Judge to rule on U.S. 95 pollution lawsuit

Jace Radke

Friday, Jan. 31, 2003 | 10:07 a.m.

Attorneys with the Sierra Club and the Federal Highway Administration argued Thursday about whether a federal lawsuit over the ongoing widening of U.S. 95 should be dismissed.

The widening of U.S. 95 from six to 10 lanes from the Rainbow Curve to Martin Luther King Boulevard is scheduled to be completed in 2006. For the last several years the preliminary work for the project was under way and construction has begun.

The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in April 2002 that called for supplemental studies about the possible environmental impact of the project.

The original lawsuit called for the environmental impact study to be re-opened so that public health issues would be taken into account as the road work was being conducted, according to the Sierra Club.

Thursday, the club's lawyer asked U.S. District Judge Philip Pro to order the government to provide the more than 15,000-page federal record of the project for inspection.

David Ortez, assistant chief counsel for the Federal Highway Administration, countered by asking that Pro dismiss the case or make a summary judgment, saying that the Sierra Club has waited too long to file its suit.

"The record of decision was filed on the project in January 2000, and they file suit more than two years later," Ortez said. "They failed to file a complaint when the case was ripe, and they have failed to ask for any injunctive relief.

"Now we have people relocated, right-of-way (acquisition) completed and construction has begun."

The road project has cost $125 million so far, Ortez said.

Joanne Spalding, staff attorney for the Sierra Club, said that the Federal Highway Administration has failed to follow its own regulations that call for environmental impact studies to be supplemented if new information becomes available.

"Studies performed in Los Angeles and Denver in 2000 showed that highway pollution increases the risk of cancer in nearby communities," Spalding said. "The government didn't believe these studies were applicable, so we found experts to look at the impact of widening U.S. 95 and basically do the job the federal agency refused to do."