BNSF

Per Louie Soldano, I called Dave Sinclair (GPG ROW) about whether we have any
ability to negotiate a favorable right of way deal with the BNSF railroad.
In Dave's experience, that is a nonstarter. Apparently, a bunch of
utilities, including us through Dave, have even formed a coalition to try to
figure out how to get the railroads to be more cooperative. If the RR owns
its ROW outright (which many of the old railroads do out west) we might be
able to condemn an easement by getting a FERC certificate. In other words,
the RR would be treated just like any other landowner. If we did that, Dave
thinks BNSF would treat it as a declaration of war. Since our lines cross or
parallel BNSF right of way all over the place from Topock to Duluth, that
would be foolish.

I swore Sinclair to secrecy and told him what part of the world I was
interested in and he thought we could probably stitch together private ROW
without too much pain. If the RR option doesn't pan out, we may want to
suggest to Tino and Dennis that our ROW people can handle this. Assuming we
can't come up with some magic contact with the RR, I propose that, at the
appropriate time, we tell Dennis and Tino that the last 7 or 8 miles of ROW
should be flagged as a potential problem that Enron can help resolve once we
decide to go forward.

Other than the BNSF issue, I don't think we have any specific "to dos" or any
specific comeback date to Dennis and Tino. So what do you guys think should
happen next? DF