State violated federal law by including Kinross ore haul bridge projects without public review
The "top-down” state list of highway projects from the Dunleavy administration violates federal law and regulation because the state failed to consult with long-established planning authorities in both communities.
This has only become clear in the last few days. I first wrote about the flaws in the process last week and the $300 million in road projects added to help Kinross.
The proposed new bridges at the Chena Lakes Flood Control project and over Chena Hot Springs Road to help the Kinross ore hauling project did not undergo local review before State Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson ordered them placed in the Statewide Transportation Improvement Program late last year.
Federal law requires that all road projects must be approved by the local planning organizations before they are placed in the state plan. In Fairbanks that group is the Fairbanks Area Surface Transportation agency, while in Anchorage it is Anchorage Metropolitan Area Transportation Solutions.
A half-dozen projects in the Fairbanks and Anchorage areas cannot move forward unless the local planning documents are amended to include them. This document lists the projects in the Anchorage area.
Either remove them from the plan or ask the local authorities to amend their transportation plans, which would require an 180-day delay in advancing the statewide plan, according to a draft comments posted late last week by FAST.
In the latter case, the Kinross bridge projects would be subject to a local public hearing. Kinross has claimed in a public meeting that the bridges are substandard. The bridges are not substandard. But the trucks are heavier than standard vehicles.
The mining trucks, which feature two trailers and a total of 16 axles, will weigh more than 82 tons when loaded, twice the weight of many semi trucks.
Fairbanks Area Surface Transportation, the local group, says the state never mentioned the two bridge projects or asked that they be included in the local transportation plan.
There was a press release in February, saying the Dunleavy administration backed the projects, “but there was no call to action at that time” to amend the local plan and follow the standard process. The cost estimates posted in February were unrealistically low.
The draft comments from FAST also question the state justification for the bridge project over the flood control area, citing the state’s announcement that a 1 percent cut in the weight of the 82-ton Kinross trucks is all that is needed to meet the bridge load limit.
One of the 95-foot Kinross truck and trailer combinations that has just arrived in Fairbanks. The combined weight of the trucks will exceed 82 tons. The state says a 1 percent weight reduction is all that is needed to make the trucks suitable for the northbound bridge over the Chena Lakes Flood Control project near North Pole.
“If this is the case, does the bridge actually need to be replaced?” FAST director Jackson Fox asks in the draft comments. “If not, the $31 million set aside for this project could potentially be used for other freight needs statewide.”
FAST also says that the state asserts that National Highway Freight Planning funds would pay for the work. But the Chena Flood control project is not on the list of projects the state says are approved for construction from that fund.
One of the big issues not dealt with so far is that the state is only replacing the northbound lanes of the bridge, not the southbound lanes, because the Kinross trucks will be much lighter on their return trip to the mine site.
When the project first surfaced, the company estimated it would run from 2 trucks per hour to 4 trucks per hour all day, every day. Now the company says the trucks will run every 24 minutes, which translates into a truck running either way every 12 minutes, about 120 trucks per day. There is nothing stopping the company from raising the frequency of trucks and the state has not insisted on a binding number.
The draft FAST letter notes that public participation in the transportation plan has been lacking. In the Fairbanks meeting for collecting comments, which was not heavily publicized, “not a single member of the public attended the two-hour meeting.”
The lack of attendance does not mean a lack of public interest in road projects. It probably means a lack of advertising and a lack of public awareness about a bureaucratic process that is confusing at best.
There is no reason or explanation for why the transportation department did not follow the rules and consult local planning groups in developing its plans.
The addition of the Kinross projects without public review is in keeping with the Dunleavy administration’s entire approach to the ore-hauling enterprise, serving as a defacto partner with Kinross, while refusing to admit it.
Dunleavy has made his support for the ore hauling operation explicit, a message that has flowed downhill to state employees, who haven’t asked questions or sought real answers about public safety, traffic safety, road damage and how the driving experience on the Tetlin to Fort Knox route will become more dangerous.
It’s a “high-margin” project for Kinross, which expects to make hundreds of millions over the next five years.
The state invested $10 million in the project through the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. and Dunleavy has made it clear he wants no objections to the Kinross project and all other development ideas. “I need Alaska to say yes to everything,” he said.
I want to mention two other problems here that show the lack of local involvement. The state removed the Geist Road pedestrian overpass last week because a truss failed. There is no plan in the STIP to replace the overpass.
Another problem that deserves an explanation from the state is the growing number of mega road projects on the Seward and Sterling highways and how they will be paid for. More than $1 billion is to be spent.
The STIP doesn’t mention the new cost estimate, released one day after the STIP, and it doesn’t say which projects will be delayed or canceled to deal with the cost increase.
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