FRA Issues Final Environmental Review on Proposed DM&E Powder River Basin Project
New Safety and Air Quality Requirements Added
Contact: Steve Kulm
Telephone: (202) 493-6024
Wednesday, January 31, 2007 (Washington, DC) The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) today announced it has determined that the proposed Dakota, Minnesota, & Eastern (DM&E) Powder River Basin project has met the requirements of the federal environmental review process, and outlined new measures the railroad must take to improve safety and air quality if the pending DM&E $2.3 billion Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) loan application is approved.
The release of FRA’s final environmental review, known as a Record of Decision (ROD), marks the start of a 90-day clock within which the agency must approve or disapprove the DM&E loan application. The final decision will be made after thorough consideration of an extensive and independent evaluation of the railroad, the proposed project, and the RRIF loan application.
If the loan is approved, FRA will require DM&E to make additional safety improvements at 10 highway-rail grade crossings in Minnesota and South Dakota to address projected increases in both highway and rail traffic. FRA also will require that locomotives used for the proposed project west of Huron, South Dakota, meet or exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) most stringent air pollutant emissions standards to reduce impacts to sensitive national park areas.
In completing its review, FRA adopted the environmental impact statements issued by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) in its evaluation of the proposed DM&E project, including all 147 environmental and saf
This writer has been trying for years to make sense of this imbroglio – especially given the fact that our local newspaper accounts are necessarily abridged, even if it is Mayo making the noise. I have also done my best over the years to follow the many forums and threads offered by TRAINS. At the beginning of this fracas, I even Googled for transcripts of Minnesota Public Radio and Rochester-area newspapers . . .
Does the Mayo Clinic offer emergency/urgency care? I mean, it might conceivably be a debatable issue if, say, these future trains blocking the crossing for upwards of five minutes delayed a woman whose water has broke. The statistical likelihood of her giving birth in the car and not the hospital exists, but it is probably very small. Psychologically aggrieving, I’m sure.
Does Mayo consider itself / comport itself as a trauma victim unit along the lines of designated trauma units in selected large hospitals? If so, there could be a case that, say, a victim of a stabbing could bleed out if stranded on the wrong side of the tracks too long by a passing DM&E unit train, which will be only moderately fast but VERY long.
I am actually trying to be sympathetic and I apologize if my cases sound silly. It’s just that I’ve never really encountered anyone dealing in just such cases. In short, does Mayo speak for anyone other than Mayo? I’m sure the hospital still is (literally) the world-class institution it’s reputed to be, but that reputation comes from the treatment of the chronic, the diseased, the given-up-hope patients who did not get what they needed, even at the nation’s best and largest hospitals. (Mass. General, Johns Hopkins, t
Some additional DM&E information that I had not known before:
Green Tree, PA based- L.B. Foster Co. owns 13 percent of the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad, based in Sioux Falls, S.D. Not only is L.B. Foster (NASDAQ:FSTR) part-owner of the railroad, it is already a suppler of rails and railroad ties to the railroad company. Anaylsts project the company could realize additional income in the $100 million range over each of the next three years should the loan be approved.
Al, in answer to some of your questions, the Mayo Clinic in and of itself does not treat emergencies in the true sense of the word, but the two hospitals affiliated with it, Methodist and St. Mary’s, do. And they do an excellent job of it, serving a big chunk of southeastern Minnesota/northeastern Iowa/southwestern Wisconsin. Since I owe Mayo much gratitude for my wife being alive today, I have a great deal of mixed feelings about this dispute, and I’ll typically sit on the sidelines and not get involved with the debates here.
A likely story considering that elsewhere in your post you wrote: – “IMHO Mr. S. would be fully vindicated in meeting with the entire Board at Mayo and tell them, hey, f*** you all, my trains will run and will run beyond the foreseeable future” –
It ain’t over yet. Although the FRA appears to be on the verge of approving the loan, I think the STB is going to require another EIS for coal trains traveling over the ICE to Chicago. This could easily draw out the process even further.
Of course Rochester maintains that because they didn’t get the results they wanted that the Feds need to continue to study the matter until they do. I think the city of Rochester should fund any and all additional studies in this matter. Perhaps the need to justify the additional wasted spending to the Rochester taxpayer may knock a few cobwebs loose in the ol’ noggin.
