HomeMy WebLinkAbout20101026Vol I Nampa Hearing.pdfORIGINAL.BEFORE THE IDAHO PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
IN THE MATTER OF THE APPLICATION
OF UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD
COMPANY FOR APPROVAL TO
ABANDON AN .85 MILE SECTION OF
ITS STODDARD INDUSTRIAL LEAD IN
NAMPA, IDAHO
CASE NO. UPR-R-10-01
BEFORE
COMMISSIONER MACK REDFORD (Presiding)
COMMISSIONER MARSHA SMITH
.PLACE:Nampa City Hall Building
411 Third Street South
Nampa, Idaho
DATE:October 13, 2010
VOLUME I - Pages 1 - 46
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CSB REPORTING
Constance S. Bucy, CSR No. 187
23876 Applewood Way * Wilder, Idaho 83676
(208) 890-5198 * (208) 337-4807
Email csbCfheritagewifi.com
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-03(,...to
1 APPEARANCES.2
3 For the Staff:Neil Price,Esq.
4 Deputy Attorney General
472 West Washington
5 Boise,Idaho 83720-0074
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CSB REPORTING APPEARANCES(208 )890-5198
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1 I N D E X
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3 WITNESS EXAMINATION BY PAGE
4 LaRi ta Schandorff
( Public)
Statement
Mr. Price (Cross)
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Ellis Hire
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Mr. Price (Direct)
Commissioner Redford
7 Clair Bowman
(Public)Statement
Mr. Price (Cross)
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Rodney Ashby
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Statement
Mr. Price (Cross)
Commissioner Smith
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Philip Weitz
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Statement
Commissioner Smith
12 Brett Lolley
(Public)Statement
Commissioner Smith
Mr. Price (Cross)
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EXHIBITS
NUMBER DESCRI PTION PAGE
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1.Exhibi t sponsored by Ellis
Hire (six pages)
Identified
Admi tted
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CSB REPORTING
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APPEARANCES
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1 NAMPA, IDAHO, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2010, 7:00 P. M.
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4 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: This is the time
5 and place for a hearing in the matter of the proposed
6 abandonment of a section of Union Pacific Railroad
7 Company's rail line from milepost 0.9 to milepost 1.75, a
8 total distance of 0.85 miles in Canyon County, Idaho.
9 The Case No. is UPR-R-10-01. The time is 7: 00 0' clock
10 p.m., October 13, 2010, at the Nampa City Hall in Nampa,
11 Idaho.
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14
My name is Mack Redford.I'm a
Commissioner of the Idaho Public Utilities Commission and
I am Chairman for this hearing. Also joining me tonight
15 is Marsha Smith, Idaho Public Utilities Commissioner.
16 Jim Kempton, a Commissioner of the Idaho Public Utilities
17 Commission and the third member of the Commission, will
18 not be in attendance this evening.
19 Proceedings in this case are being
20 conducted in accordance with Commission jurisdiction
21 under Title 61, Idaho Code, and the Commission Rules of
22 Procedure under the Idaho Administrative Procedures Act,
23 section 31-01-01. The Commission has further
24 jurisdiction over this matter under Idaho Code section
25 62-424 and Idaho Governor's Executive Order No. 98-89
CSB REPORTING
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1 COLLOQUY
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1 dated June 12, 1998.
2 If the Commission finds that the
3 abandonment of the aforementioned rail line would be
4 adverse to the public interest , it may represent the
5 State of Idaho before the Federal Surface Transportation
6 Board in their abandonment proceedings. Additionally,
7 the Commission shall approve all state agency submissions
8 to the Surface Transportation Board prior to transmittal
9 to that board.I wanted you to know that we are not the
10 final determiners of whether the rail will be abandoned
11 and if we should find that it is not within the interests
12 of the state, then we would protest any decision by the
13 Surface Transportation Board to allow the abandonment.
14 If you were all participants -- oh, excuse
15 me, this hearing is a public hearing to gather
16 information relative to the proposed rail abandonment.
17 All participants who request to testify must identify
18 themselves before testifying and must identify those they
19 are representing; that is, if you're here on behalf of
20 another entity, you must notify us who that entity is.
21 Commissioner Smith will administer the oath to all
22 witnesses and Mr. Neil Price, Deputy Attorney General,
23 will request certain other information from you.
24 Right now from the audience are there any
25 questions that you might have as to the procedure which
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2 COLLOQUY
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1 I've just outlined? Hearing none, there's been a witness
2 list signed by several people. Generally, we go in the
3 order that the persons have signed, but I understand we
4 have one lady, LaRi ta Schandorff, here of Nampa who has
5 some time constraints and would like to testify first.
6 In addition, if there are any of the staff
7 of Union Pacific or the Public Utilities Commission Staff
8 by Mr. Neil Price, they may ask you additional questions,
9 so we'll go right ahead into the first witness and if
10 you i II come forward to the podium here and Mr. Price wiJl
11 take your oath or, no, Commissioner Smith will take your
12 oath, excuse me.
13
14 LARITA SCHANDORFF,
15 appearing as a public witness, having been duly sworn,
16 was examined and testified as follows:
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18 COMMISSIONER REDFORD:I f would you just
19 please state your full name and your address.
20 THE WITNESS: LaRita Schandorff, 1108
21 South Stanford, Nampa, Idaho.
22 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Could you spell
23 that last name, please?
24 THE WITNESS: S-c-h-a-n-d-o-r-f-f.
25 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Let me ask the
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3 SCHANDORFF
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1 audience, can you hear Mrs. Schandorff? It might be
2 helpful to move that forward. Thank you. You may go
3 ahead and give your testimony, please.
4 THE WITNESS: Thank you for the
5 opportuni ty to testify at this public hearing. I
6 represent the Nampa Bicycle and Pedestrian Ci ti zens
7 Advisory Group. We would welcome the opportunity to
8 transform this underutilized transportation corridor into
9 a productive part of our community network of pathways
and trails.I appreciate and recognize the efficiency of
11 moving goods and services through the railroad system;
12 however, when industry changes take place and there's no
13 longer a use for a line, it presents a great opportunity
14 to create something that will continue to benefit the
15 economic growth of a city through a different means.
