City mounting legal assault on binational border team?

WINDSOR, Ont. — Windsor City Council is considering a legal campaign that could derail the binational process in charge of selecting a new international border crossing and supporting access highway.

According to the Windsor Star, Toronto-based environmental lawyer David Estrin is the man Mayor Eddie Francis and city council will bring on to challenge the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) study process.

The paper reports that there were numerous suggestions during a 4 1/2-hour "showdown" this week with DRIC officials that council may soon take legal action.

DRIC presented to council its Windsor-Essex Parkway plan — a new six-lane below-grade border highway with 11 short tunnels along the Huron Church Road-Talbot Road corridor.

Francis and council instead wanted their own GreenLink plan approved. That alternative included nearly double the tunneling and more green space along the route.

Windsor’s preferred GreenLink plan nearly doubles
the below grade tunnel coverage of the truck route.

"You have done your best to defend the indefensible," Coun. Percy Hatfield reportedly told DRIC members at the meeting. "It should be clear to everyone GreenLink is a superior plan."

In a recent interview with Today’s Trucking, Mayor Francis said he was gearing up for a legal assault against DRIC because it allegedly didn’t properly follow its own mandate to choose the most environmentally viable solution.

However, he added the city might have to wait until DRIC issues its EA of the Parkway plan before filing a suit. (Be sure to read the complete story in the upcoming June print issue of Today’s Trucking).

Francis told the Star he was ‘shocked" to hear DRIC admit at the meeting that it did not study GreenLink as a stand-alone alternative.

Despite the threats, Transport Canada‘s official in Windsor and DRIC member, Mark Butler, says the team’s process is unassailable.

"We remain on track and believe the environmental assessment to date has been completed prudently," he told the paper.

DRIC is expected to announce the official site of the new bridge before July. Reports have already suggested it will be built between the Brighton Beach power plant and the Canadian Salt Company location in Windsor and land on the northern edge of Zug Island, through an industrial section of the impoverished suburb of Delray, just west of Detroit.

— with files from the Windsor Star