NORWICH – From repairing the defunct New York Susquehanna & Western rail line through Norwich to expanding the runway at Lt. Warren Eaton Airport, economic development ideas have swirled around government meetings held at the County Office Building this spring.
Perhaps the most innovative suggestions so far are to build a natural gas transmission pipeline along the railroad tracks and to transform the county’s airport into a drag strip.
Town of Greene Supervisor Jack Cook was only half joking when he suggested those ideas to members of the Chenango County Planning & Economic Development Committee in May.
“There’s no industry in Chenango County right now. We’d have more people here than we’d know what to do with,” he said.
Cook and other supervisors, such as Ross Iannello of New Berlin, say there must be a way to tie the natural gas riches beneath the surface with the rail lines. Using rail cars to transport the waste water from drilling wells was another idea floated during a meeting of the Chenango County Natural Gas Committee in January.
Natural gas poses a lot of opportunity, says Steven Palmatier, a member of the gas committee and Commerce Chenango Governmental Affairs committees. Economic developers should be building a database of businesses that use gas in their manufacturing processes, he said, such as fertilizer companies, or companies that could build co-generation plants to make electricity.
“The opportunities are here. Now, who does the research and the planning? I don’t know,” said Town of Smyrna Supervisor James Bays. Most of the drilling in Chenango County has taken place in Smyrna, Plymouth and Preston. Bays has often said the county’s economic development arm, part of Commerce Chenango, “needs to be more proactive.”
Farm Bureau President Bradd Vickers suggested that the Gas Committee contact Greater Greene Chamber of Commerce President Marcel Barrows, who also owns the business, Empire Natural Gas. “If anybody knows all about this, it would be him,” said Vickers.
Economic development has been the hot button topic at Chenango County Planning Board meetings as well. City of Norwich Supervisor Linda E. Natoli, who chairs the Planning & Economic Development Committee, said she was worried that the railroad issue was “going away.”
“Who is on the engine for Chenango County? Who’s driving that train for us?” she asked the board in May. “I’m not pointing my finger at anyone. It just seems to be a disease in this county.”
Planning Board member Paul Thompsen from New Berlin said a recent railroad feasibility study contracted by Commerce Chenango for the county found that while repairing the entire line would cost up to $1.5 million, but only $15,000 was needed to repair the tracks from Woods Corners north to Sherburne. (The NYS&W is already operational from Sherburne through to Utica.)
“Now we have a couple of industries interested. We need to get moving. Chenango County’s going to be nothing until they get a track running through,” he said.
“Agriculture needs to be the train,” said Kenneth Ryan, of Oxford, who is also a member of Planning. Ryan said two feed mills that were once in the county were forced to relocate because there was no rail service.
“It’s peanuts to do Wood’s Corners north,” said Natoli.
Ryan, Natoli and Planning Board Chair Ted Guinn said they knew Commerce Chenango President Maureen Carpenter was working through the railroad issues with NYS&W’s owners and also with business prospects for the former Procter & Gamble plant at Woods Corners. However, they said they wished she made official reports to Planning more regularly.
Though she was unable to attend the meeting on May 12, Carpenter e-mailed a report. “Many pieces” must come together before the county can move forward with making repairs to the tracks, she said. A business that would require rail service is interested in the P&G plant and conversations between that entity and NYS&W continue. The Chamber is also working with an existing business that would like rail access, she said.
“The best information I can give is that we are diligently working on this issue and are in conversation with the right people to make this happen,” she said. Carpenter said she had submitted an appropriations request to Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Michael Arcuri in the amount of $1.5 million, and that Arcuri indicated he could provide $750,000.
“As for the economic impact of the natural gas drilling, we have been working to get information from the gas company on the impacts that the natural gas will have, but this information is not that easily gathered and there have been some changes in management ... we are reestablishing relationships and hope that information will be forthcoming,” she wrote.
As for the airport, county lawmakers agreed to get back on schedule to apply for funds to extend the runway. However, Cook pointed to fewer jets using the facility as well as lower fuel sales.
“It’s just like the railroad. If we have a lot going on we should save it, but we don’t,” he said.
Plymouth Supervisor Jerry Kreiner asked what obstacles have been overcome that would make another go around for funding the long-anticipated runway extension successful.
“Every 12 to 18 months we go through the same motions, it seems,” he said.