The Columbia River Crossing environmental review is, at last, ready for public consumption.
The Metro Council voted 5-0 Thursday to authorize Council President Tom Hughes to sign the Columbia River Crossing's final environmental impact statement. Local government agencies have to approve its release before the document can be sent out for review.
Hughes signed the environmental review after the council meeting.
The vote to approve release of the final environmental impact statement was delayed a month, after some Metro councilors sought quality of life guarantees for residents of Hayden Island.
The Columbia River Crossing's staff wrote a memo detailing how they plan to address some of those concerns, parts of which drew sharp responses from some Metro councilors at a work session Tuesday.
With Columbia River Crossing representatives saying the requested changes would be made, the council seemed ready to move on. The vote is believed to be the council's last major approval of the project.
"This has to happen," Hughes said in his introduction of the resolution.
Hughes pointed to the interconnected nature of the region, including the political realities in Oregon and southwest Washington.
"There are people who would simply like to run light rail over the river into Vancouver," Hughes said. "That project (without an expanded highway bridge) is not doable. It has no political support north of the river, starting with the city councilors, running all the way up to U.S. senators."
He also rejected political arguments from some conservatives for not building the bridge, saying a projected decrease in congestion would help drive job growth in the region.
"Private sector job growth is the hallmark of a conservative political agenda," Hughes said.
Metro Councilor Carlotta Collette said the Columbia River Crossing has a number of red flags, and the challenge of raising the money to build the bridge is daunting.
"But we don't resolve anything by saying no today," Collette said. "We resolve it by taking the next step."
Earlier, Andy Cotugno, Metro's senior advisor, tried to assuage some of the council's concerns about the search for federal funding. He said the $400 million that the project is seeking from the Federal Highway Administration is in line with how much the Portland region got from the last reauthorization of the federal highway bill. As far as doubts that the Oregon Legislature would fund a bridge replacement project, Cotugno pointed out that the state has paid $1.8 billion to replace bridges in the past decade.
Once the Columbia River Crossing staff releases the final environmental impact statement, the public will have 30 days to review the 1,000-plus-page document and submit feedback to the federal government. If the feds OK the review and environmental studies, they'll issue a record of decision finalizing the Columbia River Crossing's details.
As far as the federal government is concerned, the Columbia River Crossing isn't quite ripe as a project until the record of decision is complete. Until that happens, the Columbia River Crossing can't seek federal funding.
More planning, refinement and engineering is also set to be done as the environmental review moves along, and the project will now have to develop a proposal for a community enhancement fund.
"There are a lot of ifs and unknowns out there," said Councilor Shirley Craddick. "We can't answer a lot of these until we take the next step."