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| Proposed Long Island Rail-Truck Intermodal Project Divides Environmental Groups |
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| Features - Features | |||||||
| Written by Stuart Vincent | |||||||
| Monday, 29 June 2009 13:46 | |||||||
Proposed plan (above) for the Long Island Rail-Truck Intermodal Facility (NYS Department of Transportation). Growing up in Deer Park, Denis Byrne spent countless days with his friends exploring the seemingly vast and wild grounds of the Edgewood and Pilgrim State psychiatric hospitals in Brentwood. There was scrub oak so thick you could hardly pass through it, towering pitch pines, man-made drainage ponds filled with tadpoles, bullfrogs and ducks. And when the long freight trains filled with coal and other materials for the hospitals pulled in, he did what many children have done before him.
Satellite view of the former Edgewood and Pilgrim State Hospitals land (Google Maps). The proposed intermodal yard is highlighted in yellow. To the west (left) is the Edgewood Preserve bounded by the curving Commack Road. North of the site is the Long Island Expressway, and to the east is the Sagtikos Parkway. Adjacent to and just northeast of the intermodal site is the Pilgrim State Psychiatric Hospital buildings still in use. Just south of the site is the Heartland Industrial Park.
Click on the embedded link above to view a video tour of the area of the proposed facility. This article and multimedia were from Stuart Vincent's capstone reporting project for the graduate curriculum in journalism at Hofstra University. Click here, to see it in its original publication site. Patricia Klosowicz of North Bay Shore, part of the Brentwood School District, said her nightmare is to walk out her front door and see “Tractor-trailers 24-7 rumbling past, cutting down streets, the LIE backed up and they’re going to come down Crooked Hill Road and Wicks Road, any road.” Klosowicz says the two local roads already are congested with traffic. “I can’t image what the high volume of trucks would do to the traffic,” said Paul Tomko of Deer Park, who with his wife, Mary Beth, frequents the Edgewood Preserve for bird-watching and hiking. “The roads aren’t built for it. They’re not wide enough and the Tanger outlet [on Deer Park Avenue] has added to the traffic.” Supporters of the intermodal plan, including the Environmental Defense Fund, New York League of Conservation Voters and Tri State Transportation Campaign, counter that replacing some of the estimated 54,000 trucks that travel Long Island roads each day with freight rail that uses a fraction of the fossil fuels and produces less harmful emissions will result in cleaner air, safer roads and less traffic congestion. “It would be a game-changer in terms of reducing congestion, reducing pollution, making delivery of goods more economical,” said Ryan Lynch, Long Island coordinator for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing car and truck dependency in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. “We’re aware of the environmental concerns [at the intermodal site]. We just think that the amount of truck traffic it’s going to reduce and the environmental benefits of that and bolstering the economy of LI are benefits in and of itself. And there are many environmental groups that are in favor of this project as well including the Environmental Defense Fund, along with many business groups. There’s a lot of support for this project. “ According to the DOT in its introduction to a report on a feasibility study on the intermodal proposal, "The LITRIM project is the first and only effort with the innovative, forward-thinking goal to enhance the use of rail to deliver Long Island's goods, rather than by trucks traveling over Long Island roadways, This study concluded that the LITRIM facility will provide multiple benefits for Long Island including highway congestion relief, economic development, and reduced vehicle emissions." The Draft Environmental Impact Statement prepared by the DOT concludes that:
Click here to view a slideshow of photographs from the proposed area. The DOT says that only 1% of freight delivered to Long Island gets here via freight rail, compared with a national average of 15%. The main reason for that is that only one freight rail bridge, located in Selkirk, south of Albany, spans the Hudson River, greatly reducing freight rail service not only to Long Island but to the entire metropolitan area, New York State and the Northeast. The only other freight rail bridge over the Hudson, located in Poughkeepsie, was abandoned following a 1974 fire, and a system of using barges to float freight cars across the river is seldom used anymore. The result is that the vast majority of goods shipped to the region comes in on trucks over a handful of bridges such as the George Washington. The intermodal project is part of a larger national effort to address that problem that also includes a proposed new freight rail tunnel under the Hudson River from Jersey City to Brooklyn, according to Ilan Kayatsky, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Jerome Nadler, a supporter of the Intermodal project. “This is not something Congressman Nadler invented. This is part of the original charge of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey when it was formed in the ‘20s to reconnect New York to the national rail network and rationalize the movement of goods through the region.” Last year, opponents of the Brentwood intermodal project appeared to have won a major victory when they convinced the state Assembly and Senate to adopt a measure that would have added the intermodal site to the existing Edgewood Preserve. But following the intervention of some national elected officials, including Nadler, Gov. David Paterson in August 2008 vetoed the measure.