Environmental group joins Katy bridge suit

JEFFERSON CITY — An environmental group has entered the legal fray over an old Katy railroad bridge, contending that plans to tear it down could jeopardize the existence of Katy Trail State Park.

A lawsuit filed on behalf of bicyclists by the St. Louis-based Great Rivers Environmental Law Center seeks to block Union Pacific from dismantling the bridge and prevent Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration from relinquishing the state’s interest in the 73-year-old structure.

It echoes claims Attorney General Jay Nixon already raised in another lawsuit — that if the bridge were removed, it could subject the very existence of the trail to legal challenges from private property owners.

“I’ve been a longtime user of the Katy Trail, mostly bicycling but also some hiking, and I’ve ridden many, many miles,” the lawsuit’s lead plaintiff, Ken Midkiff, said Tuesday. “It was my concern that any severance of the trail might jeopardize the entire trail.”

Midkiff, of Boone County, is the conservation chairman for the state chapter of the Sierra Club. The other plaintiffs are Democratic congressional candidate and university instructor Jeff Smith, and Great Rivers board chairman James Wilson. Both are from St. Louis and claim to ride the trail from time to time.

But the Department of Natural Resources said that shouldn’t give them grounds to sue.

“There is absolutely no substance to the argument that the removal of that bridge could create a severance of the trail,” said Kurt Schaefer, DNR’s deputy director and general counsel.

“The trail doesn’t go over the bridge; it’s never gone over the bridge. So there’s no interference with any rights they would have as users of the trail,” he said.

The Katy Trail currently uses a highway bridge to cross the Missouri River at Boonville. But private preservationists hope to restore the old railroad bridge as part of the trail.

At issue in both the new lawsuit and Nixon’s is a 1987 agreement in which the state obtained 200 miles of rail line from the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad under a federal law that lets abandoned rail beds get turned into trails — so long as they are preserved for potential railroad use in the future.

The deal specifically excluded the Boonville bridge from the sale. But it gave the state the right to use the bridge for the trail if it assumed liability on terms acceptable to the railroad.

Earlier this year, Blunt’s DNR director, Doyle Childers, waived the state’s right to use the bridge so current owner Union Pacific could recycle the steel for a bridge elsewhere.

Nixon then sued, claiming Childers had no legal authority to do so without the General Assembly’s approval — and even then could not do so without compensation. Nixon’s lawsuit also raises the severance issue and contends removing the bridge would be a breach of contract and public trust — the two allegations cited in the environmental lawsuit.

Nixon already has formed a fundraising committee to challenge Blunt in the 2008 gubernatorial elections.

That’s one reason the environmental group decided to file its own lawsuit, said the group’s attorney, Bruce Morrison.

“They want the court to see this is not a political battle between two individuals who hope to be governor, but that the trail is of importance — as is the bridge — to the users of the trail,” Morrison said

The environmental group sued after the Department of Natural Resources opposed its attempt to file a friend of the court brief in Nixon’s original suit. The department is seeking to disqualify Nixon from suing it.