By Aidan Mortensen | KOAL News

Following a loss last year in the United States Supreme Court, Eagle County, Colorado, has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management to block the expansion of the Wildcat transloading facility in Helper, Utah.

First reported by Trains.com, the suit, which was filed on March 26 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the DOI’s emergency environmental review procedure, which was performed under President Donald Trump’s issuance of a ‘National Energy Emergency’, was “arbitrary and unlawful.”

It also argues that both the DOI’s issuance and the BLM’s approval violate federal law, including the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

The Wildcat facility, originally a backup plan for oil transport if the Uinta Basin Railway failed, has been in development since 2023. 

The expansion of the Wildcat facility could increase its capacity from 30,000 to 100,000 barrels per day. It could also raise the amount of waxy crude oil transported out of the Uinta Basin by 80,000 barrels per day. 

According to the BLM’s Environmental Analysis, the move is also expected to require 345 oil tanker truck deliveries through Indian Canyon daily, an increase of 268 over current levels. Because of the oil’s high paraffin content, it must be transported in heated cars to prevent it from solidifying.

Before approval, Coloradans have expressed concern about the environmental impact the expansion could have. “Many Colorado communities have raised concerns about how the Wildcat loadout expansion and the Uinta Basin Railway would increase oil train traffic and potential railway accidents that could harm water quality and wildlife, and enhance wildfire risk,” said Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse and Sen. Michael Bennet in a 2023 letter to the BLM.

The lawsuit also alleges that the approval would “have authorized a 400% increase in the amount of oil transloaded from trucks to trains each day at the Facility, causing a significant increase in oil trains on a rail line owned by the Union Pacific Railroad (the Union Pacific Line) that traverses the Rocky Mountains, mere feet from the Colorado River, and across Eagle County and Colorado.”

Eagle County is seeking the courts to declare the use of the alternative arrangements by the DOI and BLM to be “unlawful, arbitrary, and in violation of FLPMA, NEPA, and the APA,” and to “enjoin activities under the Wildcat Facility Expansion that BLM authorized.”