ACTC holds off on reversing opposition to railroad line abandonment Monday, March 24, 2008 By Raheem Hosseini - Jerry Budrick A piercing ring squealed for a few ear-splitting minutes, the result of an emergency door being opened at the County Administration Center before last week's Amador County Transportation Commission meeting. Long after the alarm had been silenced, transportation commissioners heeded the warning sounds of local history buffs hoping to keep the Amador Foothill Railroad Line intact. Commissioners were being asked to reverse their 2005 opposition to the rail line abandonment process Sierra Pacific Industries is in the midst of undertaking. As ACTC Assistant Planner Sean Rabe explained, rehabilitating the rail lines for passenger or freight use would require exorbitant capital investments that made either prospect no longer realistic. A 1993 study by Transportation Marketing Services Inc. estimated that turning the rail line into a passenger transit facility would cost somewhere between $105.5 million and $139.3 million, with annual operating costs around $487,000. "Those didn't include escalation (figures), so you can imagine the costs associated now," Rabe said. The 1993 study also concluded that ridership for the service would be relatively low. Rehabilitating the track for freight use also posed challenges. SPI has no intention of turning the line into a freight carrier and a 2005 study by the Woodside Consulting Group showed an initial capital investment of $3.2 million would be needed. Rather than remain opposed to the removal of the rail line and associated structures in the Martell area, Rabe said the county could use the alignment of the railroad line to build a cross connection through the Martell Business Park that could cut down on highway congestion and surrounding traffic, especially if plans for a housing subdivision along Wicklow Way in Martell continue to move forward. As they had been doing the past few weeks, representatives from the Amador County Historical Society were lobbying government officials to stand between Sierra Pacific Industries and the company's plans to strip the railroad of its tracks and structures in the Martell area. They had seen only modest success, with the Ione City Council the only local governing body to issue a resolution of support. A similar resolution failed to pass in Sutter Creek, while the Jackson City Council postponed its consideration until a future meeting. Failing outright support, historical society members were asking for a little more time. "They're doing their job. They're hired to do a job," said historical society president Charlene Buckley of SPI consultants. "But sometimes you need to go to the big man." In this case, the "big man" is SPI Chief Executive Officer Red Emerson, who Buckley hopes will be receptive to some sort of compromise. Both the California State Historic Preservation Office and the federal Surface Transportation Board currently have a signed draft agreement with SPI, requiring the company to photo-document the historic structures of the rail line prior to any removal. Following receipt of a historical research report on the rail line from SPI, the state office has 60 days to comment. Commissioner Louis Boitano, a county supervisor, advised Buckley to write the federal board. "The Surface Transportation Board has the ultimate say and what we decide will have no impact on that," he said. But if history is any indication, getting help from the board may be difficult, suggested Commissioner Richard Forster, also a county supervisor. "They act and they act with disregard to anyone not in Washington," he said. Forster suggested the historical society would have better luck with the state preservation office. Buckley said the historical society is hoping to engage the state and federal agencies, as well as Emerson, to broker some sort of understanding. More time was what the historical society got, with commissioners agreeing to table the item until a decision came from the state preservation office and Surface Transportation Board. There was a rush to second Forster's motion, which passed unanimously. Earlier in the day, the Amador County Technical Advisory Committee also dealt with a matter related to SPI, which owns a substantial portion of what is known as the Martell Triangle, an area of land formerly the site of a large lumber milling operation, now home to numerous businesses, industries and county offices. The sole agenda item concerned a proposed amendment to the Martell Master Plan. The applicant proposes changing land uses in parts of the project area from manufacturing to planned development, reducing the office/research and development area, and expanding the commercial uses in the north-east portion of the plan area. The Technical Advisory Committee, chaired by Amador County Environmental Health Director Mike Israel, worked its way through the 17 factors on the environmental checklist contained in the California Environmental Quality Act. Many factors, such as biological resources and mineral resources, were determined to have less than significant impact on the project. A few factors, however, have been determined to have impacts significant enough to either mitigate or study further. Aesthetics was the first factor to be deemed worthy of consideration. Lighting and its effect upon flights into and out of Westover Field, directly across Highway 49 from the project area, will have to be considered in plans for changes to the Martell Master Plan. When the land use/planning factor came up, county Airport Advisory Committee member Debra Dunn raised a concern about increased commercial activity in the airport's flight path, which crosses over one corner of the project area. All factors seemed mitigatable until the checklist reached transportation/traffic, which brought Amador County Transportation Commission Executive Director Charles Field into the conversation. "ACTC's position is that a focused EIR should be done for this project," Field said. The committee agreed, recommending that a focused EIR on transportation/traffic be prepared.