16 All of the persons who have submitted
17 testimony here have described in a personal way how all
18 this change would yield economic health and quality of
19 life benefits. As has been pointed out in other
20 testimony, this corridor is a critical piece in linking
21 the south side of our city to the north side providing
22 families safe access to downtown and also would provide a
23 vital link for students in two neighborhoods to an
24 elementary school that is adjacent to this corridor.
25 Thank you for your consideration and I
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4 SCHANDORFF
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1 have other comments from other members of our group to
2 submi t to the Commission.
3 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Okay, go ahead.
4 COMMISSIONER SMITH: So is that other
5 testimony you referred to or written comments you're
6 going to present to us?
7 THE WITNESS: Both. I assumed that I
8 would be speaking following the city officials and so I
9 was referring to their testimony that's going to be
10 heard.
11 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Okay.
12 THE WITNESS: But also I i m referring to
13 the testimony that is written here that I'm presenting in
14 wri tten form on behalf of other people. Should I give
15 that to you now?
16 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Certainly. Mr.
17 Price, do you have any questions for this lady?
18 MR. PRICE: I have a couple of
19 questions.
20 THE WITNESS: Yes.
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5 SCHANDORFF
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3 BY MR. PRICE:
4 Q
CROSS-EXAMINATION
Okay; so this is a 1.2 mile section of the
Correct.
Does the city have any plans for the
8 adj acent property? I assume that there i s a trail nearby
5 rail line?
6 A
9 or a bicycle path nearby.
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7 Q
Their testimony will speak to that. I
11 will allow them to address that. They will go into
A
12 detail.
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14 then.
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16 much.
MR. PRICE: I'll go ahead and ask them,
COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you very
17 (The witness left the stand.)
18 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: The next person I
19 will -- would you like to call a witness, Mr. Hire,
20 first?
21 MR. PRICE: Yes, the Commission Staff
22 would call Mr. Ellis Hire.
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6 SCHANDORFF (X)
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1 ELLIS HIRE,
2 produced as a witness at the instance of the Staff,
3 having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified
4 as follows:
5
6 DIRECT EXAMINATION
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8 BY MR. PRICE:
9 Q Mr. Hire, could you go ahead and state
10 your name and spell your last for the record?
11 A Ellis Hire, H-i-r-e.
12 Q And by whom and in what capacity are you
13 employed?
14 A I i m employed by the Idaho Public Utili ties
15 Commission as a rail safety inspector.
16 Q Okay, and Mr. Hire, have you had an
17 opportuni ty to work on Case No., Commission Docket No.,
18 UPR-R-10-1?
19 A I have.
Q And did you conduct an investigation into
21 the proposed abandonment at issue in this case?
22 A I did. My part of it was to kind of walk
23 the line, look at the line, see if there was any shippers
24 on the line and to notify them of the upcoming
25 abandonment proposal.
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7 HIRE (Di)Staff
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1 Q And who did you speak to?Which shippers
2 did you speak to?
3 A I spoke with Mr. Brett Lolley with Seminis
4 Seed Company which is a Monsanto company. They produce
5 vegetable-type seeds there. I talked with
6 Mrs. Christensen of Quintex Corporation which is a
7 plastic molding inj ection company, and Mr. Weitz, I hope
8 I pronounced that right, Phil, which is TVM Recycling.
9 Q Could you talk a little bit about -- I
10 know Mr. Weitz, you just alluded to Mr. Weitz is present
11 here today, could you talk a little bit about what your
12 investigation revealed regarding Seminis?
13 A In regard to Seminis Seeds, Mr. Bret
14 Lolley, some years back, three or four years back, the
15 railroad stopped delivering rail cars to him to ship
16 seeds out of his Nampa facility. The reason that they
17 gave at that time was that the crossing on Second Street
18 was in need of repair and was out of tolerance and gauge,
19 so they wanted some, according to him, $260,000 to bring
20 the line back up into specs, and as a result of that,
21 what they did is they worked with the railroad at that
22 time and got an alternate shipping point out in Kuna, so
23 presently what they have to do is they have to load
24 trucks at their plant in Nampa and transload them out to
25 Kuna where the railroad built a temporary loading dock
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8 HIRE (Di)Staff
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1 for them out there, a ramp which, according to him, was
2 unsafe, so they haul their own portable ramp out there to
3 load.
4 It has cost them, according to him, of
5 course, extra money in trucking fees, labor, forklifts
6 and such to do that. They would really like the loads
7 where they're at. It would be ideal for them to load
8 right there in their plant. The rail line, which there's
9 a picture of there and a gate and I think it's picture
10 No. 4 --
11 Q Okay, I'll go ahead and stop you right
12 there. Maybe it would be helpful for the Commissioners
13 to go ahead and -- you prepared a map and you've taken
14 some photos of the area; is that correct?
15 A I did.
16 MR. PRICE: Okay, there's a packet for
17 you.
18 (Mr. Price distributing documents.)
19 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Are you going to have
20 this marked as an exhibit?
21 MR. PRICE: Yes.
22 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Okay, we'll mark
23 this as Staff's Exhibit NO.1.
24 (Staff Exhibit No. 1 was marked for
25 identification. )
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9 HIRE (Di)Staff
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1 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: You may go ahead.
2 THE WITNESS: Okay, looking at photo No. 4
3 there, you can see that the rail line, the spur off of
4 that Stoddard lead, industrial lead, goes right into
5 their seed plant there which, according to them, of
6 course, would make it ideal to load their seed from that
7 point.I have some stats from them.In the last three
8 years that they've been trans loading out to Kuna, in
9 2008, nine rail cars out of Kuna at over a million pounds
10 of seed.In 2009, they shipped out 15 rail cars from the
11 Kuna location at 1.6 million pounds of seed.In 2010, so
12 far this year, they've sent out 16 rail cars at 1.4
13 million pounds of seed, so they're moving quite a bit of
14 product out of there and that's all coming from their
15 Nampa plant and being trans loaded by truck out to Kuna so
16 that they can, of course, get rail car service out there.
17 Q BY MR. PRICE: And just to clear up for
18 the record, Mr. Hire, does the railroad pay Seminis or
19 reimburse them for the cost of shipping or trans loading
20 to Kuna?
