DM&E mitigation money on the line for cities

MSU prof fears laws don't protect historic sites

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Cities along the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad's proposed coal line route could receive sizeable amounts of money if they support a request for $50 million in state funding to the 2002 Legislature.

State money would be used to mitigate traffic safety, congestion, train noise and other issues resulting from the railroad's $1.4 billion state-of-the-art coal train project that would replace and improve existing track from eastern Wyoming to Winona.

Last Tuesday, the New Ulm City Council voted to support the funding request that could include 32 communities and 10 counties in Minnesota.

New Ulm would receive $3.5 million in mitigation funding. City Manager Brian Gramentz expects most of the money would be used to upgrade 15 crossings in town.

The railroad project will likely include a staging yard of up to eight sidings near Shag Road, south of New Ulm.

State funding would provide $691,043.40 to Sleepy Eye, $594,947.20 to Springfield, $211,482.40 to Lamberton, $164,982.40 to Sanborn, $201,793.57 to Walnut Grove, $69,041.90 to Revere and $15,840.90 to Cobden.

The proposal is the same one that died in the 2000 Legislature because legislators thought it was premature since it had not received National Surface Transportation Board approval.

Last week, the Surface Transportation Board released its several thousand page environmental impact statement. Federal regulators placed 147 stipulations, estimated to cost at least $140 million, but did not recommend bypasses around larger cities on the route.

The railroad does not see the stipulations as a stumbling block, according to DM&E President Kevin Schieffer.

The STB will now decide in the next 30-60 days, whether to grant final approval of the railroad project that will have significant impact on farmers, ranchers, Indian nations and people that live in the 56 communities on the rail route.

The coal train project is one of the largest rail projects in America. The current single-track line runs 725 miles from Winona to Colony, Wyo. The line was acquired by DM&E in 1986 in a deteriorated condition after almost 20 years of deferred maintenance. Some of the railroad's existing bridges are more than 100 years old.

The railroad plans to rebuild nearly 600 miles of existing track to efficient 21st century standards and extend the current low-traffic rail system 280 miles into the Powder River Basin coal-mining region in Wyoming.

The new project will allow heavy-haul operations, allowing DM&E to haul coal eastward from the Basin to the electric utility market in the upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions.

Project construction will include tie, ballast, rail and bridge replacement, as well as improved drainage and subgrade rehabilitation.

To handle the volume of up to 37 trains per day, on a route now averaging three trains per day, 45 new sidings, signal and grade crossing improvements and satellite tracking technology will be added.

Project opponents in Rochester fear there will be no limit to the number of trains per day established by the Surface Transportation Board. They are also concerned about the projects impact on the Mayo Clinic, ambulance, police and sheriff's calls. The rail line runs through the heart of the City of Rochester.

The Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council and the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council passed resolutions opposing the rail project but say they have been ignored.

Tribal concerns are increased acid rain from surface mining of coal in the Powder River Basin in the Black Hills, Badlands and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and historic massacre sites on the railroad line.

According to Minnesota State University Professor of Anthropology Michael Scullin, current laws are not adequate to protect historical and archeological sites along the rail expansion route.

Coal train opponents say a number of historical sites were not catalogued in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement prepared by the Surface Transportation Board. They include Native American and Euro-American sites.

Federal and state agencies failed to communicate or follow procedures that could have protected the Price (Native American burial) Site, located near Cambria, "because right hands were unaware of what left hands were doing. Irreparable damage was done to the culture heritage of our state and particularly to the Native American heritage of our state," Scullin said. "The Price Site was a unique cultural construction, of that there is no doubt. If my interpretation is correct, it was also a sacred place. What was a mound is now fill for a DM&E bridge. It should never happen again."

Scullin said there are many Native American burial sites near the DM&E tracks near Cambria.

"Some of them have already been destroyed and nobody has done anything. If nothing is done, more of them could be destroyed," Scullin said.