(The following story by Tim Thornton appeared on the Roanoke Times website on June 4.)
ROANOKE, Va. — Gov. Tim Kaine came to Radford University on Wednesday to talk about his transportation plan, and he did.
But a contingent of Montgomery County residents came to talk about the intermodal rail yard that has been planned for about two years.
First Norfolk Southern and then the state said that the Montgomery County community of Elliston is the only place the facility can be built in Virginia. It would be part of a $249 million project that aims to move double-stacked freight containers between Columbus, Ohio, and Norfolk faster and more efficiently.
Area residents have opposed the site since it became public. The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors has passed four resolutions against it. They continue to consider legal action to block it.
Annette Perkins, chairwoman of the board, said after Wednesday’s meeting that nothing was accomplished there. She said she talked with Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer, but there wasn’t much new in the conversation. She said Elliston isn’t the right place for the facility. He said it’s the only place it can be built.
Kaine agreed with Homer.
“I asked my team, do what you can, look for a site,” Kaine said. “They came to the conclusion that the site in Elliston is far and away the very best site for this.”
As Del. Dave Nutter, R-Christiansburg, pointed out later, state officials reviewed a list generated and rejected by Norfolk Southern before the state process began. No other sites were considered.
Mickey Apgar, who lives across U.S. 460 from where Norfolk Southern wants to build, told the governor that he and his neighbors oppose the site as much as they ever did.
“Everybody who wants it there don’t live around there,” Apgar said. The only locals who support it, he said, are those who stand to make money by selling their land to Norfolk Southern.
While opponents of the site spoke to Kaine as the town meeting broke up, about a half-dozen businesspeople gathered with Homer to tell him they support the project.
John White, director of economic development for the town of Pulaski, said his area wants and needs the jobs the intermodal rail yard would bring to the region.
A state study says the yard would employ about a dozen people. Its spinoff effects could spread 740 to 2,900 jobs, annual economic output of $140 million to $550 million and $18 million to $71 million in taxes over a nine-county, five-city area, according to the study.
Developing the site could cost as much as $50.5 million, according to state estimates.
Kaine said the choice may come down to putting the rail yard in Elliston or not having it in Virginia at all.
As Kaine walked to a waiting car, Richard Rittenhouse — one of more than 30 people who wore black T-shirts declaring “NO INLAND PORT” to the meeting — reminded the governor that he’d said many times that he wouldn’t force the intermodal yard on a community that didn’t want it.
“Community is a word that has different meanings,” Kaine said. “And that’s the challenge.”