International Courant
SEATTLE– BNSF Railway should pay practically $400 million to a Native American tribe in Washington state, a federal choose ordered Monday after discovering that the corporate dedicated willful infringement when it repeatedly ran 100-car trains carrying crude oil by the tribe’s reservation .
U.S. District Decide Robert Lasnik initially dominated final yr that the railroad willfully violated the phrases of a 1991 easement with the Swinomish tribe north of Seattle that permits trains to hold not more than 25 automobiles per day. The choose held a trial earlier this month to find out how a lot revenue BNSF constructed from violations between 2012 and 2021 and the way a lot it ought to spend.
The Fort Price, Texas-based firm mentioned in an e-mail that it had no touch upon the ruling. The tribe, which has about 1,400 members, didn’t instantly reply to an e-mail looking for remark.
The tribe sued in 2015 after BNSF, with out the tribe’s permission, dramatically elevated the variety of automobiles it drove throughout the reservation so it might ship crude oil from the Bakken Formation in and round North Dakota to a close-by refinery. The route crosses delicate marine ecosystems alongside the coast, over waters linked to the Salish Sea, the place the tribe has treaty-protected fishing rights.
Cooking oil is less complicated to refine into fuels offered on the fuel pump and ignites extra simply. After rail automobiles carrying Bakken crude exploded in Alabama, North Dakota and Quebec, a federal company warned in 2014 that the oil has the next diploma of volatility than different crude oil within the US.
Final yr, two BNSF engines derailed on Swinomish land, leaking an estimated 3,100 gallons (11,700 liters) of diesel gas close to Padilla Bay.
The 1991 easement restricted rail visitors to at least one prepare of 25 automobiles per day in every path. It required BNSF to inform the tribe in regards to the “nature and id of all freight” shifting by the reservation, and it mentioned the tribe wouldn’t arbitrarily deny permission to extend the variety of trains or automobiles.
The tribe discovered by a 2011 Skagit County planning doc {that a} close by refinery would start receiving crude oil trains. It wasn’t till the next yr that the tribe obtained info from BNSF about present monitor use, courtroom paperwork present.
The tribe and BNSF mentioned amending the settlement, however “at no level did the tribe approve of BNSF’s unilateral choice to move unit trains throughout the reservation, agree to extend prepare or automotive restrictions, or waive his contractual proper to approval,” Lasnik mentioned in his choice final yr.
“BNSF did not notify the Tribe of the character of the freight crossing the reservation and unilaterally elevated the variety of trains and the variety of automobiles with out the Tribe’s written consent, thereby violating the circumstances set the permission of BNSF to enter the location.” Lasnik mentioned.
The four-day trial this month was supposed to supply the courtroom with particulars and professional testimony to information the choose by advanced calculations about how a lot “ill-gotten” income BNSF ought to pay out. Lasnik put that determine at $362 million and added $32 million in after-tax income, equivalent to funding earnings, for a complete of greater than $394 million.
In actuality, the choose wrote, BNSF earned excess of $32 million in after-tax income, but when that had been all added up, it might have added lots of of hundreds of thousands extra to what was already a big judgment in opposition to the railroad was once.
Decide orders railroads to pay Washington tribe practically $400 million for trespassing on oil trains
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