(The following story by Katrina Segers appeared on the KC Community News website on November 8.)
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — At Eric Kirkendall’s 140-year-old farm house a rambunctious Australian shepherd, Shadow, bounces through the yard searching for critters.
The view from the 4-acre homestead in rural Johnson County near Gardner could change in a few years if Overland Park developer Paul Licausi, LS Commercial Real Estate, succeeds in building warehouses east, west and south of Kirkendall’s land.
The warehouses would hold goods brought by trains to the proposed Burlington Northern Santa Fe Intermodal logistics hub southwest of Gardner.
Kirkendall said he researched environmental and health impacts of intermodal facilities.
“Within the last two or three years there has been a lot of science on the health impacts of particulate matter … which is one of the constituents of diesel exhaust,” Kirkendall said. “The particulate matter has been proven … (to increase) risks of dying from cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease; it causes asthma attacks in children. For people living closest to intermodals it increases the risk of cancer by 50 percent.”
Kirkendall said the warehouse layout would include 500 truck docks.
“(Particulate matter is) incredibly deadly at the wrong concentrations. It’s proven to take years off the life of people who lived near them,” Kirkendall said.
BNSF spokesman Steve Forsberg said questions will be answered when the Corps of Engineers finishes the permit process.
“All vehicles have emissions that are going to add to our ozone in the Kansas City area. Whether diesels put off more or less, I do not know,” KDHE spokesman Joe Blubaugh said. “The sheer number and adding more (vehicles) is obviously going to have more emissions that are going to add to an already stressed ozone in the KC area.”
Jennifer Lowry, a physician at Children’s Mercy Hospital, said, “Diesel is not only the hydrocarbon from gasoline, but it’s got a lot of other things kind of stuck in there.”
Lowry said she is not sure of the amount of exhaust each diesel puts into the air or how much exhaust affects people.
“It’s right to say that the closer you are to it, the more likely you are to have health effects,” Lowry said.
Train and diesel emissions can cause respiratory illness and have some link to cancer, Lowry said, but no studies measure particulate matter’s affect on lung development.
James Gardner, 31, said his wife, Michelle, 29, suffers from seasonal asthma.
“Things like bad air quality will help trigger that,” he said. “Living less than a mile from where it will be, it’s a very large concern for me.”
Gardner said the couple built their Gardner house for fresh air and open spaces.
“One of the things I really like about where I’m living now is that I can walk outside and see every star in the sky,” Gardner said. “When it comes down to it, I love my house. I love the whole country factor. It’s like this cloud that’s over all of our heads, whether it’s going to show up or not. And if it does show up, there’s going to be an actual cloud over our heads.”
Gardner said the Gardner City Council should have handled intermodal construction plans differently.
“As soon as something this big was proposed to go here, I really think the citizens should have been brought in much sooner,” he said.
City officials have held public hearings on the development.
Forsberg said trains are more fuel-efficient than trucks.
“Trains do long haul and trucks do local pickup and delivery,” Forsberg said. “If it weren’t for the trains it all would be moved by trucks.”
He said electric cranes on the intermodal site would help cut emissions.
Kirkendall, who heads the Intermodal Coalition, said research showed intermodal facilities in Illinois and Tennessee “grew much faster than BNSF is saying this one will.”
“In California they have put together a set of agreements, all put there to protect people,” Kirkendall said. “They require modern locomotives and ultra-low sulfur fuel. They require electric equipment (and) all equipment to be clean.”
Kirkendall said he awaits the Corps of Engineers’ analysis.
“The next question is can this thing be built and operated safely?”