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Follow TURFCourt finds toll study based on faulty data
Court ruling could spell more problems for Garden Parkway
By Michael Barrett
Gaston Gazette
2012-05-03 18:10:07
Plans for a $700 million toll road east of Charlotte were thrown into disarray Thursday when a federal court ruled that the state improperly studied the effects of building the highway.
The decision now stands to delay construction of the Monroe Connector-Bypass for years. And environmental attorneys who argued successfully in that case say it may lead to similar legal challenges against the proposed Garden Parkway in Gaston County.
“What the court ruled on today for the Monroe bypass has a lot of implications for what the state also did on its Garden Parkway analysis,” said Kym Hunter, an associate attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill.
In a unanimous decision, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled in favor of environmental groups that sued to stop construction of the Monroe toll road. The N.C. Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration illegally failed to consider and disclose potential impacts of the project, according to the court.
The 4th Circuit found that the DOT and FHWA had used faulty data that minimized the effects of the project, by essentially comparing “building the road” with “building the road.” The court chastised both transportation agencies for misleading the public.
The state’s study, by law, was supposed to show the impacts of building the highway against not building it.
“This is a wake-up call for N.C. DOT and transportation agencies around the country that the only legal way to assess environmental impacts of building major highways is to factor in resulting sprawl development on the landscape,” said David Farren, senior attorney with the SELC.
The SELC sued on behalf of the N.C. Wildlife Federation, the Yadkin Riverkeepers and Clean Air Carolina.
Construction on the Monroe project had been scheduled to begin this year. The DOT can appeal to the Supreme Court. But it may have to conduct a new impact study and apply for new permits, which could take years.
N.C. Turnpike Authority spokeswoman Reid Simons said they do not think the court ruling will have any bearing on the Garden Parkway.
“We do not foresee this as a problem for the Garden Parkway,” she said. “They are two different projects, with two different sets of data and methodologies that were used (to study the environmental impacts).”
Hunter disagreed. The state is now applying for water quality permits in advance of the Garden Parkway’s construction. The SELC is submitting comments on those applications, and plans to highlight potential problems.
“It’s a little complex,” said Hunter. “But the way they have compared future traffic scenarios for building the parkway versus not building it, and determining whether the road is necessary, the state did the same thing (as with the Monroe bypass).”