U.S. 63 Coalition Moves Forward on NEPA Study but With Some Questions
The members of the U.S. 63 Coalition met Tuesday March 22nd, at the Oskaloosa Public Library (photo D.Hubbard)
Representatives of Mahaska County, the City of Oskaloosa, the Pella Area Development Corporation, the Iowa Department of Transportation, Cargill, Poweshiek County, the City of Montezuma, the City of Pella, the City of Ottumwa, Ottumwa Economic Development Corp, and a representative of Snyder & Associates were all on hand for a meeting concerning the next steps the group will take.
The East Central Iowa Transportation Coalition as it’s known, has also been known as, a shortened, U.S. 63 Coalition. Beth Danowsky, ECITC Chairwoman said that, “It’s not a coalition that exists to work on U.S. 63, that’s been a big focus of our work, the purpose of our meeting today isn’t to talk about multiple projects, I don’t think it hurts us to be mindful of the other important transportation projects that are on the radar in this region.”
Funding for the NEPA study is currently in need of $210,000.00 in funds over the life of the study for it’s completion. Mahaska County and Oskaloosa have each put in $130,000.00 of the $500,000.00 of the needed funds with MCDG adding an additional $30,000 towards the balance. Other entities are going back to see what funds they could make available on the NEPA study.
Rich Voelker of Snyder & Associates described the upcoming NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) process. The guideline for this process is a near 1,000 page process that is mandated to follow, in order to use federal dollars.
“This process sets in motion all of the resources that are protected by federal law that are looked at through this process.” Voelker said in explaining the NEPA process.
Phase 1 of the project was a feasibility study and that was completed in February of 2009. Phase 2 of the project was an Area Transportation Study that completed in February 2010. Phase 3 is now the NEPA Process. You can read more on the NEPA process on the EPA’s website HERE.
US 63 Transportation Study
The time frame to get through the entire NEPA process is 2 years at the mentioned cost of $500,000.00 to complete the study. “It seems like a long time,” said Ellie Snook, Poweshiek County Supervisor. “I told this group that half a million dollars is a lot of money, lots of money, but that’s what the process is going to take, because as part of this entire process, we got to look at the preliminary design levels of the corridors that are being moved forward.” stated Dale Harrington of Snyder & Associates.
Currently the stretch from Oskaloosa to Waterloo is not on the Commercial Industrial Network or CIN. That request to be placed on that network has been submitted with the Iowa DOT. Gaining that designation would be easier if the mileage was under what is set by Iowa Code, but the current project is 97 miles and the limit set by law is 86 to gain CIN designation.
“It’s a step by step thing, this is nothing new that we’re inventing, it’s pretty well established as you can see. And that 1,000 page document is no joke. That’s really what it is, unfortunately, and fortunately because it does do some protecting of certain elements.” Harrington said of the NEPA process.
Bill Ludwig, representing Poweshiek and Montezuma, said, “I’ve misunderstood, I guess, where we are in the process. This item was before the Montezuma City Council last night. We have been meeting on a very regular basis with 15 to 20 people around the Montezuma area, we’ve been up to Malcom, we’ve been out to the lakes district, and we are moving ahead with our action development plan. U.S. 63 is very much a part of this plan, so we are moving ahead. I thought that this coalition was going to sit down at the table and decide what we were going to ask the engineering team. That is what we are going to do in the North.” Bill Ludwig explained on what the Northern part of the coalition is planning on doing.
“We intend to come back in about 3 weeks and look at a different way to approach this process. I understand that Snyder has done a very good job of saying what their going to say.” “I think we’ve got a different approach to it, I know we do in the North, and if we have interest from the South we’d like to show it to you.” Ludwig continued on what the Northern portion of the coalition had to say about the process. “We’re interested in building highway, and getting things going.” he continued.
“One thing that we have to recognize, what we (Snyder & Associates) are saying to you is that this process is what is necessary to go through in order to be able to expend federal dollars and follow what the national law says.” “It’s not our process, it’s not Snyder’s process, it’s not mine, I didn’t invent the 1,000 pages, that’s their process, that’s the Federal Highway Administration’s process, and Iowa DOT’s.” stated Harrington of Snyder & Associates.
