Union Pacific to Pay for Water Act Violations

By John Boyd, Journal of Commerce Online

Union Pacific Railroad will pay civil penalties of $800,000 and is restoring some Nevada stream areas at an estimated cost of $31 million, the Department of Justice said, to settle alleged Clean Water Act violations in 2005.

In January 2005, the government said, UP’s tracks in the Clover Creek and Meadow Valley Wash areas “sustained significant damage following a flood in southern Nevada” and the railroad “made time-critical actions to repair damage.”

But Justice said “UP also conducted extensive non-emergency construction and stream alteration work without obtaining the required Clean Water Act permits, which could have minimized and compensated for the damage to the streams.”

That work included building “massive structures to control stream flows, such as dikes, berms, levees and diversions within the stream systems,” some up to 15 feet high and as much as thousands of feet in length.

The proposed decree said “Union Pacific has already performed substantial removal, restoration, and re-vegetation work at many sites.” It also said “nothing in this consent decree shall constitute or be construed as an admission of liability or wrongdoing by Union Pacific.”

John C. Cruden, acting assistant attorney general for the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said work the railroad agreed to undertake in the settlement “will restore Clover Creek and Meadow Valley Wash.”

Kush said “most of the requested work is complete.” Justice said UP agreed to restore 122 acres of mountain-desert streams and wetlands, in 21 sections in Clark and Lincoln Counties, Nev.

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Source: The Journal of Commerce Online