OPINION

Port's rail project should be put before voters

Ted Lund

While the idea of mitigating the Canaveral Port Authority's proposed rail extension with an inlet is intriguing, it would fundamentally alter the unique ecology of the northern Banana River Lagoon.

Such an inlet has the potential to be a haymaker — the wild, knockout blow to an ecosystem that goes unseen until it's too late. Even if the inlet concept has merit, water entering the northern Banana River directly from Port Canaveral is likely to be only slightly less injurious than hewing an 11-mile commercial rail extension through the middle of the lagoon.

The notion that the CPA would like to help save our lagoons shouldn't be contingent upon approval of an enormous infrastructure project. Rather, such largesse should stem from its role as a respected, responsible corporate citizen and steward of our environment.

It's a funny thing about people with contracts; they hand them to you then ask you to trust them.

The GT USA contract with CPA doesn't state will "pursue rail options," or use words like "might," "could" or "explore."

The contract clearly states "barge-to-rail services to be operational on or around June 1, 2015, with rail extension operational on or about Dec. 1, 2017."

Now CPA says the rail causeway will be built on trestle rather than an earthen berm. Not "could," "might" or "maybe."

"Will."

But the latest proposal on file with the Surface Transportation Board (portcanaveralraileis.com) tells a different story; this site is important, because there you'll find precisely what the CPA has proposed and prefers, in its own words. With engineering drawings.

The two preferred alignments each feature a 6,000-foot earthen-berm causeway as a primary component. The two less-preferred, more expensive variants (CPA's words) utilize all trestle.

And that's what the STB's Environmental Impact Statement will focus on. Everything else is an afterthought.

So when is a study not a study? When it's actually a statement.

The CPA likes to use the terms study and statement interchangeably, but there is little — if any — actual waders-in-the-water science associated with an EIS.

An EIS is an intellectual exercise. In essence, it is a paper chase, compiling previously existing literature for bureaucratic review. An EIS doesn't tell you if you can do something; it tells you how to do it while navigating within the parameters you've defined.

The same is true of the STB and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

They build things. When you go to them, they're not going to tell you if you can do it; they're going to tell you how to do it. It's kind of like going to an orthopedic surgeon and being shocked that they'd like to operate.

That's what they do. They cut.

The northern section of the Banana River Lagoon is an Estuary of National Significance, National Wildlife Refuge and home to the world's highest concentration of endangered West Indian manatees. Combustion engines and electric propulsion have been banned for nearly 30 years. Multiple recreational user groups travel from around the world to enjoy access to this area, pumping more than $600 million a year into Brevard's economy.

That contribution shouldn't be marginalized.

A rail line through the Banana River via one of these alternatives is also a direct threat to public access. Railways are a matter of national security; operators certainly don't want the public playing around their berms and trestles.

Denying public water access is something that CPA has become pretty adept at over the past 30 years, systematically restricting public water access in about 90 percent of the port.

All of that has been accomplished in the name of commerce, growth and security.

While there is no doubt the CPA has the authority to do whatever it wants within Port Canaveral and on the property it owns, this is a major project outside its scope, which will impact not only constituents in the CPA's five districts, but also the five counties bordering both lagoons and a much larger environmental web.

Project Pelican was hatched in secrecy; the CPA entered into a binding contract guarantying operational time-certain rail assets to GT USA, while making absolutely no attempt to gauge public support — or interest — for its enormous commercial rail project.

Given the magnitude of this proposal, shouldn't this be put to a public question or vote before executing a contract? Where's the harm in that? Perhaps a majority of voters would support it.

If they do, so be it.

But until we are asked, how will we know? Before asking "how," maybe the CPA should ask its constituents "if."

The writer

Ted Lund is a freelancer writer born and raised on the Space Coast. He operates the outdoor blog tedlund.com and writes for FLORIDA TODAY's Outdoors page. Opinions expressed are his and not FLORIDA TODAY's.