Circ to get enviro review

Vermont Business Magazine, Sep 01, 2004 by Kelley, Kevin

State officials' recent decision to conduct a full-scale environmental review of the next phase of the Circumferential Highway is being viewed with skepticism by an advocacy group that has succeeded in blocking construction of the fourmile road segment.

The July decision by the Vermont Transportation Agency (Vtrans) to carry out an environmental impact study came in response to a federal court order halting work on the project. Judge William Sessions ruled in May that the highway's sponsors had been remiss in not fully assessing its environmental effects.

"There has been no environmental analysis whatsoever, in the entire life of this project, of the cumulative effect of the (highway) considered in conjunction with other past, present and reasonably foreseeable actions", Sessions declared.

The court's decision left federal and state officials with the option of canceling plans for the contested section of the Circ, which would run between Interstate 89 in Williston and an existing fivemile stretch of the highway in Essex. But in choosing to carry out an environmental assessment, officials have signaled their determination to keep pursuing the project.

"We were hoping the Federal Highway Administration and Vtrans would cancel the Circ and deal with transportation problems in Chittenden County in a more creative way," says Mark Sinclair, an attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation. "It's disappointing that they're pressing ahead with a highway that has no merit."

The move to conduct an environmental study does not indicate that Vtrans is committed to building the Circ, says Judith Dillon, the agency's assistant attorney general.

The consulting firm chosen by the state to carry out the study will strive for fairness in order to protect its own reputation, Dillon says. "If consultants kowtow to agencies or to clients they're not going to go very far." Sinclair doubts, however, that the process will be unprejudiced.

"We're hoping that the review will be objective, as Vtrans claims, but we're skeptical that it will be because Vtrans officials have said again recently that the highway is going to be built." The road has long been championed by business groups in Chittenden County as well as by many of the state's political leaders. IBM has also lent its influence, arguing that construction of the Williston-Essex leg is needed to reduce costs at the local chip plant and pave the way for potential expansion.

Sinclair's group, on the other hand, has fought to stop the Cite for the past several years. The Conservation Law Foundation was among the environmental groups filing the lawsuit that led to Sessions' stopwork order in May.

During the comment period for the impact study, the foundation intends to present alternatives to the Circ that will focus on improvements in the existing road network. "Our proposal makes strategic use of roundabouts" to alleviate congestion at the Five Comers in Essex, Sinclair says. "We think you can spend half of what would be spent on the Circ and get 10 times more traffic relief."

Vtrans officials say the impact study could be completed by the spring of 2006. It will then be up to federal authorities to determine whether the highway is in compliance with environmental laws.

Ultimately, however, the decision could rest with Judge Sessions. Vermont environmentalists will almost certainly initiate legal action in federal court if the study is interpreted as favorable to the highway's construction.