Progress Energy Florida Cancels Plans to Build Rail Spur
November 26, 2008
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Ocala Star-Banner - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX
Shirley and Ted Medlin will not have trains running by their backyard and neither will their neighbors in Rainbow Springs.
Progress Energy Florida canceled its plans to build a rail spur in Dunnellon to carry building materials across U.S. 41 to the company's proposed nuclear plant in Levy County.
"It's a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas present," Ted Medlin said. "A lot of people worked many, many hours very, very hard to raise our voice loud enough for Progress Energy to hear it."
The Medlins formed the Rainbow River Railroad Committee in July when news surfaced about the impending railroad line coming through their neighborhood.
The group gathered about 1,000 signatures in opposition to the rail line.
Progress had plans to build a 13-mile industrial rail spur to connect an existing CSX line with the proposed two-unit Levy County nuclear plant.
The rail corridor, which lies partially along an existing abandoned line, would cross U.S. 41 just north of Jan's Nursery in Dunnellon.
But the company announced Tuesday that it had a change of plans.
"We considered many options," said Suzanne Grant, Progress' spokeswoman. "We determined the rail line was not the most effective option for us."
The company now expects to use trucks and barges instead of rail to ship aggregate, steel reinforcement bars and modular pieces of the plant.
The materials are expected to be transported beginning in late 2009 until the plant becomes fully operational in 2017.
Progress now plans to build a gravel road designed for heavy equipment that would run from the Cross Florida Barge Canal to the plant.
The three-mile road will be located about 1,000 feet inside the Progress Energy property line.
The road right-of-way will be about 150 feet wide, including side slopes.
Progress Energy expects the heavy-haul road will reduce the amount of truck traffic on public roads, although trucks also may use C.R. 40 and U.S. 19.
"I would rather have truck traffic rather than having that train running in my backyard," Shirley Medlin said.
Having the train cross U.S. 41 concerned Dunnellon City Councilman Fred Stark.
He feared that emergency vehicles would be blocked by passing trains, which would put the public's safety at risk.
"You could literally isolate all your emergency equipment in town from getting over there," Stark said about the Rainbow Springs development area.
He also said that he was concerned about the affect on constituents' property.
"It would absolutely destroy their property value, really," Stark said.
One of the requests the city had made, along with the community's support, was to have Progress Energy build an overpass over U.S. 41 so traffic would not be impeded.
"I told them a long while ago that it's just fiscally unsound," Stark said about the rail line. "They did the right thing."
Stark said he did not believe the proposed heavy-haul road would abut residential property.
"I really can't think of anywhere that they would have a problem," he said.
Stark said he is pleased with Progress' decision because it would save the city from having to incur legal costs to fight the rail line.
Dunnellon already faces a similar problem at the intersection of County Road 484 and U.S. 41, where train coal cars heading for the Crystal River power plant cross.
"The thing has been there forever," Stark said. "It still presents a problem to us -- the crossing does -- but it's something that I think can be worked out at some point in time."
If the C.R. 484 intersection is blocked by a passing train, emergency vehicles can loop around by going north on U.S. 41, then east on State Road 40, south on the Southwest 180th Avenue Road to C.R. 484.
That detour would add roughly 10 to 15 minutes on to the trip.
But for now, the holidays have come early for Stark, too.
"That's my Christmas present," he said about Progress' dropping the rail line near Rainbow Springs. "I am really, really, really happy about it."
Progress Energy hopes to build the two-unit nuclear plant in Levy County to meet future power demands. Construction of the plant, which the company has not yet formally committed to building, but whose plans are moving in that direction, is expected to begin around 2010.
Grant said one reactor would be online in 2016 and the second would go online in 2017.