(The following story by Allyson Bird appeared on The Post and Courier website on March 4, 2010.)
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The latest volley in the port and train debate: One major rail line rallies a federal lawmaker to support a maritime cargo yard planned for the Charleston Neck Area. In exchange, it promises to allow its biggest local rival “unfettered” access to some of its tracks.
CSX Corp. is proposing a deal that would allow it and Norfolk Southern Corp. both to serve, indirectly at least, a new port terminal being built at the former Navy base in North Charleston.
But other key players in the negotiations appear to be less than enthusiastic about the offer.
Clarence Gooden, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at CSX, recently wrote U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., in support of turning the 135-acre industrial property known as the Macalloy site in the Neck Area into an “intermodal” yard, where shipping containers from the port would be transferred between trucks and train cars.
Shipyard Creek Associates, which owns the property, envisions a network of warehouses on the site, too.
The problem with that scenario is that it excludes CSX’s only local long-haul competitor, Norfolk Southern, locking port customers into just one rail option.
In his letter, Gooden said CSX “will provide unfettered access” on tracks it now owns to S.C. Public Railways to serve a similar container-handling yard that Shipyard Creek is proposing for a former landfill off Morrison Drive. That move would enable state-owned Public Railways to bring Norfolk Southern onto the former Promenade site, which is now called
Laurel Island.
The wrinkle is that neither Public Railways nor Norfolk Southern views Laurel Island as a feasible intermodal yard.
Jeff McWhorter, president of Public Railways, said the volume of rail cars entering and leaving the site would create nightmarish traffic jams and that new tracks would have to be built across marshland.
“We have no interest in accessing Laurel Island,” McWhorter said. “There’s nothing there.”
The debate over how to provide competing rail service for customers of the new port terminal has been heating up.
Environmental and neighborhood groups said that moving more shipping containers on train cars would minimize the number of trucks on local roads and reduce pollution. Others worry that the issue could further delay the long-overdue expansion of the Port of Charleston.
Currently, there are no plans to have rail service directly on the new terminal.
In his letter to Clyburn, Gooden said the presence of one or more intermodal yards near the Navy base port will provide state maritime officials “with the type of infrastructure needed to improve their competitive position and create an efficient, environmentally friendly link to inland markets.”
But Clyburn’s Columbia-based communications director, Hope Derrick, said a viable plan must meet specifications that satisfy everyone involved. She said Clyburn “will not seek funding or support a plan” that does not have the approval of CSX, Norfolk Southern, Charleston Mayor Joe Riley and North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey.
“As of this time, no plan has been submitted to the congressman that meets that criteria,” she said Wednesday.
The State Ports Authority plans to coincide the opening of its Navy base terminal as closely as possible with the Panama Canal expansion in 2014. The agency has taken no stance on the rail debate.