Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Proposed intermodal site has some Salem residents living in limbo
Months ago, Salem was named a possible site for a Norfolk Southern intermodal rail yard. Residents know little more about plans today.
Photos by Josh Meltzer | The Roanoke Times
Marianne Finn digs up some flowers Monday to replant in her backyard garden in Salem. She and other neighbors worry that the possibility of having an intermodal rail yard in Salem might bring large amounts of pollution to her area.
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After learning that a site off Colorado Street is being considered for a Norfolk Southern Corp. intermodal facility, some Salem residents took action.
They gathered their children or grandchildren and walked around their neighborhoods, knocking on doors and distributing leaflets about the environmental damage such a facility would cause. Some of them also talked to Salem City Council members.
Months later, they still don't know if their efforts have done any good.
A decision on the location of the facility will be made before the end of the year, said Jennifer Pickett, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.
Pickett said studies still are being done at the potential sites, including Colorado Street, Montgomery County near Elliston and Garman Road in Roanoke County, just west of Salem.
Also under consideration are the costs of development, public benefits and some of the concerns of residents like those in Salem: effects on traffic, neighborhoods and the environment, Pickett said.
But because the site has not been chosen and the issue has been out of the news, residents have been left only with speculation.
"It seems to have ... died down around here," Carrie Cox said. She and her husband, Justin, trolled their neighborhood around Academy Street to talk about the environmental impact of an intermodal facility.
In April, Salem City Manager Forest Jones and Mayor Howard Packett touted the economic benefits of having an intermodal facility in the area. According to a letter signed by Jones and Packett, NS' intermodal yard near Front Royal has attracted about $600 million in investments by other companies and 7,000 jobs.
Salem officials have had intermittent talks with NS for the past 10 years about having an intermodal facility built in the city, according to the letter posted on the rail and public transportation Web site.
When news of Salem's support of the facility broke, Marianne Finn wrote a guest column in The Roanoke Times, addressing the problems the facility would pose. A retiree, Finn lives near the potential intermodal site. After her column ran, Finn was contacted by Cynthia Munley, a city resident who unsuccessfully fought development of the former Elizabeth Campus.
The intermodal facility also came up at one of the first meetings of a local branch of Green Drinks, an international organization in which members network to talk about ecological concerns. The Coxes, Finn and Munley were in a small group of Salem residents who walked door to door, distributing fliers and talking to Salem residents about the proposed facility. The activism is unusual, but not unheard of, in the city of about 25,000.
Many of the people they talked to were "ill-informed or uninformed," Carrie Cox said. Many of the people she said she talked to were unaware of the environmental impact of such a facility.
Those not concerned about the environment said they were worried that tractor-trailers going to and from the facility would clog city streets, grind up pavement or pose safety hazards in Salem and nearby Roanoke County.
NS already owns 10 acres of land off Colorado Street, Jones said. The area, commonly called "the bottom," is primarily industrial but does include residences. The railroad would require 65 acres for the intermodal facility.
Jones said it was too important to the Roanoke Valley to pass up.
It's understandable that the city wants to bring in revenue, Carrie Cox said.
"You can be green and still develop. I think a lot of people want that," she said. "Either that, or they're not aware of it all."
But consideration of an intermodal facility in Salem has also fueled concerns about the way the city is developing, Cox said.
"It always has been this great little town and it's been ahead of the game on everything," she said, citing the city's baseball stadium and civic center as examples of its progress.
But recently, eyesores are being built in a city usually revered for its beauty, she said. Some residents are "scared that Main Street is becoming another Williamson Road."
"You want to see it grow in ways other than car lots and fast food. But it's not," she said. "A lot of people feel there's nothing they can do about the direction the city is taking. I think that's really sad."
Some Salem residents and business owners have pointed to recent infrastructure work as city efforts to make Salem a more attractive site for the intermodal facility. Recently, several streets leading toward the bottom have been milled and repaved.
The way news broke in April about Salem's interest in the plant may have fueled those fears.
"The citizens of Salem didn't know anything about that beforehand," said Shireen Parsons, the Virginia community organizer of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Parsons helped organized people in Elliston who were opposed to having the intermodal facility built near their community.
"They [Salem officials] all of a sudden invited Norfolk Southern to put it in Salem. We have a sunshine law in this state, and municipal governing bodies are supposed to do this in the open with community involvement," she said.
Lack of a decision on the intermodal site has " just left us hanging," Parsons said.
Others have wondered whether the railroad has given up entirely on an intermodal site in the Interstate 81 corridor, said Diana Christopulos, a Salem resident who is air quality coordinator of the local Sierra Club chapter.
The Sierra Club has formally opposed having the intermodal facility in the Roanoke Valley, but the opinion would change if the vehicles used at the facility were more environmentally friendly, Christopulos said.
"If they were to clean up the diesel engines inside the yard that don't go anywhere, clean up the trucks and the locomotives coming in and out of the facility, "then you could make it healthy or reasonably healthy," she said.
Diesel engines spew particulate matter, a kind of air pollution that can "get deep in your lungs, not just in your nose," she said.
The pollution would be most harmful to children, the elderly and those who are active outdoors, she said.
"How many deaths would I personally want to be responsible for if we supported this?"