Given recent arguments in logic from people in that area I am not to hopeful.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the powers that be would make all the remaining decisions quickly so that come summer tracklaying could start? We could then have our summer holidays in the Black Hills of South Dakota and watch the tracklaying while the rest of the family goes to Mt. Rushmore etc.
The Mayo Clinic and Rochestor will not give up until the DM&E throws in the towel trouble is the President of the RR is more stubborn than a $2 dollar mule. He wants so bad to be in the Powder River he does not care how long it takes. He knows that being in there will save his RR and make it a Class one. I for one lived in MN and grew sick and tired of hearing about Mayo clinic and how they are the best thing in health care in the state of MN and in the world. Some of their doctors could not hold a candle to my regular hometown doc here in IL also my Neurologist at the MINCEP clinic in Minn. MN.
I was seen at the Mayo clinic and the doctor there stated flat out there is nothing I can do for you. I was seen at MINCEP and within a week my Epilepsy was under control and allowing me to go back to work again. So I for one am pulling for the DM&E that way Mayo can be taken down a few pegs. If they are upset make MAYO fund any and all future studies by an impartial group that way they can not twist the data to suit them.
You made a good point about who should fund further feasibility studies,[yeah] and I must say you made your point much more graciously than I made mine [soapbox](assuming that I did). [] Al.
Railroad loan is off trackDakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad seeks a $2.3 billion loan for expansion.
The federal government is one step away from granting the largest public loan ever given to a private company. The Federal Railroad Administration will decide within 90 days whether to approve a $2.3 billion loan for Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad.
DM & E asked for the loan to expand its railroad network in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. The Basin is the largest source of coal in the country, and it provides several Midwestern power utilities with coal. DM & E already transports a significant share of coal from the Basin across South Dakota and Minnesota; with the loan, DM & E can improve their infrastructure and haul even more.
U.S. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a former lobbyist for DM & E, has spearheaded the effort to secure the loan. In last year’s transportation bill, he inserted in an amendment that opened the door for it. The amendment increased the loan program’s budget from $3.5 billion to $35 billion and altered the rules to make new construction eligible for federal loans. Moreover, the amendment disallowed the government from collecting collateral in case those who received a loan didn’t pay up.
Aside from the fact that the entire loan process has taken place in relative obscurity, and ignoring that the loan has been backed by a senator who used to lobby for the company, the problem with this loan is that it runs the risk of becoming a $2.3 billion subsidy. DM & E’s revenue is only about $200 million per year.
If the loan is approved, the annual loan payment would amount to $245 million - a $45 million shortfall. Could this be why there are no private
UTU Opposes DM&E $2.3 Billion Loan, according to Rochester Communist Coalition
ROCHESTER, Minn. Feb. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – The following
statement was issued on United Transportation Union’s web site, http://www.utu.org/worksite/detail_news.cfm?ArticleID=33344.
DOT should reject DM&E loan
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Credit Council should deny a
$2.3- billion federal subsidy to the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad
(DM&E), UTU International President Paul Thompson said Feb. 7.
The 125,000-member UTU – an AFL-CIO member – is the nation’s largest
rail union, representing some 66,000 railroad conductors, brakemen and
locomotive engineers in the U.S. and Canada.
“If the DM&E were credit worthy, it would be able to obtain a loan in
the private sector,” Thompson said. “In fact, the railroad poses a
substantial credit risk and may be no more than a stalking horse for
cash-rich Union Pacific. Moreover, the DM&E has severe safety problems that
threaten the public and national security.”
The $2.3-billion taxpayer loan would be used to help finance some 280
miles of new track into Wyoming’s coal-rich Powder River Basin and upgrade
another 600 miles of existing track.
“Contrary to allegations of its supporters, the DM&E project will not
create new railroad jobs,” Thompson said. "Nor will adding another coal-
hauling railroad cause more coal to be mined, or increase demand for coal.
“What the DM&E federal subsidy will accomplish,” Thompson said, "is to
siphon coal and jobs from existing coal-hauling railroads – but not for
long. That is because the DM&E is likely to fail finan
] Al.