, De Haan assumed that "existing corridor" would be Highway 99. Then he found out the rail authority was planning an alignment that would snake through a mile of his dairy farm, take out the house his nephew lives in while managing the farm and then run through his son's home in a nearby subdivision.
"It's not a fun thing for us," he said. "Farmers are passive gentlemen and just want to do their thing and be left alone, but they're forcing our hand."
A 2005 study found a route following Highway 99 could cost as much as $800 million more to build. Rail authority spokeswoman Rachel Wall said officials rejected the alignment largely because of concerns about curves slowing the high-speed train, as well as noise and other effects on cities along the corridor.
She said the trains will be able to reach top speeds of 220 mph along the freight line and through Hanford farmland – a key factor in ensuring the Los Angeles-San Francisco trip can be completed in less than three hours.
Wall added that the authority has held hundreds of meetings with Central Valley communities to explain the rail plan. "That process has been going on," she said. "We have extended those invitations."
She also said officials anticipated litigation in the Central Valley and don't expect potential court delays to throw construction off track.
On the San Francisco Peninsula, a coalition of cities and citizens groups has taken the rail authority to court twice over environmental studies of the route linking the Central Valley to the Bay Area. The petitioners in the first lawsuit won, forcing the authority to redo its environmental study for that segment.
The most recent lawsuit, filed last year, challenges the revised study and also accuses the rail authority of using faulty ridership estimates to make its preferred route seem more attractive.
To connect the Central Valley to the Bay Area, rail officials want to run tracks over the Pacheco Pass, through Gilroy to San Jose and up the Peninsula to San Francisco.
Fearing noise and blight from elevated tracks, the plaintiffs – which include the cities of Palo Alto and Menlo Park, as well as several nonprofit groups – argue that a better option would be to route the train over the Altamont Pass, farther north, and along I-580 through the East Bay. There, the line would split, running across the bay to San Francisco and southwest to San Jose.
It's a much different story down south in Palmdale, where local officials are suing not to prevent the intrusion of high-speed trains, but to keep a rail station in town. In a lawsuit filed in July, city officials said they were promised a station as part of an Antelope Valley line that would connect Los Angeles to the Central Valley.
They asked a federal judge to halt a study of an alternative route through the Grapevine.
The judge dismissed the lawsuit last week, agreeing with rail officials that the issue was outside the jurisdiction of a federal court. But city officials could continue the battle in state court.
Perhaps the hardest-fought battle is yet to come in the Central Valley, where Kings County officials and residents say they'll do everything in their power to stop a 100-mile stretch of track from wiping out thousands of acres of prime farmland between Fresno and Bakersfield.
The biggest obstacle facing the beleaguered bullet train is probably its uncertain financial future. But lengthy court battles also could affect the project by delaying construction, increasing costs and altering the course the train takes through the state.
At the moment, ground zero for anti-high-speed rail sentiment is Kings County. It's a crucial region for the project because federal requirements attached to nearly $3.5 billion in stimulus cash dictate construction must begin in the Valley. If rail officials are unable to spend those funds by September 2017, the federal government could divert them elsewhere.
Lawyers there already are preparing legal objections to a recently released draft environmental study. Local officials and residents say that if their complaints fall on deaf ears during the legally mandated public comment period, they are ready for a fight.
At the heart of the county's frustrations is the California High Speed Rail Authority's refusal to consider running the high-speed trains along the Highway 99 corridor.
Instead, the line veers off the highway south of Fresno to follow the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway freight line. Then it breaks away again just before Hanford to swerve through farmland, dairies, homes and anything else in its path, eventually meeting up with the highway again near Corcoran.
Last month, Kings County supervisors sent Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo a 21-page letter complaining that state officials illegally shut local agencies out of the planning process and ignored laws protecting prime farmland.
"This top-down, agenda-driven type of land use planning will not stand in Kings County," the supervisors wrote.
Theo de Haan, who sits on the local farm bureau's board, said much of the anger in Kings County stems from the perception that residents were tricked. "It was sold on the premise that they would follow existing corridors," de Haan said, referring to the ballot language in voter-approved Proposition 1A.
Like many residents, De Haan assumed that "existing corridor" would be Highway 99. Then he found out the rail authority was planning an alignment that would snake through a mile of his dairy farm, take out the house his nephew lives in while managing the farm and then run through his son's home in a nearby subdivision.
"It's not a fun thing for us," he said. "Farmers are passive gentlemen and just want to do their thing and be left alone, but they're forcing our hand."
A 2005 study found a route following Highway 99 could cost as much as $800 million more to build. Rail authority spokeswoman Rachel Wall said officials rejected the alignment largely because of concerns about curves slowing the high-speed train, as well as noise and other effects on cities along the corridor.
She said the trains will be able to reach top speeds of 220 mph along the freight line and through Hanford farmland – a key factor in ensuring the Los Angeles-San Francisco trip can be completed in less than three hours.
Wall added that the authority has held hundreds of meetings with Central Valley communities to explain the rail plan. "That process has been going on," she said. "We have extended those invitations."
She also said officials anticipated litigation in the Central Valley and don't expect potential court delays to throw construction off track.
On the San Francisco Peninsula, a coalition of cities and citizens groups has taken the rail authority to court twice over environmental studies of the route linking the Central Valley to the Bay Area. The petitioners in the first lawsuit won, forcing the authority to redo its environmental study for that segment.
The most recent lawsuit, filed last year, challenges the revised study and also accuses the rail authority of using faulty ridership estimates to make its preferred route seem more attractive.
To connect the Central Valley to the Bay Area, rail officials want to run tracks over the Pacheco Pass, through Gilroy to San Jose and up the Peninsula to San Francisco.
Fearing noise and blight from elevated tracks, the plaintiffs – which include the cities of Palo Alto and Menlo Park, as well as several nonprofit groups – argue that a better option would be to route the train over the Altamont Pass, farther north, and along I-580 through the East Bay. There, the line would split, running across the bay to San Francisco and southwest to San Jose.
It's a much different story down south in Palmdale, where local officials are suing not to prevent the intrusion of high-speed trains, but to keep a rail station in town. In a lawsuit filed in July, city officials said they were promised a station as part of an Antelope Valley line that would connect Los Angeles to the Central Valley.
They asked a federal judge to halt a study of an alternative route through the Grapevine.
The judge dismissed the lawsuit last week, agreeing with rail officials that the issue was outside the jurisdiction of a federal court. But city officials could continue the battle in state court.
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