21 A No, they do not.
22 Q Okay, and do you know when or if Seminis
23 had rail service and when that was?
24 A He didn i t specifically give me a year when
25 the last rail service they had out of their plant was, so
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1 I really don't know that.
2 Q But they did have it at one time?
3 A They did have it at one time, but I know
4 it's been at least by the load sheets that he sent me, I
5 know that it's been at least since before 2008.
6 Q Okay. All right; so you also spoke with
7 the owner of Quintex; correct?
8 A I did. Mrs. Christensen is the president
9 of Quintex and I spoke with her on the phone yesterday.
10 She would have liked to have been here tonight, but her
11 husband had surgery today, so she felt she better stay
12 wi th him and if you look at picture, it should be
13 picture, No. 3 in front of you there, it will show that
14 lead, spur line off the industrial lead into their
15 facili ty, the back of their facility there, and if you
16 notice looking at the picture over the top of the
17 building, they have a silo tank there that they actually
18 load their resin beads into that they have shipped into
19 them to do this plastic inj ection molding. Their primary
20 product there is Orbit sprinklers, you know, the
21 landscaping and sprinkler service and they do some other
22 odd things.
23 What she was telling me is they have
24 hadn't rail service there for at least eight years and
25 that wasn't a cause of the railroad. Back then, I guess,
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11 HIRE (Di)Staff
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1 according to her what happened is a lot of this plastic
2 molding inj ection, of course, was out sourced to China, so
3 they got -- their business went down quite a ways and
4 they started getting smaller loads by truck. She was
5 telling me that now the business is starting to pick up a
6 little bit and that if she can get her resin beads to
7 fill that silo by rail, it's cheaper for her to buy them
8 by bulk and, of course, she buys them from allover the
9 country, wherever they're the cheapest.
10 She was concerned with her property value.
11 They paid for that spur, as did all the other shippers on
12 tha t line. They had to pay for those spurs themselves
13 and, of course, their property value with railroad access
14 is probably going to be worth more than it is without it,
15 so that was her concern, also, was the property value
16 issue.
17 Q Did they also have to pay for a loading
18 dock to be installed?
19 A No, they haven't -- like I said,
20 everything has been done by truck for several years now.
21 She says that they'd like to maintain what they have if
22 business comes back to them and comes up, then she can
23 get cheaper loads of resin by rail car in bulk, it iS
24 cheaper.
25 Q Okay, and so you personally have been out
.
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12 HIRE (Di)Staff
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1 to the area, obviously, you took these photos; correct?
2 A I have.
3 Q Do you have any general observations as to
4 the condition of the line?
5 A Well, Second Street South has had a bad
6 crossing for about the last year and we've been, of
7 course, putting pressure on the railroad to get that
8 corrected. The pavement was all broke up around the
9 tracks, the rails themselves, so I think it was the 30th
10 of July they told me they were going to fix it and I went
11 out there and looked at it and they had actually paved
12 over the crossing right over the top of the rails which I
13 think is picture 1 there, and so a couple of days later I
14 went back out there and I noticed they started taking
15 some rail out, too, but that may have been as a derail in
16 case somebody tried to push a car down it, but they did
17 take some rail out, and, again, Mrs. Christensen from
18 Quintex was kind of upset about that when I talked to her
19 on the phone yesterday that they had in a sense abandoned
20 the line before anybody got a chance to say anything at
21 hearing about it.
22 Q So you i ve spoken with Seminis and you've
23 spoken with Quintex and you said you've spoken with
24 representatives of TVM. To your knowledge, has any of
25 these shippers, have they had any personal contact with
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13 HIRE (Di)Staff
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1 Union Pacific?
2 A As far as I know, Quintex has not. Bret
3 Lolley from Seminis Seed Company told me that he had some
4 e-mail correspondence with them about three years ago
5 about it which he was going to give me access to and send
6 to me, but he never got to that point.
7 MR. PRICE: Okay, I know we have other
8 wi tnesses here today who can speak to some of the other
9 stuff. I don't have any further questions.
10 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Commissioner Smith,
11 do you have any questions?
12 COMMISSIONER SMITH: No, not at this time.
13 Thank you.
14 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: I have a couple of
15 questions.
16 THE WITNESS: Sure.
17
18 EXAMINATION
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20 BY COMMISSIONER REDFORD:
21 Q If you'll look at picture No.1, I think
22 you testified that you viewed the over pavement of the
23 rail?
24 A Yes.
25 Q Do you know, did Union Pacific ever get
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14 HIRE (Com)Staff
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1 approval from or contact anyone at the Public Utili ties
2 Commission about in effect disabling this line?
3 No. After the fact, we got an e-mail fromA
4 Bill Entz of Union Pacific. He's out of Salt Lake. He's
5 a track proj ect manager who had sent an e-mail and said
6 that it had been paved through, which I've seen them
7 paved through like this before. Saint Anthony we had a
8 bad one that they paved through, but they afterwards took
9 a locomotive and cut grooves in it which made ita really
10 nice crossing, so I really thought maybe that's what they
11 were going to do with it, but they never did. They just
12 started taking the rail out.
13 Q So when you go to picture No.2, you see
14 that there's a section of rail that's been taken out and
15 you testified that one of the reasons may have been to
16 keep unauthorized rail off that section of the track?
17 A That's true, and also what the picture
18 doesn't show is on the north side of this paved-over
19 crossing, about where I'm standing, there's another piece
20 of rail removed.
21 So in fact without notice or withoutQ
22 approval by anyone, is it your testimony that effectively
23 Union Pacific has abandoned the rail line?
24 A Yes.
25 Have you ever spoken with anybody at UnionQ
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15 HIRE (Com)Staff
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1 Pacific about this precipitous action by disabling the
2 rail?
3 A I have not.
4 Is it generally the custom that railQ
5 companies when they're going to alter or take out a
6 section of rail, do they notify you?
7 No, there's no procedure right now forA
8 them to do that. Like I said, up in Saint Anthony I had
9 seen one paved over like this before and they had
10 actually just simply cut through it with a heavy
11 locomotive.
12 So would it be fair to state that yourQ
13 testimony is that notwithstanding the abandonment
14 procedure as required by the law, the rail company has
15 simply disabled the line regardless?
