Court strips permit from Downeaster layover facility
The Amtrak Downeaster's proposed train layover facility in Brunswick received a setback last week when a superior court justice nullified its stormwater management permit.
The Bangor Daily News reported that Justice Joyce A. Wheeler threw out the stormwater permit on July 2 after determining that abutters in a Brunswick neighborhood did not receive proper notification during the state permitting process.
This means the Downeaster's operator, the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, must now apply for a new stormwater permit before beginning work on the layover facility, which was greenlit by the Federal Railroad Administration last month.
The rail authority had contended in court that even if abutters weren't properly notified under state rules, they actually did receive notice of the permit's application, “but chose not to participate in the permitting process,” the BDN reported.
The Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition, which includes members who are abutters to the proposed layover facility, said in a statement to the newspaper that the court's decision validates the group's concerns.
“Simply put, an industrial garage of this magnitude with the inherent safety, noise, vibration and other unavoidable environmental impacts does not belong in any residential neighborhood,” the group's chairman, Bob Morrison, said.
The rail authority has maintained that the proposed layover facility will not have negative environmental impacts on its surroundings and will actually reduce noise and pollution from trains that currently have to idle outside, a stance that was repeated in the federal administration’s findings.
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