“Enacting this bill would…forever block the only opportunity to build LITRIM at Pilgrim, a project that may have enormous benefits for the residents of Long Island in improving congestion and air quality,” Paterson wrote in his message to lawmakers. The governor also questioned whether it made sense to add this particular parcel to the nature preserve, noting that it was “significantly disturbed and degraded since it was used for industrial purposes.” Paterson directed state agencies to work with elected officials, civic groups and developers on a comprehensive regional traffic plan with an “exhaustive analysis” of an intermodal proposal either at Pilgrim or at alternate sites. Department of Transportation spokesman Charles Carrier said the DOT held a series of meetings with community groups, planners and others in an effort to discern what was kind of transportation system was needed on Long Island to keep the region economically competitive in the future. A group known as the University Transportation Research Consortium is preparing a report for the governor, he said. “I was shocked,” Patricia Burkhart, director of Friends of the Edgewood Preserve, said of the governor’s veto of legislation preserving the intermodal property. “I thought, ‘It passed in the Assembly 140-0. It passed in the Senate 48-7.’ But he [Paterson] was pressured. He was pressured not by state people but by federal level people – [U.S. Rep.] Gerald Nadler (D-Manhattan) and [U.S. Rep.] Steve Israel (D-Setauket), and this is Israel’s district. Nadler wants this cross harbor tunnel and he thinks this is the endpoint for an intermodal.” Legislation to make the intermodal land part of the Edgewood Preserve has been reintroduced by State Sen. Owen Johnson (R-West Babylon), who wrote the original 1986 legislation that created the Edgewood Preserve, and State Sen. John Flanagan (R-East Northport), and by Assemb. Phillip Ramos (D-Brentwood). Gordon Canary, Johnson’s district office manager, said that while Johnson supports reducing truck traffic through the use of freight rail, he believes that the Edgewood site is not the place for an intermodal facility. “The final version of the DOT plan was not what we were told was going to happen,” he said. “They said they there was going to be a dedicated truck route off the LIE into this facility, leading us to believe there would only be one way in and one way out for trucks.” But plans for that ramp were abandoned as too costly. Instead, trucks will use already congested roads in Brentwood, Deer Park and Dix Hills to get to the facility, he said. While the DOT has promised to make local road improvements, there would still be significant additional truck traffic on those roads. That property is also part of an important state designated groundwater recharge area, he said. “It’s a very environmentally significant property. When the DOT proposed to asphalt over 80-90 acres of the site; we said ‘You’re taking away all that groundwater recharge.’” Also, since being declared surplus land by the state, there has been significant regrowth of vegetation on the site, he noted. Part of Johnson’s 1986 legislation creating the preserve states that any surplus state property contiguous to the preserve that has shown such regeneration should be added to the preserve. Already lost to development was a chunk of the property that was sold off to developer Gerald Wolkoff under the administration of Governor George Pataki, which is now the Heartland Industrial Park. Wolkoff recently unveiled plans for Heartland Town Square, described as a “mini-city”, on another piece of former hospital land, a 476-acre parcel north of both the preserve and the intermodal site next to the Long Island Expressway. Burkhart and Byrne have led state officials on numerous tours of the preserve and the intermodal site to prove that regeneration is taking place on the intermodal site. One of their destinations is a series of sewer lagoons, or leeching fields, which were used to treat wastewater from the hospitals. In operation until the early 90s, leeching fields located on the preserve and also on the intermodal site now have pitch pines, grasses, wildflowers and moss growing up through the sand and gravel that cover the basins. “A third grader can see that these are regenerating. It’s not rocket science,” Burkhart said as she led a tour of the Edgewood preserve and intermodal site. “None of the trees growing in the leeching fields were planted.” Burkhart, who has organized local scouting troops and other volunteers to clean and maintain the preserve, said the intermodal facility would have a devastating affect on both the wildlife in and the use of the preserve. “When you consider just the light pollution because the bays they would need for these cranes to unload those big rail cars onto the trucks [are] so high that the lights would have to be higher to clear them, much higher than normal parking lot lighting,” she said as she led another visitor along the preserve’s hiking trails. “And no amount of down-lighting [covers over the tops of the light] is going to keep that glare from going into the preserve and it would have a devastating impact on the wildlife because wildlife needs darkness to mate, to hunt.” Burkhart points out trail markers along paths that have been cleaned and maintained by volunteers for hikers and mountain bikers. She explains how the scrub oaks grow thickly beneath the towering pitch pines, the two plants together giving this habitat its distinctive features. She points to bat boxes and barn owl boxes erected high up on polls with the help of the Deer Park Fire Department to attract back to the site creatures that formerly took up residence in abandoned hospital buildings that have since been demolished. Above, a red-tail hawk circled, looking for its next meal. “Who would want to come to a preserve with kids and scouts when you have this truck-train facility right next to it?” she asks. But the intermodal has considerable support from some local, state and federal officials and business groups, including Town of Islip Planning Commissioner Gene Murphy. “I spoke as planning commissioner in favor of the project last summer,” he said. “Then there was a second hearing. We didn’t approve of every