PORTLAND, Maine — The Maine Department of Environmental Protection on Tuesday gave approval for a second time to a permit for a train storage and maintenance facility in Brunswick, the current end of the line for Amtrak’s Downeaster passenger rail service.
The project generated local controversy, as neighbors argued the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority was wrong to locate the $12.7 million layover facility at the location approved Tuesday.
The decision Tuesday comes after a group of those neighbors, organized as the Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition, won a 2013 superior court ruling that found the rail authority failed to notify property abutters of its permit application.
The court vacated the DEP’s approval and required the rail authority to submit another application for developing about 6.7 acres on the site.
The current application was submitted last October and received a daylong public hearing in March at the Brunswick Golf Club. It was the first public hearing the DEP ever held for a stormwater permit application.
The rail authority has stored trains on tracks in that area in Brunswick during the day but has delivered empty trains to Portland overnight for maintenance. Moving that maintenance to Brunswick would save costs and prevent those passenger-less trips each day.
DEP staff earlier this month recommended approval of the stormwater permit for the project, finding it would not adversely affect groundwater quantity or quality.
The permit is the final environmental regulator hurdle for the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority project, though DEP decisions may be appealed to the Board of Environmental Protection.
Robert Morrison, head of the Brunswick West Neighborhood Coalition, told The Forecaster last week the group intended to appeal the decision “to make sure (the facility) moves somewhere else and is not placed in a suburban development.”
The Forecaster writer Walter Wuthmann contributed to this report.