US Coast Guard Publishes the Final Environmental Impact Statement

On Friday, October 28th the US Coast Guard published the Final Environmental Impact Statement - a key step in the permitting process for the construction of a new rail crossing of the Missouri River in Bismarck/Mandan.

“Friends of the Rail Bridge (FORB) is disappointed that the United States Coast Guard has issued the final environmental impact statement (EIS) to tear down and replace the historic 1883 rail bridge between Bismarck and Mandan without fully addressing the fundamental issues required by state and federal law,” said Mark Zimmerman, President of FORB. “We still have the opportunity to save the bridge based on the numerous legal shortcuts and errors in the EIS.”

The historic 1883 rail bridge is six years older than the Eiffel Tower in Paris and is as important to the identity of the Bismarck/Mandan community as the Eiffel Tower is to the people of Paris, as evidenced by the more than 6,000 people who signed a petition to save it shortly after BNSF announced its intention replace the 139-year-old bridge.

BNSF will secure the permit that will allow it to tear down the historic 1883 Bridge when the Record of Decision is issued in late November.

Through behind-the scenes lobbying campaigns to state, county, and city politicians, BNSF prevented any honest look at a preservation alternative that best serves the long-term interests of the Bismarck Mandan Community and the people of North Dakota.

FORB has supported and continues to support BNSF building a new bridge across the Missouri River. BNSF’s statement of purpose and need for the now-final environmental impact statement (EIS) states that BNSF plans to tear down the historic bridge for two main reasons:

• To build a bridge that creates the key new rail bridge infrastructure at the Missouri River crossing in North Dakota allowing BNSF to run two tracks through the Bismarck Mandan community and through all the rest of the rural and city rail crossings in North Dakota along the line. BNSF has segmented the EIS project so that it can tear down the historic 1883 bridge without considering the full economic, social, and environmental costs of running two tracks through Bismarck/Mandan and the rest of North Dakota. This violates the very purpose that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was enacted to address:

  • “it is the continuing responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means, consistent with other essential considerations of national policy, to improve and coordinate Federal plans, functions, programs, and resources to the end that the Nation may … assure for all Americans safe, healthful, productive, and aesthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings; … attain the widest range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation, risk to health or safety, or other undesirable and unintended consequences; … preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage …” NEPA section 101(b).

• To allow BNSF the extra clearance BNSF requires to stack two shipping containers on each flatbed railcar to accommodate the change in use of this rail line from primarily shipping Powder River Basin coal to coal-fired electric generation facilities to shipping goods from Pacific ports to the eastern United States.

However, there are many alternatives that allow both preservation of the historic 1883 bridge and building a new railway bridge across the Missouri River. BNSF has lobbied and presented tearing down the 1883 Bridge as an either/or alternative. BNSF, in fact, has pushed through the one alternative that does not include preservation of the historic 1883 bridge, when a both/and alternative of both preserving the historic bridge and building a new bridge has been successfully done at a reasonable cost in many other similar projects across the nation.

BNSF has so far done this by representing to state and local government officials that they would have to pay for the cost of preservation. Traditionally and legally this is a cost that ordinarily is paid for by the project proponent, in this case BNSF. This lie wrapped in a fog of prevarication and half-truths has stifled any meaningful conversation about preservation alternatives to save the historic 1883 Bridge.

As noted above, BNSF is in the process of converting the portions of its network that have been primarily used to transport Powder River Basin coal to midwestern power plants for rail traffic from the Pacific ports. The two major changes are: 1) trains of the tallest stacked intermodal containers, clearance for which BNSF claims the current 1905 superstructure does not allow, and 2) allowance fortwo-way rail traffic in the future.

The final EIS does not consider the environmental impacts of putting two tracks through downtown Bismarck and Mandan or whether a different path through or around the edges of Bismarck and Mandan would be the best economic and environmental choice over the 100- plus years of useful life that it may have.

Both the EIS and permitting process failed to address the issue of State ownership of the Missouri riverbed at Bismarck-Mandan, including the 1883 Bridge. Related legal issues involving ownership of the Missouri riverbed have been addressed by the North Dakota Supreme Court as recently as 2020. North Dakota State Attorney General Drew Wrigley has given FORB direction to have this issue addressed in court, as he has declined to issue an official opinion.

The North Dakota Water Resources department failed to require BNSF to go through an open and transparent sovereign lands permit process for a permit to build the new bridge across the Missouri River or tear down the historic bridge as required by North Dakota law. This is a non-discretionary duty that has now brought the historic 1883 Bridge to the brink of destruction because of a failure of theNorth Dakota Department of Water Resources and other state officials and agencies to do what the law required them to do; to create an open and transparent public process to meaningfully consider whether the most important standing historic landmark in North Dakota should be preserved.

FORB is in the process of reviewing the final EIS and plans to take any legal actions or steps necessary to ensure that these legal deficiencies in getting the permit to tear down the historic 1883 Bridge are corrected, and to otherwise protect and preserve the bridge to the fullest extent possible under the law.