BNSF must pay tribe $394M for oil train operation that violated agreement

This story previously appeared on Trains.com.

BNSF Railway owes Washington state’s Swinomish Indian Tribal Community $394.5 million for violating an agreement governing railroad operation across tribal land, a federal judge has ruled.

Judge Robert Lasnik of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington reached that figure after a four-day bench trial, The Seattle Times reports. He had previously ruled the railroad had violated a 1991 agreement by sending crude-oil trains across a less-than-1-mile segment of the Swinomish Reservation between September 2012 and May 2021. Lasnik ruled last year that the railroad had “willingly, consciously, and knowingly” violated the agreement that allowed only one train of no more than 25 cars per train in each direction each day.

The railroad and Swinomish agreed that more than 266,000 cars had violated that agreement and generated about $900 million in revenue but disagreed about the penalty that should result. Lasnik’s ruling details the profits per car, deducts the amount that could have been earned through legal movements, and determined the railroad had made about $362.2 million in profits, plus $32.2 million in post-tax profits such as investment income, as a result of the trespassing.