MnDOT denies Highway 14 funds diverted

Original EIS ongoing

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Have Minnesota Department of Transportation funds designated for the U.S. Highway 14 expansion project been diverted to fund construction on U.S. Highway 52?

What about the environmental impact statement (EIS) for Highway 14's Owatonna-Dodge Center segment, is it expired or not?

These issues were first raised by the Highway 14 Partnership's steering committee at a recent meeting. Frustrated by the impending delay on an important segment in the expansion project, committee members vowed to launch a campaign designed to force MnDOT to make the expansion project a higher priority.

Spokespersons for MnDOT's Mankato (7) and Rochester (6) districts issued denials that funding had been diverted, but, in the case of District 7's spokesperson, confirmed the expiration of the original EIS.

Then, in a move that caught Partnership members by surprise, MnDOT Commissioner Elwyn Tinklenberg himself weighed into the dispute with a letter to individual Partnership members, with copies to a number of legislators.

He told committee members the EIS "has NOT expired" and "MnDOT has NOT shifted funding from Highway 14 improvements to Highway 52."

The commissioner then went on to chastise the Partnership for comments "that included erroneous and inaccurate information about Highway 14 funding, and included inflammatory remarks towards MnDOT (which) will not help us achieve our goal."

He also denied that MnDOT was "delaying" or "coasting, nor has it 'pushed off' improvements to Highway 14. The department has invested millions of dollars into Highway 14 during the last several years and plans to invest millions more over the next 10 to 15 years."

So, the question remained as to why construction on the Owatonna-Dodge Center segment was being held up and whether funds meant for the HIghway 14 project were being used elsewhere on other projects.

"The original EIS completed in the summer of 1993 is ongoing," explained Brian Jergenson, public affairs coordinator for MnDOT District 6, Rochester, "but we have a three-year window from the end of any act on an ongoing project. We updated it again in 1996 for the Dodge Center bypass which was built in 1998."

The original EIS is still good and will continue to be good because District 6 is in the process of building the Highway 14 expansion south of Owatonna which includes expanding the road to four lanes for a full mile and building a full intersection at Highway 218, Jergenson explained.

"The reason for updating the EIS at the present time is that the City of Claremont and Dodge and Steele counties have challenged the placement of the four-lane expansion along the DM&E railroad tracks," Jergenson said.

In 1993, when the original EIS was completed, the statement anticipated the four-lane expansion would incorporate the present roadbed which runs along the north side of the DM&E tracks. And the expansion project south of Owatonna is in keeping with that plan with the new roadbed north of the tracks.

"The request by Claremont and Dodge and Steele counties to reconsider placement of the road and that it be relocated south of the DM&E tracks means we must look at the original EIS because a lot of things may have changed since the original was completed," Jergenson explained.

He said this updating of the original EIS is expected to take a full two years because of the public hearings that must be held and other factors involved in reviewing the EIS.

As far as Highway 14 funds being diverted to other projects, Jergenson attributes that issue to a lack of understanding of how MnDOT funding works.

"It's complicated, and even I don't profess to know exactly how it all comes about," Jergenson continued, "but I can tell you this that there's no magical pot of money set aside for Highway 14 or any other project."

Basically, it works like this. As action points are reached in the project schedule, money is made available to fund whatever needs to be done at that particular time, Jergenson explained.

"It's never been the case that we would say that we have this amount of money set aside for a particular project, and it will not be used for anything else," Jergenson continued. "The system just doesn't work that way."

Reminded that the 2001 Minnesota Road Transportation Needs Assessment Study conducted by the Transportation Policy Institute singled out the state's trunk highway system as having the highest number of fatalities and personal injury crashes of all types of roadways, Jergenson responded, "Highway 14 is a priority and remains a priority for MnDOT," he said, "however, there are a lot of those priorities in this state, and we only have so much money to work with."

For the immediate future, Jergenson noted, there's another priority.

"We of MnDOT's Districts 6 and 7 have come to realize that we need to communicate more effectively with groups like the Highway 14 Partnership and the public," he said. "In that regard, we met Monday with representatives of the Highway 14 Partnership committee in an effort to clear up these issues."

Reflecting upon this latest dispute, Jergenson added, "I guess this has been a good learning experience for both MnDOT and the Partnership."