Categorical Exclusion
The Categorial Exclusion Application needs to be reviewed for current facts in context to all the economic, community, and environmental impacts hitting Moose Pass. Under the NEPA FWA criteria it appears Moose Pass should, for the reasons provided within this website is due a full Environmental Impact Study.
The Lodge owner and his staff have made numerous inquiries to lawyers, conservationists, State and Federal agencies in regard to the Categorical Exclusion given to this project in 2018 under a Memorandum of Understanding the DOT has with Federal Highway Administration and the Categorical Exclusion given to the Alaska DOT which we believe is woefully inaccurate considering all the changes in 2023 impacting Moose Pass. Our facts gathered by asking residents and knowing the land along with the wildlife provide the reasons for scrutinizing the DOT’s original application, which we believe based in facts, failed to present a full or accurate picture of the harms this town will befall if the road is widened.
Presently, we have consulted with an environmental group who is having their legal team review these issues and see whether this is an issue they want to or can seek legal remedies for on behalf of the lodge and Moose Pass residents . With this said, it does not require legal knowledge to read statutes and Alaska DOT’s application and refute their findings based on the facts by the residents, not generalizations or biased entities. We also dispute that the Memorandum of Understanding is appropriate due to changed circumstances such as all the different projects hitting Moose Pass.
Categorical Exclusion Assignment (23 U.S.C. 326)
SAFETEA-LU also created a permanent but less expansive program for States to assume FHWA’s responsibilities for highway projects classified as Categorical Exclusions or CEs (Section 6004 of SAFETEA-LU). Upon assigning environmental review responsibilities for CE projects to a State DOT, FHWA could also assign to that State DOT all or part of FHWA’s responsibilities for environmental review, consultation, or other action required under any Federal environmental law pertaining to the review of a specific highway project. FHWA responsibilities are assigned through a Memorandum of Understanding that expires after 3 years, but is renewable. FHWA monitors the State’s compliance with the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding. California, Utah, and Alaska currently are engaged in this program.
It is the lodge owner’s contention; certain Moose Pass residents; and Alaskans at large, familiar with this area, and all the other projects being thrown into Moose Pass, that think this exclusion is not only out of date but categorically wrong on many relevant points, and is seeking reversal through proper channels. This should concern anyone that an agency can state anything without much scrutiny and be excluded from rules, it is allowing the bears to run the fish plants so to speak.
This so called “ improvement” PROJECT: , really should be renamed widening of the road built on OPM ( OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY), is in the wrong place. These little towns in Alaska are what makes Alaska unique, when a categorical exclusion asks on a form whether there are any businesses that are impacted and the answer does not reflect that the store being destroyed is THE ONLY STORE AND A HISTORICAL LANDMARK or that the WOLF TRAIL LODGE brings in 50k a year or more to local businesses or that the SPAWNING SALMON STREAMS are going to be harmed, from their road plans and the hydro and the access road, and the bridge along with the dynamite and that FISH are millions of dollars in revenue, then this CATEGORICAL EXCEPTION IS SIMPLY NUGATORY.
These basic forms with basic questions require more than a cursory answer and that these Memorandum of Understandings can be convenient but also wrong. We want an Environmental Impact Study because the information in 2018 omitted all the extraordinary impacts along with the community, culture, history, and habitat, salmon , and wetlands that will be harmed if the road is widened as planned, besides being a boondoggle. It appears this road has no real real justifiable reason, except to spend our money, while destroying private property, a community, a culture, salmon streams, bears, moose and eagle habitat ion context to the projects being dumped upon Moose Pass residents all at once.
The owner believes that this property and the impacted businesses and homes in Moose Pass fall under the extraordinary circumstances proviso AND Scoping IS REQUIRED NOW, DUE TO ALL THE SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS IN 2023 AND BEYOND because of the unique topography, fish, wetlands, the building of hydro project, the access road, the blasting and the wildlife along with the entire community, should by law be provided with a full EIS study under the following provisions :
Refutations to DOT’s application for Categorical Exclusion in 2017:
On 1. D - the Estes general store with the apartment upstairs has to be razed as there is no longer a place to move it to. This was as of August 2, 2022
REFUTATIONS TO APPLICATION ANSWERS:
B. 4 - Bob Contin is 90 years old. I feel this may become a problem entering the highway, but he’s too old to move.
C. 1 - Removing the store will affect the owners monetarily and taking 3 acres of my property will definitely have effects on my bed & breakfast.
Also the store and the lodge are historically significant and the STORE is the only STORE in town, this serves a community who may be trapped by snow storms or sick or elderly who cannot drive al the way to Seward. The DOT’s answers in this application are woefully misleading,
REFUTATIONS TO APPLICATION ANSWERS:
C. 2 - again, this is false as the store will be affected AND by taking 3 acres of my property and razing 3 cabins, garage, pole barn and green house as far as structures go, this will be a great set back for me.
D. 3 - the salmon spawning stream here thru my property will be disturbed greatly.
REFUTATIONS TO APPLICATION ANSWERS:
7. A - the road can simply be moved north and put down approximately where the original highway was.
7. B - No. By wanting to make a 300 foot wide corridor, you would need a 300 foot culvert pipe or a bridge.
7. C - No. Again, the road can be placed several hundred feet up further from the lake. The pathway that the old highway took is still there (with several alders growing on it)
REFUTATIONS TO APPLICATION ANSWERS:
H. - D - definitely will have a major impact on spawning salmon in the waterway here on the property if a large culvert pipe is put in.
H. - E - salmon fry cannot live inside a pipe.
H. - G - salmon is a subsistence species.
H. 3. Once the road is widened the bears, wolves , eagles and other species will be hit on the road, they have no buffer zone, and the Hydro plant, and their access road along with a proposed bridge will have more wildlife move to the side of the lake where this resident’s lodge property is located. The DOT will not place a buffer wall or fence and will cut down the trees, these answers are very inaccurate.
REFUTATIONS TO APPLICATION ANSWERS:
I.- 3 - several eagles harvest the spawned out salmon during seasons when the reds & silvers are spawning here. If the salmon are enclosed in a culvert, no food then for the eagles and bears any more.
III. - 3. At this time there is nothing showing they pulled said permit for this stream.
36 CFR § 220.6 - Categorical exclusions.
CFR
Table of Popular Names