NS soothes pangs over new Alabama Hub

Written by jrood

Railroad and economic development officials are laying tracks to school leaders in hopes of addressing concerns at McAdory Elementary School that threaten to derail a $112 million Norfolk Southern intermodal hub, the Birmingham News reports.  

Parents and school
officials have made worries over air quality, noise, traffic and safety —
especially as they relate to the school — polarizing issues for the McCalla
community.

 

Norfolk Southern wants to
build a facility to transfer shipping containers between trucks and trains on a
316-acre site adjacent to the school property.

 

The Jefferson County Board
of Education voiced concerns at its meeting last month.

 

In an Aug. 5 letter, Gary
Booth, Norfolk Southern’s head of intermodal service development, addressed
those issues to Superintendent Phil Hammonds.

 

The four-page letter
pointed out that truck traffic from the hub will feed onto McAshan Drive two
miles away from the school with no traffic going directly from the facility to
Eastern Valley Road where the school is located.

 

Other issues addressed in
the letter include:

• Buffers: "A new
fence will completely enclose the facility and the retention pond to prevent
children from straying onto the premises," Booth wrote in the letter.
"Further, there will be a 15-foot high berm on the perimeter of the
property with additional vegetation on the berm to further secure the facility,
provide a noise barrier and visually separate the school environment from the
facility. A second fence will be added next to the school property outside of
the berm to further secure the facility."

 

• Air pollution from trucks
and equipment: "Norfolk Southern understands the community’s interest in
emissions and we are performing an air quality study of the impact which is not
yet completed. While we do not expect that the study will show an air quality
impact problem, we have already made adjustments to address this issue."
The company said it is installing equipment to reduce emissions to the more
stringent Tier 4 Environmental Protection Agency engine criteria, which lowers
emissions from the current standards.

 

• Environmental impact of
the facility: "Many of the environmental studies are under way, but not
yet complete. Although, we do not anticipate we will encounter emissions
impacts, I have already described one step that we are taking that will
minimize emissions. Further, the facility will be served by an extensive
engineered drainage system that will channel all rainwater runoff to a
retention pond. In addition, the engineered drainage system and retention pond
will control the facility rain runoff to match or slow the rate of drainage
that exists on the site today."

 

The letter also outlines
the multi-faceted criteria Norfolk Southern uses in trying to select a site for
intermodal facilities. The company looked for three years in the Birmingham
area before settling on the McCalla site, which is the only one that met all of
its criteria.

 

The McCalla hub, which will
be named the Birmingham Regional Intermodal Facility, or BRIMF, will create
around 8,600 direct and indirect jobs over the next 10 years as it draws
distribution centers and light manufacturing operations to the area, economic
developers predict. Economic developers are hailing the project as a major boon
for the whole state.

 

Hammonds said focused
dialogue at this juncture is beneficial.

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