Citizens’ group files lawsuit over Kinross trucking plan, charges state with failing to enforce laws

The Kinross ore hauling operation has landed in court, as expected.

A new nonprofit citizens’ group, the Committee for Safe Communities, filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking a court order to force the state to follow a variety of laws and regulations the group says have been ignored by the Dunleavy administration.

Here is information from the committee on its purpose and leadership.

Here is the complaint filed in Fairbanks Superior Court.

The state should be “enjoined from permitting the ore haul operation to proceed,” the lawsuit says.

I expect that Kinross and the state will both claim the state cannot do anything to stop the ore haul operation because state law allows trucks of any weight to be classified as legal as long as they have enough axles.

Under the state’s weight formula, the 16-axle trucks are legal, though they would not be allowed elsewhere in most parts of the U.S. without special permits. Alaska is the only state with no gross vehicle weight limit. But there are a host of regulatory and process issues aside from the weight of the trucks that are touched on in the court filing.

The suit touches on the 35 bus stops between Tok and Fox that do not have enough visible stopping distance for the trucks when there is ice and snow and touches on other key controversies ranging from bridge replacement issues to passing lanes that have not been built.

One of the strongest claims in the lawsuit deals with the existing state regulations that prohibit the 95-foot Kinross trucks from traveling on Peger Road and the Johansen Expressway to get through Fairbanks.

The regulations are clear. The maximum length allowed without a permit is 75 feet on Peger Road and the Johansen Expressway.

The state regulations require that Kinross use the Steese Expressway to travel through Fairbanks.

But the Steese Expressway bridge over the Chena River, built in the late 1970s, is physically incapable of handling the 165,000-pound Kinross trucks.

Rather than amend state regulations to allow the 95-foot trucks on Peger and the Johansen—to legalize the plan—the state falls back on this line: “The Peger-Johansen route through Fairbanks is a well-established route for long and oversize vehicles.”

Established it may be, but legal it is not.

Had the transportation department paid real attention to the Kinross trucking plan and examined its specifics in detail, instead of giving an unblinking green light, this conflict with state regulation could have easily been fixed long before the trucks were rolling.

Instead, the state claims to have a hole card in regulation 17 AAC 25.014(f) and asserts it can bless the Kinross trucks because this language in subsection 10 that says it can approve trucks on any road.

The problem is the subsection 10 loophole does not give carte blanche to allow the Kinross trucks. That’s because it only applies “to access or return from terminals or facilities for fuel, servicing, delivering or receiving cargo, or food and rest for the vehicle's operator.”

None of those conditions exist in this case. The Kinross trucks will not be delivering or receiving cargo on the detour or stopping for food, fuel or rest.

The Dunleavy administration should have amended the regulation. It failed to do so.

The entire exercise is based on Kinross not wanting to have to get any state permits and the Dunleavy administration doing everything it can to give Kinross what it wants.

Among other things, the lawsuit asks for a court order requiring the state to enforce the regulation on overlength trucks.

It also asks for an order requiring the state to “complete the studies and complete the construction of improvements needed to assure protection of public safety and of the infrastructure to be used, before any industrial use by Peak Gold or others is allowed.”

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