BAYKEEPER LAWSUIT: Meanwhile, a tad inland from the bay, the environmental watchdog Humboldt Baykeeper has filed the first part of a two-part lawsuit against Union Pacific Railroad Company, accusing it of failing to adequately clean up contaminants from its "Balloon Track" site near Eureka's waterfront.
The Balloon Track was home to a railroad maintenance, switching and freight yard, built in the 1880s and now defunct. It's where Rob and Cherie Arkley, of Security National, propose to build their Marina Center, a mixed-use and retail development featuring a Home Depot as the "anchor" store. The Arkleys' purchase of the site from Union Pacific is pending. In the meantime, they're pursuing zoning changes on the site which would allow building to proceed. Most of the parcels that make up the site are currently zoned for public facilities.
Some people like the Arkleys' plan. Others balk at the proposed zone change, and want the property to be completely cleaned up of old railroad gunk and soaked-in contaminants — a process that could entail extensive excavation and earth removal — and returned to some semblance of the tidal marshland it once was, or at least to open space.
Humboldt Baykeeper's Pete Nichols alleges that cleanup at the site hasn't gone far enough to prevent pollution from seeping into the groundwater and eventually into the bay. And if the zoning is changed from public to commercial, he says, less cleanup will be required: The worst stuff can be cleaned up, and the rest paved over. Whereas, if it were going to be a park, for instance, it would have to be scoured more deeply to make it safe for human contact.
Security National spokesman Brian Morrissey says the company is planning to do more clean-up at the site, and will cap it to prevent leakage into the ground. And, the company plans to take out extra insurance to cover unforeseen costs that might exceed the up to $2.5 million estimated cost of the cleanup. Morrissey said Tuesday afternoon that he didn't think the lawsuit would delay the Arkleys' plans to purchase the property. He also said that, while he hasn't seen the lawsuit, he also hasn't seen "any facts or data to suggest that Union Pacific is not in compliance with the law."
In a Sunday Times-Standard story, North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board senior engineer Tuck Vath was quoted as saying that Union Pacific had done "everything we asked of them, so far."
Nichols disagrees, and says Baykeeper will file the second part of the lawsuit in June.
— Heidi Walters
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