BUILDING RAIL CAPACITY AND COMMUNITY William Penner Primary - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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BUILDING RAIL CAPACITY AND COMMUNITY William Penner Primary - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

THE ABO CANYON SECOND TRACK PROJECT: BUILDING RAIL CAPACITY AND COMMUNITY William Penner Primary Development of the AT&SF Railway in New Mexico Primary Development of the AT&SF Railway in New Mexico Primary Development of the


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THE ABO CANYON SECOND TRACK PROJECT: BUILDING RAIL CAPACITY AND COMMUNITY William Penner

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Primary Development

  • f the AT&SF Railway

in New Mexico

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Primary Development

  • f the AT&SF Railway

in New Mexico

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Primary Development

  • f the AT&SF Railway

in New Mexico

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Primary Development

  • f the AT&SF Railway

in New Mexico

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Primary Development

  • f the AT&SF Railway

in New Mexico

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Purpose & Need

  • Economic growth
  • BNSF & rail industry

efficiencies

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Designing a Second Track

  • Route

selection

  • Engineering

parameters

  • Final refinements
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Designing our Final Alternative

  • Cost and balancing

concerns

  • Environmental

considerations

– What we thought early on

  • Section 404, Clean Water Act
  • Environmental stewardship

– What we actually encountered

  • Individual 404 permit from the

Corps of Engineers

  • BLM right-of-way grant
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NEPA & NHPA Processes

  • Agencies and permitting (Corps, BLM,

SHPO, ACHP)

  • Consulting parties (landowners, tribal

governments, NTHP)

  • Controversy
  • Environmental constraints

– Bighorn sheep – ESA Section 7 – Cultural resources

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Project Involvement

  • Army Corps of Engineers
  • Bureau of Land Management
  • NM State Historic Preservation Officer
  • NM Department of Cultural Affairs
  • Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
  • NM Department of Game and Fish
  • US Fish and Wildlife Service
  • NM Environment Department (NMED) Surface Water Quality

Bureau

  • NMED Air Quality Bureau
  • NM State Engineers Office
  • US Department of Agriculture/NRCS
  • Claunch-Pinto Soil and Water Conservation District
  • Cities of Belen, Socorro, and Mountainair
  • Socorro and Valencia Counties
  • Acoma Pueblo
  • Isleta Pueblo
  • Laguna Pueblo
  • The Navajo Nation
  • Mescalero Apache
  • Piro-Manso-Tiwa Tribe
  • National Trust for Historic Preservation
  • Local ranchers
  • Surface Transportation Board
  • Federal Railroad Administration
  • Department of the Interior
  • US Forest Service
  • NM Department of Transportation
  • Socorro Electric Coop
  • Tierra Grande Land Improvement

Association

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Project Issues

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Project Issues

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Project Issues

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NHPA Section 106 Process

  • Cultural resources

– Properties in the canyon – Involving the local communities

  • 3 years of agency deliberation

– 11 consulting parties and federal and state agencies

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Prehistoric Resources

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Constructing the Belen Cutoff in Abo Canyon

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Achieving Consensus

  • Permits and right-of-way grant

– Minimizing permanent impacts to waterways – Additional studies, reports, and compliance requirements

  • NMDGF and the game fence
  • 3 years of dialog with interested parties
  • MOA and cultural resources

– Test Blast Protocol & rock art monitoring – Workforce education & mitigation efforts

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Test Blast Protocol: Avoiding vibratory impacts

  • Blast design
  • Monitoring
  • Tribal engagement
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Mitigation: Telling the History of the Belen Cutoff

  • Data recovery
  • Oral histories
  • NM school curricula
  • Technical reports
  • Popular history book
  • Harvey House installation
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Wheeler’s 1877 NM Atlas

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Wheeler’s 1877 NM Atlas

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Project Successes

  • Environmental stewardship during design

and construction

  • Ongoing tribal dialog
  • Significant community support &

involvement

  • Property assessments for adjacent

landowners

  • Completed mitigation
  • Traffic improvement by 2011
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Thank You