Block That Bid
CANTON - A county committee on economic development is hoping to put pressure on state and federal elected officials to help stop a bid by CSX Transportation to reduce rail service through the North Country.
The county Legislature's Economic Development and Strategic Planning Committee met Wednesday to discuss a proposal made by CSX to the federal Surface Transportation Board that would essentially shift the rail company's major traffic from the Massena Line - which runs from Syracuse, through Watertown, Fort Drum and Massena to Huntingdon, Quebec - to a line owned by Delaware and Hudson Railway Co. that runs between Albany and Rouses Point.
Service along the Massena Line would be reduced to two or three days per week, if the plan is approved.
The committee, chaired by Legislator Vernon "Sam" Burns, consists mainly of local economic developers and volunteers interested in economic development.
Members felt the CSX plan would worsen the region's transportation difficulties and make it more difficult to attract businesses and jobs to an area that is already perceived as isolated.
"For some firms, you have to have rail," Mr. Burns said. "I feel we need to offer water, highway, air and rail service. It's bad enough we don't have an interstate. Without rail — everybody else has it. If we don't, we're out of the economic development game."
"This is one of the key pieces of infrastructure we have here, and we need to maintain it," Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority Executive Director Wade A. Davis said.
To try to prevent the change from happening, the committee is hoping to organize a meeting with federal and state elected officials, local businesses and other interests that would be impacted by a change or reduction in rail service. A meeting is planned for 6:30 p.m. Sept. 22 at the county courthouse.
"To throw our hands up and walk away saying there's nothing we can do to stop this, I don't think we can afford to do that," Mr. Burns said. "We need to push back and let the Surface Transportation Board know how much we need this line here."
Business Development Corporation for a Greater Massena Executive Director Jason A. Clark said it was important for the community to impress upon its representatives in Albany and Washington just how vital rail service is to existing businesses such as Alcoa that already use rail to ship raw materials in and products out of the region; businesses looking to expand or use rail to grow their operations, including Curran Renewable Energy, which has recently begun shipping wood fiber by rail out of Norwood and companies the community is looking to draw here.
"We've been trying to put a rail spur in the Massena Industrial Park to assist at least two companies in there already, and to increase the park's marketability," Mr. Clark said. "A reduction in rail service would definitely dampen the manufacturing base here."
Mr. Burns is also concerned resources like the port of Ogdensburg, the Foreign Trade Zone officials are hoping to expand to include the entire county, the St. Lawrence Seaway and the $16 million and 20 megawatts of hydropower recently given to the St. Lawrence River Valley Redevelopment Agency could become less enticing if the area could not provide rail service to prospective businesses.
"This greatly diminishes our ability to use those resources in an economic development package," the legislator said.
Also worrisome to committee members was past moves made by CSX to attempt to sell the Massena Line, which Mr. Burns suggested could spell the end of rail service to the area altogether.
"Could this be the end," he asked. "We need to bring this issue to the forefront by getting our elected representatives here and talking this through. And we had better get our act together before a decision is made."