16 They have.A
17 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you. I have
18 no further questions. Do you have any questions?
19 COMMISSIONER SMITH: I don't.
20 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you, Mr.
21 Hire, I appreciate your testimony.
22 (The witness left the stand.)
23 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: The next person
24 we'll call will be Clair Bowman, City of Nampa.
25
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16 HIRE (Com)Staff
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1 CLAI R BOWMAN,
2 appearing as a public witness, having been duly sworn,
3 was examined and testified as follows:
4
5 THE WITNESS: Hi, name is Clair Bowman. I
6 am a senior transportation planner for the City of Nampa.
7 I am in charge of a proj ect to rebuild Amity Avenue
8 through the -- across where this Stoddard industrial lead
9 crosses Amity and we have to know soon whether that line
10 will be abandoned or not because our design is proceeding
11 at this very moment for that. I have prepared written
12 testimony on behalf of the City of Nampa that I have
13
14
gi ven to counsel and I will just mention a couple of
items out of that testimony here that are most relevant,
15 I believe, to my portion. I believe one or two other
16 city staff members will be mentioning other portions as
17 welL.
18 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you.
19 THE WITNESS: This line has already had an
20 abandonment south of milepost 1.75. There were
21 approximately two-and-a-quarter miles that were abandoned
22 in 1993. That was Interstate Commerce Commission Docket
23 AB3, Sub No. 79. In 1994, that ground was turned over to
24 the City of Nampa through a rails to trails project,
25 including more than half of the right of way under the
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17 BOWMAN
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1 section that is currently being appealed for abandonment.
2 The City of Nampa actually holds fee simple title to the
3 right of way from mile post 1.35, approximately, 1.3,
4 down to milepost 1.75, so that's an interesting twist to
5 the whole situation, I believe, that is not -- does not
6 have precedent as far as I can find anywhere else.
7 The only other commentary I would make
8 would be on the benefit to the public good.I understand
9 and I appreciate the industrial uses that are potential
10 along this line.I'm a bit chagrined at actions that
11 would preclude using that rail line before proper
12 notification to the PUC, but there is another portion of
13 folks who would benefit from the abandonment of this line
14 and that's the folks who live adj acent to this line. It
15 currently -- the property is currently not well
16 maintained unless the city parks department or code
17 enforcement folks contact Union Pacific and encourage
18 I saw vehicles out there one time thisthem to go out.
19 It is not a nice place tosummer taking care of weeds.
20 be, nor to live adj acent to.
21 If you go further south where the trail
22 has already been placed, created by the City of Nampa, it
23 is a very nice environment. Lots of folks benefit from
24 I would encourage you to keep in mind the totalthat.
25 public good and not just that of the industrial users as
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18 BOWMAN
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1 you make your decision. Apart from that, that's all I
2 have that is unique to my perspective.
3 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Mr. Price?
4
5 CROSS-EXAMINATION
6
7 BY MR. PRICE:
8 Q Yeah, Mr. Bowman, I just have one
9 question. I spoke to an earlier witness and asked her
10 regarding whether this section of the line that's
11 proposed to be abandoned would if there was any gaps
12 in the proposed trail that they want to do. Do you know
13 whether the city has any plans to connect this rail line
14 that's proposed to be abandoned to its trail system or to
15 its bicycle trail system?
16 A The answer to that is absolutely yes. I
17 believe that Rodney Ashby from the planning and zoning
18 department will speak much more directly to that and to a
19 pathway plan that he has shown here.
20 MR. PRICE: All right. I don't have any
21 other questions.
22 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Commissioner Smith?
23 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Not even a question,
24 but just a comment. I've been doing railroad cases since
25 the '8 Os. Their MO is to drive the shippers off the
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1 ranch, stop maintaining it and then abandon it, which I
2 think is exactly what they've done here, and because the
3 Interstate Commerce Commission no longer exists and the
4 Surface Transportation Board is just a small little
5 office wi thin the Department of Transportation, I
6 believe, in the federal government, it's a non-regulatory
7 agency, if you know what I mean, so I don't think you
8 have any worries over your proj ect.It's very difficult
9 to stop an abandonment when the costs to bring the line
10 up to where it could provide service are qui te expensive,
11 the shippers are few, and I think the people who maintain
12 the roads may not agree with you, because all that
13 shipping goes onto the streets with all the things
14 associated with truck traffic on our roads, so it is a
15 trade-off, but from my personal experience, it would be
16 very difficult to stop this abandonment.
17 COMMISSIONER REDFORD:I have no
18 questions. Thank you, sir.
19 (The witness left the stand.)
20 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Next witness would
21 be Rodney Ashby.
22
23
24
25
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20 BOWMAN (X)
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1 RODNEY ASHBY,
2 appearing as a public witness, having been duly sworn,
3 was examined and testified as follows:
4
5 THE WITNESS: Rodney Ashby, city planner,
6 long-range planner, for the City of Nampa, and my primary
7 responsibili ties are for the comprehensive plan, the
8 comprehensi ve plan that is put together by the citizens
9 of Nampa and then approved by the city council.I did
10 bring a map showing our proposed trail system that is
11 included in that comprehensive plan and on the back of
12 this I'll indicate the comprehensive plan future land use
13 map, what we foresee as the future of Nampa and the
14 development that takes place. Maybe I should bring it up
15 a little closer so you can see it. The piece we're
16 talking about is right here.
17 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Could you describe
18 that for the court reporter?
19 THE WITNESS: Yes. I better look at it,
20 too, so the piece of railroad under consideration this
21 evening starts about at Iowa Avenue and goes up to about
22 Second Street, and so I just kind of indicated on the map
23 that location and shown that it, of course, has not been
24 developed as a pathway, but it is a part of the City of
25 Nampa's desire for a future pathway, and just one maj or
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1 point that I want to make is not only is it on the
2 comprehensi ve plan for a pathway, but it connects a
3 significant piece which is the downtown of Nampa, and I'm
4 going to flip this over and show you the downtown Nampa
5 as, of course, a commercial development that is very
6 important to our development in the future.
