Proposal for the Pigs Eye Industrial Area

Marathon Petroleum Co. is proposing to build a railyard with a minimum storage capacity of 150 cars (the site can hold 170) for their St. Paul Park refinery. The property where this railyard will be built is located in the Pigs Eye Industrial Area, immediately south of the Canadian Pacific railyards which are south of the intersection of Hiway 61 and Warner Road.

Marathon needs to submit an Environmental Assessment Worksheet for this project. Wetlands are impacted by the proposal. The site

• is within the 100 year floodplain of the Mississippi River (which is 706.3 ft above sea level);
• has already gone through some remediation with 4-6 ft of dump materials removed by the MPCA, replaced by geotextile fabric and overlain with clean compacted aggregate to a height of 701 ft;
• would include 3000 feet of linear track varying in width from 1 to 8 tracks.

The proposal has to deal with these factors:

• Wetland A (east end of site) is 6.05 acres and will have to have 0.79 of those acres infilled to avoid impacts on Battle Creek. This wetland discharges through a 15 in. culvert into Battle Creek just after the creek flows under the railroad bridge. A culvert would be used to control its discharge.
• Wetland B (an infiltration ditch built between 2000 and 2002 that is 0.29 acres total. 0.06 acres would be filled and would be replaced by drainage ditches north and south of the proposed rail lines.
• Wetland C (a narrow ditch formed when a flood berm was built) is 0.13 acres.
• Wetland D (an incidental ditch 0.04 acres in size) - only its western edge is in the project area where it flows into Pigs Eye Lake.
• Battle Creek (0.4 acres of the creek is affected) where it flows from Little Pigs Eye Lake under the railroad bridge near where Wetland A discharges into it.

The Wetland Mitigation they are proposing is based on trying to minimize disturbing the old dump materials that underlie this area. There are no places at the site to replace the wetlands they are removing and no opportunities within Saint Paul or Ramsey County where they can do a substitute replacement, or buy credits. They are looking outside this area but will replace wetlands at a ratio of 2:1.

Flood Control Mitigation they are proposing would require compensating on site for the project's displacement of 100 year (and less) floodwaters. They propose on-site compensation by removal of dump materials and providing a buffer between the remaining materials and the final grade (exposed dump materials would be buffered).

Treatment of StormWater is usually done through plantings to form a buffer. They are asking for a variance of this rule, saying that there is not enough space or the proper soils for a natural buffer.

COMMENT - What is puzzling about this proposal is that they say they don't want to mitigate the net loss of wetlands at this location for fear of disturbing the contaminated soils and yet they are seeking a variance to avoid mitigating potential pollution caused by stormwater in the flood compensation ponds they would construct by digging into the contaminated soils. Does anyone else find this problematic!!

LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THIS PROPOSAL! Comment here or contact our office SOON (651.501.6345, district1council@aol.com)!!