more... End of the line? - Sierra Pacific Industries, historical society clash over the fate of Amador's railroad Tuesday, April 01, 2008 By Scott Thomas Anderson Members of the Recreational Railroad Coalition take their vintage speeders across 10 miles of the Amador Foothills Railroad. The RRC is currently leasing the majority of the rail line from Sierra Pacific Industries.Photo by: Scott Thomas Anderson The historic Martell Train Station is in a bad state of disrepair. The Amador County Historical Society wants SPI to relocate the building closer to the business park and fully restore it as a local train museum.Photo by: Scott Thomas Anderson A view of Old No.7, "Iron Ivan," cruising the Amador rail line just after the turn of the century.Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch In the case of the Amador Foothills Railroad, the county's cherished history and its economic future may be on a one-track collision course - literally. Widely considered an environmental treasure, the old steel rails are now at the heart of a bitter dispute between Sierra Pacific Industries and the Amador County Historical Society. Tensions grow with every public exchange; and as more groups and agencies are sucked into the fray, some think the battle lines are dividing into familiar conflicts - private property rights versus public interest; good intentions versus better ones; grand idealism versus the hard reality of dollars and cents. It's a bright Tuesday morning and a caravan of vintage rail-speeders is coming to a stop at the Martell Bread Station, right before tracks cross Highway 88 and cut in toward the new business park. Larry Bowler and his compatriots with the Recreational Railroad Coalition can go no further. Thanks to a lease from SPI, the 10 miles of railroad that start in Ione and end at this point are under his group's protection. But beyond the crossing, where businesses continue to rise and developers are planning hundreds of new homes, Bowler knows a storm is brewing over the fate of the remaining rails. While cars pass by along the highway and jubilantly clap at the sight of RRC's speeders - a visible show of support for the continued use of the rails - Bowler can only look across the road with a vague sense of relief his group hasn't been pulled into the deteriorating conflict. Path to abandonment The railroad was first built in 1905 as a passenger line. By the time SPI bought the entire railroad and associated buildings as part of a $308 million package deal for the Georgia Pacific Mill in 1997, its only function was for hauling wood products to the Union Pacific Railroad connection at Ione. In 2003, the California Public Utility Commission found 123 defective track conditions on the newly named Amador Foothills Railroad. In 2004, these pitfalls were proven to be a hazard with a series of derailments on the line, including two in the same month. SPI realized that between 1999 and 2004, the cost of operating the rails had been $1,628,649, exceeding its revenues of $596,881 by $1, 031,768. Furthermore, the company was well aware of a 1993 study by Transportation Marketing Services Inc. that calculated the cost of making the railroad passenger usable again at around $139 million, a figure the Amador County Transportation Commission believes would be substantially higher today. "We were all for using railroad for a long time," said David Brown, an engineer for SPI. "But after the derailments, that changed everything." In 2005, SPI began the process of filing for abandonment of the rails with the federal Surface Transportation Board - a decision that would eventually draw heavy fire from various quarters of the community. To officially "abandon" the railroad will not change SPI's ownership of it. Rather, it enacts a legal process that discontinues the use of the rails for transportation. The status frees SPI from federal regulations over the railroad and allows the company to do what it wants with it as a private property owner. Following section No. 106 of the National Environmental Protection Act, SPI hired archeologist Shelly Davis King to produce a cultural resource study of the railroad. King, in turn, hired fellow local archeologist Debra Cook to write an official history of the railroad. In the end, the combined study turned out to be somewhat antithetical to SPI's plans for abandonment - finding that Amador Foothills Railroad was a historical jewel and qualified to be on the National Register for Historic Preservation. While anyone is free to nominate the railroad for this entitlement, SPI went on the record opposing the nomination, claiming it was willing to preserve the vast majority of the rails as a service to the community - but not on the costly, all-encompassing scale that would come with such a designation. As a sign that SPI was serious about preserving most of the railroad, the company leased 85 percent of it to the RRC at a cost of one dollar a year, effectively keeping it in use for vintage speeders. Bowler said that SPI has since allowed his group to continually repair and restore the track to keep it in pristine condition. Yet in the minds of the county historical society, these overtures from SPI were suddenly overshadowed in 2007 by the revelation that SPI had torn up three different sections of tracks around the Martell Business Park, each in the area not leased to the RRC. The historical society went on the offensive, reporting SPI to the California Office of Historic Preservation, as well as complaining to county and city governments that SPI was illegally destroying an important cultural resource. The dispute heated up at an Ione City Council meeting last month when Dave Butow of the ACHS asked for a resolution of support to pressure SPI to mitigate its destruction of the rails by