detail. We said we had a lot of traffic concerns that needed to be looked at.” Indeed, traffic has emerged as a major argument by both sides, with supporters of the intermodal pointing to Long Island’s congested highways and opponents noting that up to 600 trucks a day would be redirected to local roads already overcrowded by the recent opening of Tanger at the Arches shopping center on Deer Park Avenue and by a nearby Home Depot and WalMart. “I had a lot of concerns over traffic. They proposed $30 million in traffic improvements, which I felt mitigated the impact of about 600 trucks per day,” Murphy said. But Murphy said he appreciates the community’s concerns about the amount of garbage that would be trucked to the site for shipment off Long Island – garbage being one of the major cargo items shipped off Long Island by truck – and said the argument that more than one intermodal site is needed on Long Island to reduce truck traffic has merit. Byrne agrees, and said that building a single intermodal site for all of Long Island defeats the very purpose of the project. “You want to get the freight in close to its final destination. This [Brentwood site] might be good to serve Western Suffolk County only. You need another one out east; you need another one west somewhere in Nassau County. If a truck has to drive more than 15-20 miles from an intermodal site, it’s defeating the purpose of doing it. The idea is to get the freight close as possible to its destination.” Richard Amper also thinks there are questions as to what benefit the intermodal project will really have. Amper, executive director of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, is credited with pulling off one Long Island’s greatest environmental victories – the preservation of more than 100,000 acres of the Pine Barrens in central Suffolk County directly over the largest underground fresh water aquifer in New York State. A pine barrens is an ecosystem that represents the next step after a scrub oak and pitch pine forest. “What are the specific alleged benefits of the project? They say it will take a lot of trucks off the road, rail is cleaner than trucks, it’s more direct, it will relieve congestion. But how does this one do that specifically? Where do the trucks go when they pick up freight from the train?” Amper asks. It makes sense to replace 100 trucks traveling from New York City to Huntington with a freight rail train, he said, but if those same trucks then have to pick up the freight in Brentwood and bring it back to Huntington, what is the point? “What are the trucks going to carry? How many truck trips are we saving? How many vehicle miles traveled are being reduced?” he asked. Jim Tripp, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, is sympathetic to local environmental concerns, but argues that you have to look at the larger picture. “If we’re gong to have a viable freight rail system on the east side of the Hudson River in the downstate region where bulk of the state population is located, and in southern New England, then the rail system has to be better connected to the national freight rail system. It has to be modern and there have to be intermodal yards where you have easy and efficient transfer between freight rail and truck,” he said. “There’s no point in modernizing this system as part of a long-term strategy to reduce highway congestion and its attendant environmental effects in terms of massive waste of energy and air pollution, as well as economic costs, if we don’t have intermodal capacity.” Still, he conceded, it is possible that Long Island may need more than one intermodal site, but in his view only if a second yard is located west of the Edgewood site in Nassau County, closer to population centers. “Long Island is known as a very car dependent area. Air pollution is a major problem because everyone is in their cars,” said Veronica Vanterpool associate director for the Tri State Transportation Campaign. “It brings to light a transit plan that is really outdated and it just doesn’t serve the needs of the area.” Dan Hendrick, communications director of the Manhattan-based New York League of Conservation Voters, argued that global warming has “reframed” the debate about how we handle our waste and transport our goods, highlighting a need to reduce carbon emissions produced by the 54,000 trucks that travel the Long Island Expressway each day. “I’m sure people are concerned about losing that open space but what you get in return for using that space is a site that is right off the LIE, easy for trucks to get to. Rail is four times as efficient as trucks and you’re saving a lot of money you’re helping to clean the air. And, finally, you’re helping the ultimate user, whether that is towns shipping garbage off Long Island or manufacturers shipping goods to Long Island.” Long Island’s geography is ideal for freight rail because of the straight line out to the East End, he said. “We really take a regional approach. We can certainly understand the concerns about open space on Long Island but I think that’s what needed here if global warming remains the concern we think it’s going to be. It’s a much larger problem. We really see this as the way for 21st century transportation use and regional planning for Long Island.” Denis Byrne has his own regional approach involving the intermodal site. His view, however, entails kids exploring the site as he once did, families hiking the trails through the pitch pine and scrub oak woods, and a decidedly cleaner type of traffic traversing the property on its way across Long Island. “Hiking trails, mountain biking trails, maybe even a connector for one of the bikeways through Heartland (Industrial Park),” he said of his vision for the property. “One day I’d like to be able to get all the way to Robert Moses and Jones Beach with bikeways along the parkways.” This article and multimedia were from Stuart Vincent's capstone reporting project for the graduate curriculum in journalism at Hofstra University. Click here, to see it in its original publication site. |
