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Sound Transit recently announced $5 billion in cost overruns for two light rail lines. This is only the most recent cost overrun announced by the agency.
The reaction from Sound Transit leadership was blasé. The Seattle Times quoted Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff saying, “While these numbers are sobering, they’re not catastrophic.”
For context, here is what we could do for the environment with $5 billion.
- 57 years-worth of state salmon recovery and habitat projects. The current state budget spends about $87.5 million on salmon recovery, floodplains, and habitat restoration. Five billion dollars is more than a half-century of projects.
- Eliminate the CO2 emissions from 113.6 million cars for a year. Anyone – including me – can invest in projects that reduce CO2 emissions for $10 per metric (MT) ton of CO2. Five billion is worth 500 million MT of CO2. Each car emits about 4.4 MT per year.
- Meet all of Washington’s CO2 targets through 2034. Washington is not meeting its own CO2-reduction goals. Using the cost overruns from Sound Transit would reduce enough CO2 to meet all of the state’s targets between 2020 and 2034.
- Fix King County’s failing sewage treatment systems and meet the highest water quality standards for nitrogen removal. Sewage overflows into the Puget Sound are becoming more routine, and the existing equipment cannot meet the highest standards for removing nitrogen from the water. According to InvestigateWest, it would cost about $5.4 billion to upgrade the county’s sewage treatment to meet those standards.
The high environmental cost of government waste should be sobering. The impact on salmon and the environment could be catastrophic.