7 Let me show you, so given this is just a
8 maj or network that we have for pathways and then we are
9 currently under the development of a bike and pathway
10 plan for the entire City of Nampa, this piece is critical
11 to that development. I i II show you why; so this is the
12 piece right here that we i re under discussion and
13 basically, we already have a significant piece that's
14 been developed as a pathway up to about Iowa Avenue which
15 is that point there, and then Second Street South comes
16 in around here, so we have a few, a couple of places
17 where we've indicated as industrial. Existing industrial
18 already occurs there, as has been testified to tonight,
19 but we have also significant pieces of this that are
20 residential in nature, so the gray here on the map is
21 industrial, light industrial, and then the orange and the
22 purple, the orange is residential and then the purple is
23 multi-family residential, and so we just feel that --
24 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Would you move over
25 to the podium?
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1 THE WITNESS: Oh, excuse me. We feel that
2 because of the nature of the downtown being commercial,
3 providing jobs, and then the residential along that line
4 which a lot exists already, it provides a maj or
5 connection for bicyclists, pedestrians and this is a way
6 to get to mixed use development providing a
7 transportation route to that downtown core that we are
8 trying to revitalize in the City of Nampa right now, and
9 it is essential for that development of our downtown for
10 it to be connected, not only through vehicle
11 transportation, but also through pedestrian and through
12 bicycle transportation and so we feel that this is a
13 significant opportunity to do just that.I think that i s
14 all.
15 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you. Mr.
16 Price?
17
18 CROSS-EXAMINATION
19
20 BY MR. PRICE:
21 Yes, Mr. Ashby, I'm pretty sure you're theQ
22 right person now, so this pathway, does it discontinue
23 where the proposed abandonment is and reroute around that
24 area or how would you describe it?
25 We only have a section that's alreadyA
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1 developed and it does discontinue. Once it gets into
2 downtown Nampa, it doesn't start up currently, but in our
3 plans for the future, we do have routes that we've
4 identified as the primary routes for bicyclists and the
5 pedestrians to take which would connect, this section
6 that we're discussing tonight would connect, to those
7 primary routes.
8 MR. PRICE: Okay, that's all I have.
9 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Commissioner Smith?
10
11 EXAMINATION
12
13 BY COMMISSIONER SMITH:
14 Q So is it your hope that the light
15 industrial gray areas that you pointed to along the
16 abandonment will someday also be residential?
17 It's not my hope, no. In fact, the futureA
18 land use map indicates that they would not be that way.
19 Just one other question, are you relatedQ
20 to Ben and Vicky Ashby?
21 No, not that I know of.A
22 COMMISSIONER SMITH: Thanks.
23 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you. That
24 will be all.
25 (The witness left the stand.)
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2
COMMISSIONER REDFORD:Phil Weitz.
3 PHILIP WEITZ,
4 appearing as a public witness, having been duly sworn,
5 was examined and testified as follows:
10
6
7
8
9 BY MR. PRICE:
Q
11 your last name.
12
13
14
A
EXAMINATION
Go ahead and state your name and spell
My name is Philip Weitz, W-e- i -t- z,
representing TVM Recycling.
Q Okay, Mr. Weitz, I believe you've spoken
15 wi th Mr. Hire, our investigator; correct?
16 A Yes.
Okay, and he spoke to you about the
18 proposed abandonment at issue in this case; correct?
17 Q
19 You're going to have to go ahead and answer out loud.
20 The court reporter can't --
21 A All right.
So you spoke with Mr. Hire, our
Yes, yes, I did.
Okay, and he talked to you about the
22 Q
23 investigator?
24 A
25 Q
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25 WEITZ
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1 railroad's plans to abandon this line; is that correct?
2 Yes.A
3 Q How long have you been in business along
4 this line?
5 We've been there a little over 20 years,A
6 20, 21, 22, 23 years and, of course, the reason it is
7 there is because the rail was there. We wouldn't locate
8 a recycling plant anyplace other than rail because it i s
9 necessary.
Q Okay.
11 A Now, they've refused, the railroad has
12 refused, to deliver us cars for probably, I will say, six
13 years, so we have to transload everything from that
14 yard -- excuse me, not everything, just the No. 1 iron
15 and motors and things like that that go to steel mills
16 because that's the way they want it and we get an extra
17 price for delivering it by rail. We--
18 Q I'm sorry, how often do you trans load to
19 another location?
20 Oh, we put out 150 ton three or four daysA
21 ago and we take it to our yard in Caldwell, have to
22 redump it and then reload it.
23 Does the railroad reimburse you forQ
24 that?
25 A Oh, certainly not.
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1 Q Have you contacted the railroad?
2 I have attempted to contact the railroadA
3 for eight or ten years and I've called the PUC.I went
4 to see the Nampa Highway District to try to get them to
5 make, I guess to make, the crossing on Second Street
6 usable.It was usable, but they decided -- I think their
7 whole plan is they wanted to abandon this line and this
8 has been their plan for the last eight or ten years.
9 Q When was the last time that you had
10 contact with Union Pacific?
11 Well, we ship probably, oh, I'm going toA
12 guess, 30,000 ton of iron every year between Payette and
13 Caldwell and Nampa. Of course, the Nampa stuff has to go
14 to Caldwell and we order everything on-line. When you
15 try to get cars for Nampa, there's no way you can get
16 ahold of a Union Pacific representative and have them
17 speak to you that I know of.
18 When was the last time you attempted toQ
19 contact them?
20 Well, I wrote a letter to Omaha, I have it
21 here, in figuring that they were going to abandon it and
22 he called back and he said their plan was to abandon it
23 and in my letter --
24 Who was this person that you're speakingQ
25 of? Can you identify them?
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1 A In the letter? I spoke with Mark Jensen,
2 Union Pacific Railroad, in Omaha.
3 What was that regarding?Q
4 Well, we had to buy the line which goesA
5 through the yard.
6 Okay.Q
7 Now, if they were going to abandon it, IA
8 wanted them to do it and then I wanted the land because I
9 own both sides of the rail --
Q Okay.
A -- and then I would reconfigure the scrap
12 yard and make it into a different thing. We're at a
13 competi ti ve disadvantage because we can't use rail, but
14 we can't help that.
15 Did they quote you a price for how much itQ
16 would cost to continue service on the rail line?
