VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Canadian National Railway is taking legal action to force Parks Canada to allow it to build a berm to protect its main line against potential flood damage in Alberta’s Jasper National Park.
The CBC reports that CN, in a federal court filing, says the agency has for more than eight years held up its request to address concerns about the Snake Indian River, refusing to allow environmental impact study of its proposals. It wants the court to overturn Parks Canada’s decision to not conduct an assessment.
The railroad wants the berm to protect against damage if the river rapidly changes course during a period of increased water flow, a condition known as avulsion. The railroad says in a court filing that its experts have determined the river would “rapidly abandon its existing channel and form a new river channel flowing directly downhill toward the main line. … An avulsion would have catastrophic impacts.”
The Canadian Press says that the railroad’s latest proposal, from January 2024, offered two options: construction of a berm using outside materials, or one in which the materials would be dredged from the river. The second option would allow construction of a smaller berm, CN said, because it would also deepen the river.
CN’s filing says it began proposing flood-prevention measures in 2017. Since then, the park agency has repeatedly changed how it conducts environmental assessments, the railroad says, and has “repeatedly rebuffed” CN proposals.
While Parks Canada supports the idea of the berm, according to a letter included in the filing, it disagrees with using materials from within the park. But CN estimated in 2020 that bringing in outside materials would take at least two years and require some 1,200 railcars and 2,000 truckloads.
CN declined comment on its legal action to both news agencies, and Parks Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If government bureaucracy takes years to get approval, then that agency needs to be disbanded, the bureaucrats and politicians put in prison, and CN should do what they feel fit. This is Tyranny of oversized, ineffective government.