How much will the new I-93 plan really help?

By Max Heuer

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2002--Whether traffic on Interstate 93 is going to get better any time in the next decade is still anybody's guess.

The U.S. Department of Transportation formally announced Thursday that the $420 million project to widen I-93 was one of several construction projects put on an expedited list to speed up environmental review. But exactly how much faster the process will be still isn't clear.

"(In terms of) how does (the program) actually get implemented and what difference ultimately will it effect I don't know," Jeff Brillhart, director of project development for New Hampshire's Transportation Department and the former manager of the I-93 project, said in a phone interview Thursday.

The list is part of a program that -- under an executive order from President Bush about six weeks ago- - will create a Cabinet-level, interagency task force designed to simplify the environmental review process without upsetting federal law on the issue.

Brillhart said he hadn't seen any specific information on the task force other than a press release. He said he was expecting that eventually "something will come down from the Federal Highway Administration."

The goal behind the new task force is to avoid "duplication" and "red tape" that have delayed projects, a U.S. Transportation Department spokesman said Thursday on condition of anonymity. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta echoed this statement in a press release, saying that "President Bush asked his Cabinet to help states cut through federal bureaucratic inertia to help them complete sound transportation projects more quickly and at less cost."

The department spokesman said that a "second wave" of announcements is coming soon that will place other projects around the country on the new list. The spokesman said that the function of the new system was simply to avoid multiple reviews of the same site by different groups with similar interests.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been involved for years with the I-93 project, which would widen the highway lanes in an 18-mile stretch between the Massachusetts border and Manchester.

"(The I-93 project) has been on a fast track basis… since day one," said Elizabeth Higgins, Northeast director of the EPA's Office of Environmental Review. Higgins said the widening of I-93 was a "pilot project" for streamlining the review process. Unlike with most construction projects, she said, the I-93 project's environmental impact statement that her agency made public Sept. 13 was preceded by months of detailed interagency discussion.

But the EPA and the New Hampshire Transportation Department have been unable to come to a consensus on mitigating damage to wetlands along the road - or on how much land in other areas of the Granite State should be preserved in the place of wetlands lost to the widening of I-93. This issue remains the single biggest stumbling block between the two agencies.

Brillhart said the EPA is pushing for secondary impact mitigation, which would provide an additional 3,000 acres of land with high ecological value. This land would be included because of the potential for further loss of wetlands as a consequence of an increase in business and housing development in New Hampshire towns not directly adjacent to the highway, Brillhart said.

The New Hampshire agency has agreed to 650 acres of wetland mitigation for towns that are immediately adjacent to the highway, Brillhart said. Higgins said the EPA had not specified an exact amount of land, but that its position is that more land should be included.

Brillhart said that the New Hampshire Transportation Department does not need EPA approval but added that there will be "some negotiation" on the issue. The. Army Corps of Engineers, the state Wetlands Bureau and the Federal Highway Administration are the agencies that grant the the state highway agency permission to widen the interstate, Brillhart said.

Brillhart said that after environmental concerns are addressed, the final design must be approved by these agencies. He estimated that "some construction" would begin by 2004 but that the project would probably not be completed until 2012. Brillhart added that obtaining proper funding would be another "critical item."

The original estimate for the $ project was $150 million, state transportation commissioner Carol Murray told The Union Leader Wednesday. The department's budget is about $150 million a year, and additional federal funding is "the other unknown" in addition to the eventual cost of the project, Murray said.

Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.