CHENANGO COUNTY – Local officials are looking for the silver lining – and possibly finding just a dark cloud – in light of the permanent de-railment of the New York Susquehanna & Western Railroad, which appears to be imminent.
While one local official says losing the railroad would negatively impact economic development, an area resident and a state representative say keeping it open – which would most likely require state funding – is tough to justify financially and ethically.
The NYS&W has been under fire since last March when it became known the railroad struck a deal with New York Regional Interconnect Inc. – allowing the Albany-based company to erect a portion of its proposed 190-mile-long high voltage power line along tracks from Utica to Woods Corners.
NYRI’s line would run through 44 miles of Chenango County – devastating a swath of the local landscape, weakening the local economy, and endangering the environment and public health, residents argue.
“I’m not insensitive to these issues,” railroad Attorney Nathan Fenno said. “We saw NYRI as a way to preserve rail service.” The financial specifics of that deal have remained hidden by order from the state Supreme Court.
Now the rail company has reportedly asked state legislators for tax dollars to repair an estimated $400k in flood damage that – combined with a prior lack of business – has halted rail operation from Sherburne to Chenango Forks since June.
Earlville resident Eve Ann Shwartz says giving state money to the railroad in an effort to preserve economic development is a fundamental contradiction.
“He (NYS&W President Walter Rich) is taking NYRI money in one hand, and at the same time he has his hand out to the state,” said Shwartz, who is a co-chair on the citizens group STOP NYRI and also Communities Against Regional Interconnect. “They can’t take tax dollars and NYRI’s money and say ‘to hell with the community.’ It’s totally contradictory.”
There’s currently a strong possibility that the railroad will file with the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to abandon the broken stretch in the coming months, but no official date has been set, Attorney Nathan Fenno said Monday. Once filed, the NYS&W will have to prove a financial burden. From there a public needs assessment would occur and, if interested, parties would have an opportunity to formally protest the abandonment. The process could take up to four months to complete, according to the STB.
Fenno claims the Cooperstown-based railroad doesn’t have the finances to repair the line on its own.
“I’m sure he (Rich) probably told the senators there are damages that exceed our finances,” Fenno said, “and that that funding would certainly be of some help.”
According to a Feb. 13 Associated Press report, the NYS&W spends about $100,000 annually on gifts for politicians, officials and lobbyists, and recently paid-out a $75,000 settlement to the state Lobbying Commission following an investigation into whether or not certain gifts were illegal.
The railroad has been operating tax-free in Chenango County since 1982, as it has in almost every county along the line from Binghamton to Utica. In October, the Industrial Development Agency – an agency that’s specific to each county and in charge of granting and administering such agreements – in Oneida County terminated its tax-free agreement with the rail company because of the NYRI deal.
Chenango County IDA spokeswoman Maureen Carpenter said without rail service, the area will not be considered for future development in the alternative fuels industry, which has been a recent focalpoint locally.
“The railroad is important,” Carpenter said. “If we don’t have it, we’re automatically knocked out of consideration for those type of industries.”
State Senator James Seward (R-Milford), whose representative Duncan Davey recently met with the NYS&W, said funding for the company isn’t likely.
“With the lack of business,” Seward said, “it’s tough to justify spending money to repair a line that’s not being used.”
When asked if examining the pros and cons of the railroad’s existence makes a decision to provide funding difficult, Seward said no.
“Our number one goal is to stop NYRI,” Seward said. “It’s not a tough choice at all.”
Seward, Shwartz, and Fenno separately discussed the possibility of turning the potentially abandoned rail beds into a recreational hiking area. Commonly known as “rails-to-trails,” the program became popular in the 1970s as a way to utilize the property when widespread rail abandonment was underway.
“I hate to lose a resource such as a rail line,” Seward said. “But if it’s irreversible the line has to become an asset in some other way.”
Fenno said implementing rails-to-trails or the general sale of the property could occur, but explains that the NYRI agreement – no matter who the owner is – would have to stand.
“We have an agreement with NYRI,” he said, adding that no entity that takes over the land “is in a position to break it.”