(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
This story was originally published by Iowa Capital Dispatch and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Critics work to rally opposition to rail merger along the Mississippi [1]
['Ed Tibbetts', 'More From Author', '- August']
Date: 2022-08-30
Critics of a proposed $31 billion merger between the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads are trying to marshal opposition in eastern Iowa, saying the deal would hurt the state and especially the Quad-Cities.
The merger was proposed last year and the city councils in Scott County’s two largest communities – Davenport and Bettendorf – have approved measures agreeing not to oppose the combination in exchange for cash.
However, a group of people who have begun a movement to “stop the train” are seeking help to try to galvanize public opposition.
“The people of Davenport and the riverfront – Princeton, Clinton, Camanche – our towns are going to get hit the hardest. We have the most to lose,” Molly Newell, president and director of sales at EnviroNET, Inc., a business located along Davenport’s riverfront, said Tuesday at a news conference in Davenport.
The federal Surface Transportation Board still must decide whether to approve the merger.
When the two railroads announced it last December, they hailed the deal as the first single rail line to connect Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. Canadian Pacific said the combination would connect customers to new markets, enhance rail competition and drive economic growth, as well as offer environmental benefits.
Opponents don’t believe there will be benefits, except for the company, particularly for people in Iowa and others who live along the rail line’s path. They say it will lower property values, lead to more noise and create hazards. The line runs through parts of southern and eastern Iowa. In the Quad-Cities, railroad traffic will roughly triple.
City leaders in the Quad-Cities expressed alarm about the proposed merger in the beginning. However, in recent weeks, city councils in Davenport, Muscatine and Bettendorf have all agreed to cash payments in exchange for not opposing the merger.
Davenport is getting $10 million, while Muscatine and Bettendorf are each receiving $3 million. Muscatine narrowly approved its deal, 4-3, on Aug. 4. Bettendorf approved its agreement without opposition July 5, and Davenport’s vote Aug. 10 was unanimous.
Officials in the Quad-Cities say much of the money will go to mitigate the impact of the additional train traffic. That includes the establishment of “quiet zones,” areas where trains could not regularly blow their horns when approaching crossings, as federal law requires them to do now. To get federal approval, safety at crossings must be upgraded to win federal approval to waive the horn requirement.
Davenport also plans to use $2 million from its deal to manage the impact around the area’s regional water pollution control plant.
The payments are conditioned on the merger getting approved.
City officials say they came to their agreements with Canadian Pacific because they researched the issue and concluded they couldn’t stop the merger.
“My approach, I would say, is pragmatic,” Marion Meginnis, the 3rd Ward alderman in Davenport, said recently. “If we hadn’t done this, we would be sitting here today with maybe nothing – probably nothing.”
Canadian Pacific’s tracks run through the 3rd Ward, which includes much of the downtown and many of the city’s low-income neighborhoods. Meginnis said she believes quiet zones will be effective.
Critics say cities should fight the merger
Critics, however, believe the cities gave up too soon. Michelle Russell, of Davenport, who has organized an online petition opposing the merger called stopthetrain.com, said that a local attorney has said there is an effective way to fight the merger, and she wants county boards of supervisors to take up this effort.
“This is fightable,” she said Tuesday, even as she’s acknowledged it will be an uphill battle. The online petition had gathered nearly 600 signatures on change.org as of Tuesday afternoon.
Russell also said she doesn’t believe the City of Davenport adequately notified people of the merger, and that it didn’t properly consider public input before it voted to approve the deal with Canadian Pacific at its Aug. 10 meeting.
At the news conference Tuesday, critics of the merger proposal also questioned why prominent local organizations and civic groups haven’t stepped up to fight the merger. They hope the news media will ask questions, press for answers and that citizens will also rise up.
The news conference comes just a couple weeks before the Surface Transportation Board is hosting a public hearing on the merger proposal in Davenport on Sept. 13. It is one of several hearings the STB is holding.
Some communities in Iowa, Illinois, are opposing the deal
There are some cities in the railroads’ path that are opposing the merger. A group of Chicago area suburbs have banded together to fight it.
In Iowa, the Scott County Board of Supervisors plans to write a letter opposing the merger. The mayor of Princeton has been critical, too, and said he won’t cut a deal with the railroad. Also, city officials in Camanche, in Clinton County, are opposing the deal.
Austin Pruett, the mayor of Camanche, who joined the news conference Tuesday, said Canadian Pacific only offered the city $200,000, but that it would take about $2 million to deal with the merger’s impact at crossings in the city. He called the railroad offer “miniscule.”
Critics also said they didn’t think the quiet zones would effectively dampen all the train noise, and that there continue to be concerns about emergency access to residents who live near the tracks. Some business leaders in Davenport also have expressed concerns about access to the riverfront if the merger is approved.
Communities in the Quad-Cities have heavily invested in their riverfronts over the years and continue to do so.
In an email Tuesday, Andy Cummings, a spokesman for Canadian Pacific, said: “CP continues to engage with a number of communities and counties in eastern Iowa and, as you know, have reached agreements with Davenport, Bettendorf and Muscatine, and has made generous proposals to a number of others.”
He also pointed to the 357-page draft Environmental Impact Statement, released earlier this month. The study, by the STB’s Office of Environmental Analysis, concluded “that, apart from train noise, which could result in adverse impacts at some locations, the potential adverse impacts of the Proposed Acquisition would be negligible, minor and/or temporary.”
A computer model conducted as part of the analysis said that 6,307 sites, which the STB calls “noise-sensitive receptors” in 27 counties in five states would experience adverse noise impacts, and that Scott, Clinton and Muscatine were the most affected.
According to the Environmental Impact Statement, receptors are places where people are particularly sensitive to noise, including residences, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and places of worship.
In Scott County, the study said, 1,016 receptors would experience adverse noise impacts, an increase from 593 if the merger is not approved. In Muscatine County, the number of receptors with adverse noise impacts would more than double to 675. And in Clinton County, the number of receptors affected would total 590, up from 373 with no merger.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/08/30/critics-work-to-rally-opposition-to-rail-merger-along-the-mississippi/
Published and (C) by Iowa Capital Dispatch
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND-NC 4.0.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/iowacapitaldispatch/
