http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060118/NEWS/601180328/1004/NEWS03

Rail could reduce U.S. 7 traffic

January 18, 2006
By ED BARNA Herald Correspondent

MIDDLEBURY — Questions about whether a rail spur connecting OMYA's Middlebury marble quarry with its Florence grinding plant would affect the number of heavy trucks on Route 7 dominated a recent public hearing.

The state Agency of Transportation is looking into whether the railway connection is a feasible way of removing OMYA's controversial 230 truck trips per day from the U.S. highway.

The concern was that OMYA would keep using trucks, while adding material delivered by rail so it could expand production at its Florence plant. That would mean public money was being spent to benefit one company, some said.

State officials and MacFarland-Johnson engineering consultants disagreed that the project was just about OMYA.

Other local companies, including Vermont Natural Ag Products, J.P. Carrara concrete and Standard Register paper products, have shown interest in possibly using the railway's excess capacity.

That would remove trucks from Route 7 and would help traffic flow, maintenance and Brandon's village character, proponents have said.

OMYA director of logistics Erik Bohn said the company would want the ability to use trucks in case something went wrong on the railroad.

But the two goals, for which OMYA has committed to paying a rail surcharge to help pay for the spur, are to remove trucks from Route 7 and to expand the plant, he said.

Expanding the plant could only happen by rail, Bohn said.

"That's going to be by rail," he said. By truck, "it couldn't be done. There would be way too many trucks."

MacFarland-Johnson project manager Jed Merrow said two train trips a day along the rail spur, with 20 cars each time, could replace the 115 truck trips to which OMYA is limited by a 1998 Act 250 permit.

Brandon Inn owner Louis Pattis, who was part of the Act 250 proceeding that imposed the limit, thanked the people of Middlebury for considering a rail spur, which he said would greatly help Brandon.

MacFarland-Johnson highway engineer Eugene McCarthy said most highways have 5 percent to 6 percent truck traffic, but for Route 7 the figure is "upward of 14 percent."

In Brandon, 25 percent of this truck traffic is from OMYA, he said.

This was the second hearing in the process of preparing an environmental impact statement, required because federal money will cover part of the cost if the rail spur is built.

Officials said they have now excluded all but two options as impractical — a rail spur and a truck route to a rail transfer point — both following a route south of the quarry under Route 7, then east across Halliday Road, then over a roughly 2,000-foot trestle and bridge across a wetland, Creek Road and Otter Creek.

Susan Scribner, the AOT project manager, said all comments and information will go into a record of decision on the best option later this year. The final design process, which could take two years or more, would begin next year, she said.

The plan would have to meet Act 250 approval, Scribner said.