Feds Rule Against Protect Sudbury Group In Transmission Line Case

SUDBURY, MA — A key federal board has ruled against a Sudbury group seeking to stop an Eversource utility line project in town, the latest in a series of legal setbacks for Protect Sudbury Inc.

In a Feb. 1 decision, the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) denied Protect Sudbury's request to declare that a former MBTA rail line has not been abandoned. Eversource is planning to use the east-west railroad corridor to bury transmission lines between Sudbury and a substation in Hudson.

In June, the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled against Protect Sudbury, upholding a 2019 decision granting Eversource permission to bury transmission lines along a 4.3-mile former rail corridor.

At the time, Protect Sudbury President Ray Phillips told Patch the appeal to the federal Surface Transportation Board was the next step in the group's legal strategy. Phillips said in June he was 95 percent sure the STB would agree with Protect Sudbury.

Protect Sudbury's argument to the STB was that the transmission line project would prevent rail service along the corridor in the future. The MBTA intended to build a commuter line along the corridor in the 1970s, but never did. The line has been moldering ever since, used mostly as a local walking path.

In the Feb. 1 STB decision, the board said that Protect Subdury has no interest in rail service. Ruling in Protect Subdury's favor might be an "abuse" of the STB's power since the group only wants to stop the transmission line project, the decision said.

"Because PSI has no interest in rail service, or even a claimed property interest in the rail line, it is unnecessary for the [STB] to determine the extent to which preemption might apply," the decision said. "[A] party should not be allowed to use a statute designed to define the limits of rail regulation and preserve the integrity of the interstate rail system where it has no interest in those purposes, particularly in an effort to prevent a public use of property that has been approved by the relevant state agencies."

In 2019, the state Energy Facilities Siting Board approved the transmission line project. If the project moves ahead, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation would build a paved trail on top of the buried lines as part of a link in the Mass Central Rail Trail. At the moment, the Mass Central Rail Trail exists as a paved, shared-use path between Waltham and Wayland at the Sudbury border.