17 Well, the only person I spoke with thatA
18 would even talk about it were the employees that work
19 across the street on Second Street. They said -- they
20 were speaking, I think, of putting arms and everything on
21 Second Street. They said $200,000.I'll guarantee you
22 we fixed it in Caldwell.I could go in there and in a
23 day with my people have the crossing in that road, no
24 problem at all.
25 When you say "across the street," who areQ
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1 you referring to? To the employees at the rail yard
2 nearby?
3 A The old round house right across the
4 street from us on the north side of Second.
5 Q And are those Union Pacific employees?
6 Yes.In fact, the one that measured theA
7 track that i s out of line supposedly on Second Street an
8 inch or inch-and-a half, he's the one that said it didn't
9 meet federal standards, so they shut it.
10 Q When say it's off by an inch, an
11 inch-and-a-half, do you mean the width of the rails?
12 Yes, I measured both sides.I think it'sA
13 fi ve foot, two inches, that's the outside of the rail,
14 and I was unable -- they've covered it over now, but the
15 one time I did it, it was an inch-and-a-half out.
16 Q Have you had any independent estimates
17 regarding how much it would cost to bring it back into
18 use?
19 No, we had to fix our own rail in CaldwellA
20 to keep hauling and we had to build our rail in Payette.
21 The railroad is not interested in smaller shippers.
22 That's not just their line.
23 When is the last time you had rail serviceQ
24 on the line specifically?
25 I'm going to guess that the David JosephA
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.1 Company who buys for the steel mill at Nucor in Utah,
2 they would send their cars in.I'd say it's probably
3 been six years.
4 Q Okay.
5 A I could be wrong,but it's been at least
6 six years.
7 Q And to your knowledge,when was the paving
8 done over the Second Street intersection?
9 A Oh,just two or three months ago.
10 Q Okay;so
11 A I went to the city shops and they wouldn't
12 talk to me and I called the PUC and they told me that.13 they didn't handle that and I've been trying for years.
14 They just covered it over.I was there when they took
15 the rail out and they said that since the signs were
16 down,for their liability,they had to take a piece of
17 rail out so no one would push a car on Second Street.
18 Q Okay;so in your estimation,how much line
19 would it require to serve you?
20 A For me?
21 Q Yes.
22 A Forty feet.
23 Q Forty feet,and that's from the main
24 line?.25 A No,that's right across the road.
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1 Q Okay.
2 In fact, if they will bring me the cars,A
3 I'll take them across the road with our loaders and load
4 them and take them back with flaggers and the whole
5 works.
6 Did you have to invest in anyQ
7 infrastructure in order to receive service when you had
8 it six years ago?
9 Pardon me?A
Q Did you have to build a loading dock?
A Well, we load with cranes and magnets.It
12 was already there.
13
14
Q Okay.
A We bought that from the railroad, so we
15 have our own private siting.
16 Q And do you have an estimate of how much
17 cost it is for you to transload?
18 It costs us about $15.00 a ton.A
19 $15.00 a ton, and you have to --Q
20 To load it, take it to Caldwell, dump itA
21 and reload it.
22 Okay.Q
23 For a period of years there, for a year orA
24 two, we hauled with trucks and now Nucor, those trucks
25 went to Utah and Nucor Steel now limits you to one day a
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1 week with trucks and $10.00 a ton less. They want it by
2 rail. That's just the way they're designed.
3 Have you spoken with any of the otherQ
4 nearby shippers? I'm speaking of Quintex and Seminis.
5 I have not.A
6 MR. PRICE: Okay. I don't have anything
7 further.
8 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Commissioner Smith?
9
10 EXAMINATION
11
12 BY COMMI SS IONER SMITH:
13 I think your statement got interrupted byQ
14 Mr. Price's questions, so was there anything that he
15 didn't ask that you intended to let us know about?
16 THE WITNESS: Well, no. The only thing is
17 it appears this meeting is more for aesthetics than for
18 economics. As I watch the people, they're already
19 di vi ding up the body it appears to me, but, no, it's just
20 the way it was.
21 With regard to wanting to because you ownQ
22 both sides --
23 I own both sides of the track. From, whereA
24 the track is on -- it goes through us right after Second
25 Street, we own over to 21st, 22nd or whatever it is.
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1 Q So have you looked into whether or not you
2 already own it? Sometimes the railroad just had an
3 easement over people's property and there are
4 reversionary rights that go to the adj acent landholders.
5 I don't know that.I own the land that'sA
6 just a little park now up there.I wouldn't move the
7 scrap yard over to that. I would utilize the ground and
8 then reconfigure the yard where we could handle it
9 better.
1,0 I'm just telling you that --Q
11 Oh, I see.A
12 -- when the railroad was put in, in someQ
13 places it owned the ground
14 A Yes.
15 -- and in other places it did not and itQ
16 only had an easement and that the landowners have rights,
17 reversionary rights, and that was if the railroad is not
18 going to use it, it goes back to the landowners, the
19 adj acent landowners.
20 I doubt it in this case because I boughtA
21 both pieces from the railroad. I bought everything from
22 the railroad, the land and the siting.
23 Q Well, you ought to check it out --
24 A Okay, I will.
25 -- because it could be one way or it couldQ
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1 be the other way.
2 A Yes.
3 Do you remember who it was you talked toQ
4 at the Public Utilities Commission?
5 I spoke with a woman about the crossingA
6 and she said we don't -- and I think that's right, they
7 weren't involved with the crossing. That was for the
8 Nampa Highway District, I guess, and the Nampa Highway
9 District said they didn't do it either.
10 That would be our responsibility to lookQ
11 into, but I appreciate your sharing that with us.
12 Maybe I didn't explain myself very well toA
13 your people, but I'll challenge anyone to call Union
14 Pacific Railroad and get a freight rate or anything done
15 and speak to a human being.
16 You won't get any argument from me.Q
17 They're a bigger bureaucracy than the federal government.
18 A It's worse than the government.
19 It is, I agree.COMMISSIONER SMITH:
20 Thank you.
21 THE WITNESS: You bet. Thank you.
22 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you, Mr.
23 Weitz.
24 (The witness left the stand.)
25 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Our final witness
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1 will be Bruce Wiley.
2 MR. WILEY: No, I was just asked to sign
3 that.
