(The Associated Press circulated the following article on November 6.)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad will still go through Brookings regardless of Tuesday’s vote on a community agreement, but Mayor Scott Munsterman said the city will be safer if it’s approved.
Opponents who forced the citywide vote, say the agreement doesn’t include enough assurances.
In March, the Brookings City Council voted 6-1 to approve a community partnership agreement with the railroad, which wants to upgrade and extend its line and run coal trains through town.
Brookings had been the only South Dakota city not to have an agreement that outlines DM&E’s responsibilities, largely because of opposition by some residents.
Opponents gathered 676 signatures to refer the agreement to a vote. The city council put it on the November general election ballot.
The DM&E, which earlier moved its headquarters from Brookings to Sioux Falls, already runs trains on aging tracks throughout the region. Workers laid the Brookings tracks in 1879.
If the estimated $6 billion expansion project goes through, the DM&E would become only the seventh large-scale Class 1 railroad in the country.
The plan is to upgrade its 600-mile line through Minnesota, South Dakota and Wyoming and add 260 miles of new track to Wyoming’s Powder River Basin so it can transport clean-burning coal to power plants to the east, using several dozen trains a day. Transporting corn-based ethanol and other agricultural products also is part of the plan.
The federal government’s Surface Transportation Board signed off on the proposal in February.
The Federal Railroad Administration has accepted public comments on the DM&E’s application for a $2.3 billion loan. Next it will review the comments and rule on the environmental aspects of the project. The FRA then has 90 days to approve or deny the loan.
The only city along the DM&E route without a partnership agreement is Rochester, Minn., which opposes the expansion because of concerns the project would endanger the Mayo Clinic.
In Brookings, Munsterman said a vote against the agreement won’t keep trains from going through town, won’t make DM&E pay more or force a bypass around the city.
What it would do, he said, is add several safety measures not required by the federal government.
Under the agreement, DM&E agrees to pay for the 10 percent local cost of upgraded warning devices on five major streets, which will allow trains to go through town without blowing the whistle, Munsterman said. The federal government would pay 90 percent.
Karen Cardenas said the agreement doesn’t do enough to address other issues, such as train noise, pollution and vibration, and there’s no guarantee the whistle won’t blow.
“I think our final message is we can do better. We need to reject this agreement because it does not adequately protect the city,” she said. “I guess if we held out as long as we did, we should have continued to hold out.”
But doing so would jeopardize the city’s chances of getting the railroad to agree to any additional safety measures, Munsterman said.
“It gets down to the point that they’re just mad about the whole thing,” he said. “This isn’t about whether you think DM&E should get a loan or not or whether they should be in town. This is about safety.”
The agreement is the only major municipal, county or school board issue on the Nov. 7 ballot, according to organizations that represent those local governments.