EVERETT — The city of Everett has extended the comment deadline for a proposed rail terminal project by one week after it discovered relevant documents weren’t posted to the city website.
The new deadline for public comments on the Smith Island Terminal is Jan. 30.
City planning director Allan Giffen said people should be given more time to comment on the project, but that the documents hadn’t been posted when they should have been.
“We try to do that at the same time we issue the notice, and this time obviously we didn’t do that,” Giffen said.
The documents were posted Jan. 20, after an Everett resident called the city to find out more information. The comment deadline for the project’s environmental review was Friday.
North Everett resident Jo Newland saw the first mention of the rail loop in a story published Monday in The Daily Herald.
The project developer, a partnership between Cedar Grove Composting, Concrete Nor’west and other landowners on Smith Island, wants to build a rail loop connected to the BNSF Railway main line.
The rail connection would allow Cedar Grove to ship its compost to new customers in eastern Washington, something not financially feasible with trucking.
In addition, the access road that crosses the rail line at grade would be replaced with an underpass. That was a key concern for Concrete Nor’west, whose mixing trucks get delayed by long trains passing through at slow speeds.
Newland, a frequent critic of Cedar Grove, was concerned that the project would have adverse impacts on local traffic.
But she found no mention of the $7 million project on the city’s web page.
The city of Everett has followed the letter of state law, which requires a minimum 14-day comment period for projects determined not to have a significant impact on the environment.
A notice advertising the project was published in the newspaper Jan. 9, two days after city planners finished reviewing the proposal. The original comment deadline was 14 days later.
The deadline to comment on the project’s shoreline permit has not changed from Feb. 9, Giffen said. Likewise, a public hearing before a hearing examiner is still scheduled for 9 a.m. Feb. 26.
Newland said that a perceived lack of notice of the project — Newland didn’t see the small-print legal notice in the paper — was just one of her concerns with the project.
Newland lives east of Legion Memorial Golf Course in north Everett and commutes daily to Seattle for work.
Both her usual routes home, either Highway 529 or East Marine View Drive, are clogged with afternoon traffic, and it’s been getting worse in recent years, she said.
The traffic study for the rail project said traffic created by the operations of the new terminal largely would be confined to the local road network on Smith Island and be spread throughout the day.
The traffic study is an update of an earlier 2008 study, which Newland said couldn’t take into account the congestion she experiences every day.
“The problem I have is that it has increased twofold, and I could tell you just by living in the area,” Newland said.
Marla Carter, spokeswoman for Everett’s public works department, said the increase in traffic expected from the rail terminal doesn’t reach the threshold to trigger a new complete analysis.
Carter added that the state Department of Transportation, which uses a different threshold to trigger a full review, could still require further changes in the project.
The 2008 study was for a project to build an anaerobic digester, which Cedar Grove later abandoned. A rail terminal, which would be available for use by many businesses, should require a new study, Newland said.
“To base an approval based on old studies approved for Cedar Grove and not for Smith Island Terminal is not good business,” she said.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
Comment deadline
Comments on the Smith Island Terminal project’s environmental impact must be received by Jan. 30 at the Everett Planning Department, 2930 Wetmore Ave., Suite 8-A, Everett, WA 98201, or at the Everett Permit Services counter at 3200 Cedar St.. Documentation for the project is posted online at everettwa.org/default.aspx?ID=2248.
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