4 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Oh, okay. Is there
5 anyone else here that would like to testify who has not
6 signed up? You, sir, in the back of the room, come right
7 up.
8 MR. LOLLEY: Thank you.
910 WITNESS,
11 appearing as a public witness, having been duly sworn,
12 was examined and testified as follows:
13
14 THE WITNESS: My name is Bret Lolley,
15 L-o-l-l-e-y.
16 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: And it's Bret?
17 THE WITNESS: Bret.
18 MR. PRICE: Who do you represent, Mr.
19 Lolley?
20 THE WITNESS: Seminis Vegetable Seeds, and
21 I walked in right as we were starting, so I didn't sign
22 anything. We're actually known as Monsanto Vegetable
23 Seeds or Monsanto Company, Vegetable Seeds Division, and
24 I'm sorry I didn't get here earlier, Mr. Hire. I just
25 wanted to reiterate some of the things that Mr. Hire
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1 spoke about. He did mention the volume that we are
2 shipping out of the plant and if I could kind of take a
3 step back, I, too, don't have the actual date when we
4 were no longer provided service from Union Pacific
5 because many of the people that were at our production
6 facili ty at that time have since retired, but the best we
7 can tell based on the testimony of some of the people in
8 our plant is around 2005 there was a rail car in our site
9 that was a refrigerated rail car, that the refrigeration
10 system actually caught on fire while it had our product
11 inside and their insurance actually had to settle and pay
12 for the value of the seed which actually turned out to be
13 high value bean seed that was getting shipped to the
14 eastern seaboard and then was going on a container back
15 over to what we call the European union and market, so it
16 was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. That was the
17 last car we were able to get into the plant.
18 Just to reiterate our volumes, I looked at
19 the numbers and actually, we had two rail cars that were
20 not included, so I ran a pivot table of everything that
21 we have shipped in the last three shipping seasons.
22 We're getting ready to go into our next shipping season,
23 so 2010 basically covers up to this recent May, I
24 believe, is our last rail car, but we totaled about just
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25 short of 4.5 million pounds of seed and, again, we have
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1 to trans load that from our facility on flatbed trucks.
2 It takes three flatbed trucks per rail car, so if you can
3 imagine, the cost is about $125 per truckload on a round
4 trip basis, so it's $375 just to move the product over to
5 Kuna. We have to rent a field forklift because the site
6 in Kuna , there's no base under it. We've had to put in
7 pi t run as well as road pack over the top just to keep
8 the forklifts from sinking.
9 Field forklift, last time we rented it,
10 it was $750 a month and it costs too much to deliver and
11 pick up, so it's not cost effective to deliver and then
12 pick up and deliver and pick up. We seldom, and I'll
13 concur with Mr. Weitz, we seldom know when the cars are
14 going to show up when we order them on our on-line system
15 and I'll get to that point a little later about the lack
16 of oversight, so anyway, grand scheme, depending on the
17 number of cars we're shipping, we incur between 5 and
18 $7,000 extra cost just to do the trans loading versus
19 shipping directly from our site like we used to.
20 Most of that is from the forklift rental
21 and the shipment of the seed. The forklifts and our
22 mobile ramp that we have, their ramp -- they didn't build
23 it for us, Ellis, it's been out there for years. I
24 forgot to mention that. It's a very, very old ramp and
25 we have very strict safety standards. You're not allowed
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1 to get on that unless it's load rated and I think it
2 would fall if you stood on it, so we move our mobile ramp
3 out there, so there's an idea for cost.
4 As far as a history of where we're at, we
5 moved into that site -- we used to have a site back in --
6 we started in 1934 in Nampa and we moved to that site in
7 the mid '50s.I can't guarantee when it was, whether it
8 was' 55 or '57, and so we've been in that area for a
9 long, long time and have continued to expand our market
10 and we serve growers from the northwest corner of the
11 Treasure Valley and actually, as of now, we're even using
12 that facility to process the seed that we're contracting
13 clear over into the Magic Valley, so we run historically
14 between 12 to 15 million kilos of seed through that
15 facility, so it's a vital part of what we call the large
16 seeds industry, so it's very, very important that we
17 continue to have the rail line.
18 I guess up to this point we'd all given up
19 on that rail line actually being active and I did find an
20 e-mail that I had from -- it was actually forwarded to me
21 from one of my coworkers who was trying to work with me
22 to try to get the information.I asked for a quote on
23 the repair and actually, I was told the only way that we
24 would be able to continue to have service or to get that
25 service back is to pay for the repair on the entire line,
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1 Stoddard line, ourselves and so at first thinking that
2 we're a big company, we're sure we can come up with some
3 money if it was cost effective.I was thinking in the
4 realm of 20-$30,000. Payback is there if you consider
5 we're spending 7,000 a year. I was given this: The
6 crossing repair cost estimate was $130,900 to repair the
7 crossings. Vegetation removal is $45,000.Install 250
8 ties, $28, 750. They would need 12 cars of ballast at
9 $7,800 for a total of $212,454.
10 In addition to that, they also mentioned
11 there are three very busy road crossings on this Stoddard
12 line at Second Street South, Amity and Sherman and they
13 don't have any protection other than cross bucks, so
14 they're talking about how -- in fact, he says in here
15 crossings need to be upgraded to flashers and/or gates.
16 We have no estimate for this cost. Past experience would
17 suggest flashers and/or gates would also be very
18 expensive, and then he's asking me the operating status
19 of this facility and how many cars in and out they're
20 anticipating, so I gave him the information that I had
21 submitted.
22 This e-mail was dated back on April 21st
23 of 2008, so you can imagine the costs have probably
24 increased quite a bit. I can testify to the fact we
25 walked the entire Stoddard lead, myself and two
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1 supervisors at the time, and as far as vegetation
2 removal, we found three limbs that were overhanging all
3 over 10 feet and they were all less than two inches in
4 diameter, so I actually responded back to him and told
5 him that I would remove all the vegetation for $15,000 in
6 kind of a deal and he didn't take it. That's the
7 information on the cost estimates.
