SPI tore up tracks in a stretch between highways 49 and 88 in September. Photo by: Jerry Budrick

Sierra Pacific Industries could be found to have violated federal permit conditions in its September tear-up of historic railroad tracks in Martell.

"This is a pending case," said Dennis Watson, spokesman for the federal Surface Transportation Board, a regulatory agency. "We're essentially a court."

Public records show that a list of conditions govern the transportation board's February 2005 granting to SPI the authority to abandon the old Amador Central Railroad right-of-way. Several of them are known as "report-back" conditions, in which SPI was legally constrained to consult with various agencies - largely on environmental concerns at the Martell site - and report results back to the Surface Transportation Board "prior to the onset of salvage operations," including track removal.

The STB has no record of reports back on any SPI consults with, for example, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to Watson.

The toxic wastes tetrachlorophenol and pentachlorophenol were the subject of a 1999 voluntary cleanup agreement between SPI and the Department of Toxic Substances Control, state documents show.

However, department spokeswoman Claudia Loomis said Wednesday her research showed no contact from SPI seeking consultation for purposes of reporting to the federal transportation board. Similarly, U.S. EPA spokeswoman Mary Simms said a check Tuesday and Wednesday was inconclusive but turned up no evidence of an SPI contact for consultation.

SPI tore up tracks in a stretch between highways 49 and 88 in September "consistent with our plan to develop the property (known as the Amador Central Business Park)," said SPI spokesman Mark Luster.

At the time of SPI's 2004 filing for permission to abandon the Amador Central line, protests were filed with the Surface Transportation Board by the California Department of Transportation, the Amador County Transportation Commission, the county board of supervisors and development interests known as the Martell Industrial Center, LLC, documents show.

SPI officials were notably unresponsive to queries about compliance with federal permit conditions.

"I noticed that your article (on the track tear-up) ran in the paper a couple weeks ago - since we have already done an interview I don't have anything else to add to our previous interview," Luster wrote in an e-mail.

Luster's boss, Mark Pawlicki, SPI director of government affairs, was succinctly non-responsive on the permit conditions.

"No comment," Pawlicki said.

Watson said the STB has contacted an SPI attorney, Richard Allen, to inquire about the company's apparent inaction on meeting permit conditions. However, proceedings haven't yet concluded that SPI is in violation, and will not reach any formal conclusion until SPI's report-back documents are received.

SPI's previous record of compliance with environmental regulations is not a clean one.

In late June 2007, the California Air Resources Board, the Placer County Air Pollution Control District and the California Attorney General reached a $13 million civil settlement of an air-pollution enforcement case against SPI. Alleged were falsification of emission reports as a result of operator tampering with monitoring equipment; failure to report emission exceedences and exceeding permit emission limits on a multitude of occasions over several years; failure to operate and maintain air pollution control equipment; and discharging soot from its Lincoln facility that caused nuisances to nearby residences. SPI did not admit the allegations but paid the settlement agreement money amount.