WINDSOR — Ambassador Bridge officials need to get a handle on the impact of truck diesel emissions from heavy trucks at the border if it hopes to win approval from Canadian authorities for a new six-lane twin span to Detroit.

The private bridge company is still in the process of preparing an environmental impact assessment that can pass muster with Michigan officials, and yesterday the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency handed down its own guidelines, reports the Windsor Star.

Mark Butler of Transport Canada told the newspaper that the bridge must show that additional traffic flowing to the new cable-stayed span would not worsen air quality for nearby Windsor. He added that the government can change the guidelines during the course of the EA.

The guidelines demand that the bridge company measure potential particulate matter and greenhouse gases. Noise and vibration impacts must also be addressed.

The bridge company will conduct its own EA and present the findings to Ottawa for review.

Stamper is confident officials will see the merit of a twin span
since it uses existing land and doesn’t cost money to taxpayers.

Nailing down the long-term emission impact from trucks, though, is tricky business, since the kind of equipment in operation will vary wildly over the next decade. It could be difficult to accurately gauge future market penetration of new-model, smog-free truck engines and upcoming 2010 technology that will heavily reduce NOx — both of which will be on the road with older, more polluting equipment at the border over the next decade.

Still, Dan Stamper, president of the Detroit International Bridge Company thinks his team is up to the task. “We have a first class team of consultants that continually evaluate the air quality,” he tells TodaysTrucking.com. “I’m confident we’ll be able to cross reference that with national health figures to quantify the health effects for the EA.”

Asked if he thinks Canada’s government will judge the EA fairly, considering Ottawa is also heavily invested in The Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) study — the binational group of bureaucrats in competition with the Ambassador to build a separate bridge downriver — Stamper acknowledged that “it does present challenges.”

However, he thinks his business case is solid enough to overcome any possible bias. “DRIC is considering building a bridge with taxpayer money on top of salt mines a mile west of the most successful bridge in North America,” he says. “Our project uses existing plazas and causes no damage to the community. (A replacement bridge) to the west of the current span makes the most sense.”

On the other side of the Detroit River, the bridge’s EA for American authorities isn’t going as smoothly as the company would have hoped.

The U.S. Coast Guard — which is charged with reviewing the EA and making a decision on whether to issue a permit for its twin span project — has received comments from other government bodies and interested parties who have expressed concerns with how the EA dealt with issues of air quality and noise impacts on the U.S. side.

The Michigan Dept. of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Michigan State Historic Preservation officer, all urged that the Coast Guard demand more work and research be put into the EA.

— with files from the Windsor Star