Environmental permitting for B.R. loop gets under way

The first phase of the environmental permitting process for a controversial and long-debated highway traffic loop around Baton Rouge was approved Tuesday by the Baton Rouge Urbanized Area Metropolitan Planning Organization. Mike Bruce, a principal at Stantec, a lead engineering firm on the loop, says the $629,000 permitting phase for the loop is part of an earmark that the U.S. Congress approved about four years ago but is just now being put to use. It is a necessary step if the loop is ever to get an environmental permit from the Federal Highway Administration, which is required for federal funding on any future construction phase on the project. Bruce says once the roughly 85-mile loop’s route has been determined, future environmental studies will detail the artifacts and endangered species in the area. Those studies could cost “several million dollars,” he says. Despite public perception that the loop has been killed by opposition in cities such as Central as well as other parishes in the Capital Region, Bruce says polling shows the $4.5 billion project is still considered viable. “The fact is, we’ve just been going through the normal process,” Bruce says of the recent funding approval. —Adam Pearson