8 I also wanted to bring up we have had
9 issues with the oversight from Union Pacific in ordering
10 It's an on-line system. You order the carsthe cars.
11 on-line. They will not guarantee a delivery time,
12 deli very date. When they do actually get it there, they
13 will not acknowledge that it's actually been placed; yet
14 if you do not load it and get it out wi thin two days, I
15 believe you get a demurrage charge.
16 Loading out at the Kuna site has been a
17 challenge. We have to have our employees make sure that
18 when they drive home they're checking on the car numbers
19 and letting us know or we have neighbors out there that
20 actually will contact us that we have to pay a fee, a
21 very slight fee, but they're helping us, actually letting
22 us know when the cars are there. We had a car with a
23 forklift inside it half loaded taken by Union Pacific
24 this last winter and it made it all the way to Nebraska
25 before we were done loading it. Apparently, there's a
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1 rule in Union Pacific if you leave some cardboard out of
2 the doors, it's a signal to them that you're not done
3 loading it, I'd never heard of this rule, but we had not
4 released the car, but somehow they took it, so these are
5 the issues we face when we're located so far away from
6 where we're trying to load out.
7 I know I'm crying a lot about this, but
8 it's become a maj or headache to try to get it out and our
9 rail shipments actually have increased quite a bit over
10 the last three years. As prices become more competi ti ve
11 in the vegetable seed industry, the shippers pay the cost
12 for the shipping and if we can get more business and
13 bring more money for the company and for this area, we'll
14 do it by rail, especially with the market still being
15 strong in the eastern seaboard as well as that's where we
16 ship a lot of our product over to Europe and Africa and
17 the Middle East, and finally, I wanted to just mention
18 that all this other stuff being considered, it's also
19 twice as slow to load the rail car.
20 We have to depend on -- we have to
21 coordinate the driver for the actual seeds that go in the
22 flatbeds. We have to take two of our personnel out to
23 the rail site in Kuna to load. In the past we would load
24 directly out of our packaging facility, pull it right off
25 onto a pallet and put it right into a rail car and we
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1 could load three rail cars in a day. We're lucky to get
2 one rail car loaded in one day right now, and as far as
3 property value, you're right, it is very important to
4 have that there, not only from a future sale to another
5 company if ever that would happen, but also when our
6 company analyzes whether they want to keep the facility.
7 I mean, we are a landlocked facility around in the middle
8 of a residential area, but we continue to thrive in that
9 area and do very well, but one of the big problems we
10 face is the fact we cannot ship out of rail and if this
11 becomes a bigger demand, then they would look at either
12 closing the facility and moving it to another area
13 outside of town or into another county or whatever that
14 would be, they would definitely be looking for something
15 that would have rail access, so do you guys have any
16 questions for me? I've just gone on and on, I'm sorry.
17
18
20
COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Commissioner Smith?
19 EXAMINATION
21 BY COMMISSIONER SMITH:
22 That was what I wanted to ask you about, IQ
23 assume your company is always in the process of
24 reassessing whether you should move --
25 Uh-huh.A
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1 Q -- and since land values are pretty
2 depressed right now, it might be a good time to move.
3 A Land value actually plays very little bit.
4 Right now this valley is very, very valuable for the
5 sweet corn production area that it has and that's one of
6 our main crops and what we plan on improving quite a bit.
7 Syngenta left a few years ago and one of the main reasons
8 that they left and went up to Pasco, Rogers Brothers
9 Seed, was because of the lack of rail access, that and
10 the fact that the changes in the planning and zoning and
11 the conditional use permits using agricultural zoning
12 made it much more difficult for them to actually contract
13 their corn, so they left and they created a gigantic
14 super facility in the Pasco area with rail access and
15 that's where they condition all of their seed, process
16 and pack all of their seed.
17 We, however, would li ke to stay in this
18 area because it has a better climate we believe than that
19 Washington area, as well as with Sygenta leaving, it has
20 opened up quite a bit of ground for us to do our
21 contracting with better growers in the area, so that's
22 about it.
23 Q Well, good luck with that, but I wouldn't
24 plan on having rail access.
25 A You know, I'm not, and I will say I have
CSB REPORTING
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43 LOLLEY (Com)
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1 worked for the last three-and-half-years to try to get
2 another site to load since we couldn't get access and
3 Union Pacific is putting in, I just got an e-mail today
4 from Sandy Lindstrom in Portland, they're actually
5 putting in a portable dock off of Second Street, so we
6 should be able to at least avoid the rental of the field
7 forklift from what I hear because it should be paved I'm
8 hoping.
9 MR. PRICE: I just have one question for
10 purposes of the record.
11 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Go ahead.
12
13 CROSS-EXAMINATION
14
15 BY MR. PRICE:
16 Q Does Union Pacific reimburse your company
17 for the cost of trans loading?
18 A No, they don't.
19 MR. PRICE: Okay.
20 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Thank you very
21 much, sir.
22 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
23 (The witness left the stand.)
24 COMMISSIONER REDFORD: Is there anyone
25 else that would like to testify? Seeing no hands, this
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44 LOLLEY (X)
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1 will conclude the hearing. I'm sorry to inform you,
2 again, that this -- we are to have a hearing and someone
3 mentioned it was kind of a sham hearing, but if we do
4 find the rail abandonment would be adverse to the public
5 interest that we can on our own behalf represent the
6 State of Idaho in a protest before the government agency,
7 but I want to thank you all for coming out and showing
8 your public and community spirit.
9 If there's nothing else to come before the
10 Commission, we'll be at ease and the hearing will be
11 concl uded. Thank you.
12 (Staff Exhibit No. 1 was admitted into
13 evidence. )
14 (The Hearing adjourned at 8:01 p.m.)
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1 AUTHENTICATION
6 Union Pacific Railroad Company for approval to abandon an
2
3
4 This is to certify that the foregoing
5 proceedings held in the matter of the application of
7 .85 mile section of its Stoddard industrial lead in
8 Nampa, Idaho, commencing at 7:00 p.m, on Wednesday,
9 October 13, 2010, at the Nampa City Hall Building, 411
10 Third Street South, Nampa, Idaho, is a true and correct
11 transcript of said proceedings and the original thereof
12 for the file of the Commission.
13
14
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16 -~~~
CONSTANCE S. BUCY
Certified Shorthand Reporter
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46 AUTHENTICATION