(The following article by Guillermo X. Garcia was posted on the San Antonio Express-News website on January 4.)
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Fearing it’s just “a matter of time” before San Antonio experiences a catastrophic railroad incident, Mayor Phil Hardberger and other city leaders have made track relocation a top priority in their wish list of issues for the 80th Texas Legislature, which convenes in Austin next week.
“We’ve been lucky so far, but I don’t know how much longer we can rely on our luck,” Hardberger said.
Eight train wrecks in and around the city since mid-2004 resulted in five deaths, millions of dollars in property damage and thousands of jittery residents who live along the miles of railroad tracks, some of which run through heavily populated neighborhoods.
Hardberger said he believes a train derailment in a high-growth or a densely populated area like downtown is inevitable if something isn’t done.
But while city, state and railroad officials agree on the public safety need to relocate rail lines out of the city’s center, they can’t agree on who should pay the cost of the expensive and time-consuming process.
Since neither the city nor the state can force railroads to act — interstate traffic is subject to federal law — the city faces an uphill battle to have one of its seven legislative priority items pass the Legislature.
Its other top priority — lifting the cap on permitting of water rights in the Edwards Aquifer — is seen by many as crucial to San Antonio’s future and also will present an enormous political challenge to the Bexar County delegation.
State Rep. Robert Puente, the dean of the county’s House delegation, said federal intervention would be needed to move the rail lines.
“I see this as a very difficult issue, and it is going to take Washington’s help for this to get solved,” he said.
State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a San Antonio Republican, agreed.
“We are definitely the second-string team on this one, as we are on immigration, because these are principally a federal issue, a federal responsibility,” Wentworth said.
“Because of that, I think we are going to have to have much help from D.C. before we will be able to persuade Union Pacific, or anyone else, about going along with any of this” rail relocation effort, he said.
Wentworth pointed out that during any legislative session, “we consider somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 bills, so to try and gauge support for any measure even before we have gaveled into session is really speculative.”
Gauging support from Union Pacific is less complicated. UP officials say they are willing to discuss track relocation, but only if the city or state pays the lion’s share of the cost.
UP spokesman Mark Davis said that while “one accident, one injury or one death” is one too many, “relocating tracks is of greater benefit to the public” than it is to the railroad, “so the public should bear most of the costs involved.”
Puente noted that “the bottom line is that (UP) is willing to relocate tracks, but someone is going to have to pay for it, and that someone is most likely going to be the taxpayers.”
The dangers posed by trains, which sometimes carry toxic or dangerous chemicals, is a complex issue that has no cheap or quick fix, officials involved in the process note.
Davis said UP’s customers, which he numbered in the hundreds in greater San Antonio, would have to be considered in any relocation plan, along with the impact on communities where new lines would be laid. But the biggest single factor, he said, is cost.
Hardberger said that’s precisely why the Legislature should act.
“If it is going to take tens of millions of dollars, or more, and a decade or more to solve this, then let’s get this process moving now,” he said.
The city hopes the Legislature will earmark funds through the Texas Department of Transportation, said Andrew Smith, the city’s Intergovernmental Department director. The funds would then be used to leverage additional revenue through a bond sale.
Smith said the exact cost of relocating the 55 to 60 miles of rail lines that crisscross the city hasn’t been determined.
The other top issue facing San Antonio is water rights — specifically how much can be pumped out of the Edwards Aquifer, which already provides 70 percent of the area’s water needs.
As critical as the aquifer is to sustain current water needs and provide for the city and region’s future growth, it also feeds a number of area springs that keep endangered species alive and provides water for the Guadalupe River downstream.
Currently, permits allow for the pumping of 549,000 acre-feet per year out of the aquifer, but the state limits the overall draw to 450,000 acre-feet. An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to submerge 1 acre of land in 1 foot of water, or almost 326,000 gallons.
The law says the region’s draw out of the Edwards will decrease to 400,000 acre-feet by 2008 and Hardberger said it’s critical the law be changed to allow for more, rather than less, pumping out of the aquifer.
Said Smith, “The hammer is about to drop, and we will really need to get something done on the water issue during this legislative session.”