At the August Board of Directors meeting of the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce, the board voted unanimously to oppose the proposed City of Rockland ordinance regulating diesel emissions from train engines. The proposed ordinance would create fines for the railroad if diesel fume emissions exceeded a certain prescribed level of acceptability. Board members were concerned in particular that the ordinance could destroy passenger service between Rockland and Brunswick and as an unintended consequence affect railroad cement deliveries from the Dragon plant in Thomaston to the barge wharf in Rockland. Enforceability of the ordinance has been called into question.
Chamber C.E.O. Bob Hastings stated that achieving passenger rail service to Portland and tying in with the Downeaster to Boston is a priority for the organization. The proposed Rockland ordinance could permanently damage that effort and negate the millions of dollars spent on rebuilding the rail between the two cities. “Bath just celebrated the $1.5 million rehabilitation of their historic depot. There are millions invested in state and local infrastructure to support rail service here.”
The chamber board was empathetic about environmental concerns over diesel fumes expressed by some homeowners adjacent to the tracks. “The fact is that each Dragon barge load takes 360 diesel truck trips off the neighborhood streets of Rockland,” said Hastings. “Those trucks would emit diesel fumes as well and the noise and safety threat to the neighborhoods would be unacceptable. In addition, a fully loaded passenger train takes scores of automobiles off of MidCoast highways for the trip between the two communities. We submit that while the diesel train engine does in fact create emissions, it reduces overall emissions and is therefore more environmentally responsible in the long run.”
The chamber also expressed concern for Rockland taxpayers regarding the potentially dramatic legal costs of defending the ordinance. Federal law pre-empts local communities from regulating railroads and reserves those rights at the federal level. In a recent case this summer in Southern California a federal judge ruled against a local air regulation district and said that the regulators could not require railroads to shut down idling locomotives or obey other local laws designed to clean up diesel pollution. That district spent over $3.5 million on the case and lost to the railroads and national railroad organizations. That does not bode well for Rockland taxpayers.
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