picking up the crumbling Martell Train Station from its location near the intersection of Jackson Gate Road and Highway 49, and relocating it as a fully restored train museum for the public on SPI's property. The Ione City Council approved the resolution. Mark Luster, a public affairs officer for SPI, feels that proposal has major flaws. "We were very surprised to hear that the historical society was asking us to do this on our own, and pay for it on our own, with no help from them and no long-term funding in place to maintain such a project," said Luster. "We've done similar things in other communities in the past; but it's a different economy now, and frankly the ACHS's plan doesn't make a lot of sense." Luster went on to provide documentation showing that one section of train track SPI had dismantled was ordered by the Regional Water Quality Control Board. He also provided a copy of a permit issued by Amador County to remove another section of track at Box Car Boulevard. Luster said that in both cases the rails would eventually be fixed. Bad relations For the ACHS, that still left an entire section of track that had been torn up in the Martell Business Park area with no explanation - one that can't be fixed because SPI had used the rail scraps as fence posts. The ACHS went forward with its resolution to the Jackson City Council. This time, SPI's Brown and Luster were present for the argument. Brown informed the city council that SPI was planning to preserve 85 percent of the railroad no matter what. Yet Butow called this promise into question by alluding to several public relations nightmares SPI has experienced in recent years, including a $13 million settlement the company was forced to pay to the California Air Resource Board for gross air violations at four of its plants, most notably Lincoln, and a current public outcry in Arnold over SPI clear-cutting large sections of forest on the boundary of Big Trees State Park. "They've had a history of bad relations with communities they've moved into," Butow told the city council. Butow later clarified that he was expressing concern that Amador County was forced to take SPI's "word" that it would always lease the 10 miles of track to the RRC, which was questionable, he worried, given the company's past actions. However, Luster took Butow's comments as a "personal attack" against his company, and its owners, the Emerson family. "Whatever he was trying to bring up is beside the point," Luster said in frustration. "The fact is we tried really hard to be good neighbors in Amador County. We've helped bring jobs and employers to the area. We've agreed to preserve most of the railroad when we're not required to; and we've even offered to give ownership of the Martell Train Station to the historical society for free. The picture they're trying to paint of us now is very hard to accept." The Jackson City Council decided to postpone its vote on the resolution. When Brown and Butow faced off again at a Sutter Creek City Council meeting, the conflict was boiled down to preserving 85 percent of the railroad as opposed to 100 percent of it - yet with a whole new twist. Sean Rabe, then an assistant planner with the Amador County Transportation Commission, stood up and announced that his agency was considering reversing its opposition to the abandonment of the rails. Rabe said the shift was being considered because SPI had now agreed to let the county use the alignment of the railroad to insert a cross-connecting road through the Martell Business Park. This plan would destroy about two miles of the historic tracks, but not affect the 85 percent leased to the RRC. "I'm as committed to preserving our history as anyone," Rabe told the city council. "But if Gold Rush Ranch and the Wicklow Way development both go forward, there will be way too much traffic congestion on the state highways around the area. If we try to solve the problem by working with SPI, it will save the county millions of dollars." In the end, the Sutter Creek City Council failed to pass the ACHS resolution. Mayor Gary Wooten told Butow he sympathized with the historical society's position and felt the group did great things in the community, but in the case of the railroad abandonment it was hard to tell what was realistic. Last stop As both SPI and the ACHS await a decision from the transportation commission, the idea of a last-minute compromise is getting mixed reactions. For Butow's part, he remains convinced that regardless of whether SPI is following federal law, the company is in violation of California Environmental Quality Act regulations. He's currently making this case to all concerned parties. The ACHS's president, Charlene Buckley, seems more open to a compromise, though she favors bypassing lower management altogether and going straight to the Emerson family. Other members of the historical society expressed the desire to see both sides adopt a more friendly stance and go back to the negotiating table. Luster said SPI's door has been, and remains, open to the ACHS for new talks. Meanwhile, back on the rails, Bowler and the RRC are preparing sign a new lease with SPI. Reflecting on the current battle across the highway, he tends to want SPI to get credit for what it's done, while at the same time wanting the ACHS to get credit for the possibilities that would come from keeping the railroad in one piece - possibilities he firmly believes in. "I can't say too much against SPI. They've allowed us to maintain and protect these rails for a dollar a year. It's a situation that's worked out good for both parties," he said. "On the other hand, I hope everyone understands what's at stake when it comes to these rails. To lose them would be to forever isolate Amador County from having rail access to the rest of the nation. A short-sighted view will not appreciate the potential resource this railroad represents. And once it's gone and its property disbursed, it will never be rebuilt."
