Passenger Trains > Judge backs CA HSR over farmers

From the AP:

Judge backs Calif. high-speed rail over farmers

By JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press – 3 minutes ago

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A judge has denied a request from Central Valley farmers to temporarily block California's ambitious high-speed rail project.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley on Friday denied a request for a preliminary injunction to halt the $68 billion infrastructure project.

Groups representing Central Valley farmers claim that the California High-Speed Rail Authority should have to halt all planning and engineering work because the state violated environmental laws.

The judge ruled that "the authority acted reasonably and in good faith" in considering the project's impact.

The rail authority's chairman, Dan Richard, says the judge's decision "ensures that we can continue to move forward" on building the first 65-mile section from Merced to Fresno.

While Frawley denied the farmers' request for an injunction, the lawsuit still will be heard on its merits.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

NIMBY at it's finest.

The suit may be NIMBYism, but the judge seems to be within his bounds.

Shutting down the whole project because the state did not complete all of its environmental studies is a drastic move. Most of what is going on now is engineering, design, land acquisition, etc. There's no permanent and irreparable harm that would require any immediate suspension of the whole process.

If the project was at the blowing holes in mountains stage, or bulldozing neighborhoods, that's what the complete injunction is designed to hold up. Stuff that would be hard to put back together if the later ruling went against the HSR.