Those of us on the Bay Area Peninsula are wringing our hands over the possible impending damage high-speed rail will do to the quality of life and the livability of our urban environment. Well, we're not alone.
As you know, the first construction step will be in the Central Valley, from south of Merced to north of Bakersfield. That's the agricultural heartland of California. Agriculture is California's cash cow. The irony of this should not be lost on anyone; a money losing proposition, the HSR project, is being promoted at the expense of profitable (and tax producing) agri-industries in our state.
The farmers in the Central Valley are complaining. You have to understand that it's not the actual acreage that is being consumed to build the HSR right of way that is the problem. It's the fact that wherever it goes, it divides whatever properties it travels on, since it's going to be at-grade and the only way to get from one side to the other is by a grade-separated crossing. And those will be few and far between.
If you look at this from the big picture perspective, the high-speed rail agenda is to impose itself on the entire California geography,urban, suburban, agricultural or wild, regardless of the consequences. I gather that most people still don't get that, unless they already can see where the train is going through or near their properties.
It won't be until construction has actually started that lots more of us will wake up to what this train is imposing on our lives. I can hear them already: "OHMYGOD! I had no idea that this is what they had in mind and this is what they're going to build, and where they're going to build it!!" By then, it's too late, of course.
Given that the rail promoters actually know squat about what the consequences of their intentions will be, the arrogance is stunning! They intend to impose their will and their concrete in a wide swath down the length of California, through every village and town, so to speak. We complainers are merely in their way, and they, like Jeff Barker, only say they are paying attention to local stakeholders. It should be obvious by now that they have no intentions whatsoever of being responsive to any of our concerns.
Oh, and there's another point. HSR is being promoted in the US on the basis of the fact that it will go from downtown to downtown, unlike airports, which are always quite a ways out of town. Yet, here we learn that the Central Valley HSR route will by-pass all those towns that it is routed to service.
You have to look at a California map to see how insane the high-speed rail route actually is. Instead of the shortest distance between two points, they have taken the longest. The rationale is to reach the largest number of people. Yet, Only a few Central Valley cities will actually see the train cutting right through town.
I wonder when the rest of California will wake up to the scam that is being imposed upon all of us; and that we are going to pay for it forever. This project is a panacea of patently false promises. Wake up, California.
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http://www.topix.com/wire/news/california-high-speed-rail
Farmers say it'd be hard to cope if high-speed rail cuts through
By Tim Sheehan
Fresno Bee
Published: Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 3A
Last Modified: Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011 - 10:10 am
FRESNO – California's ambitious plan for high-speed trains is drawing sharp criticism from San Joaquin Valley farmers who fear the project would carve their property into useless pieces, disrupt their work and drive down land values.
Others accuse the California High-Speed Rail Authority – the agency tasked with building the 800-mile system over the next decade – of ignoring their concerns and steering the proposed rail line into the countryside as the path of least resistance.
"I have been able to deal with immigration officials, the United Farm Workers union and Congress," said Manuel Cunha, president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League. "But these guys (at the rail authority) don't want to talk with us. Their attitude is, 'We are going to put this through and we don't really care about these farmers.' "
Not so, said Jeff Barker, the authority's deputy executive director.
"Agriculture is absolutely being listened to, and it will factor into the decisions we're making," Barker said. "You can't build a piece of infrastructure like this without affecting agricultural land, and we want to work with agriculture to mitigate those effects."
If the project is built as planned, about 170 miles of dedicated high-speed tracks would carry passengers between Merced and Bakersfield at speeds of up to 220 mph across some of the world's most fertile farmland.
That worries not only farmers whose land is likely in the path of the tracks, but also growers who have property on either side of the route.
"I'm a family farmer, and I want to stay a family farmer," said Brad Johns, a tomato farmer north of Hanford who fears the rail line would slice through his farmland. "But I am acquiescing to reality. This (train) is coming and I just have to learn to live with a new neighbor."
Between Fresno and Bakersfield – where the first $5.5 billion section of tracks is supposed to be built starting in 2012 – one primary route is being considered by the rail authority. It generally runs alongside the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks. Exceptions include a sweeping arc to take the tracks east of Hanford and several options to bypass Corcoran, Allensworth, Wasco and Shafter.
Two route options are being evaluated between Fresno and Merced. One parallels the Union Pacific railroad tracks and through the cities of Chowchilla and Madera along Highway 99, while the other tends to run alongside the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks a few miles to the east.
Depending on the route that's ultimately set between Merced and Bakersfield, the rail line may displace about 1,900 acres of property, according to the rail authority. Of that acreage, about 1,460 acres is farmland – about 2 one-hundredths of a percent of the more than 7.5 million acres of agricultural land in Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties.
But farmers say the effects would be out of proportion to the acreage affected.
Johns owns 320 acres, some of which has been in his family for more than 60 years. He estimates he would lose about 3 acres if the tracks go where he believes they will. He's not happy about it.
"This was never part of my game plan," he said. "But I'm not going to take these lemons and make lemonade. I'm going to make margaritas." Johns said he'll negotiate with the authority for the best possible deal to compensate for lost land and possible loss of his home.
Johns said coming through farmland naturally makes more sense for rail planners than disrupting businesses and industries in cities. "There are fewer obstacles to come through out here," he said.
Agriculture advocates believe the high-speed trains will affect farming well beyond the trackside right of way.
Not only will farmland be lost, Cunha said, but farmers could see the value of their land decline if they cannot use it to grow crops.
Because of the tremendous speed of the trains, there can be no at-grade road crossings on the high-speed tracks.
That means even farmers whose land is cleaved by existing freight rail tracks no longer would be able to use many of the county roads or other rural crossings to get across.
Instead, they would have to drive their tractors and other equipment to the nearest new undercrossing or overpass, which could be several miles out of their way, said Julia Berry, executive director of the Madera County Farm Bureau.
"That's a major concern," Berry said. "It's an increased cost, and it's incredibly inconvenient for farmers."
Tracks cutting cross land at a diagonal would create isolated and odd-shaped parcels that are too difficult or too expensive to farm and drive property values down, Berry added.
Other concerns are less obvious, but no less worrisome for farmers:
• A new high-speed track could displace irrigation ditches and require pumps to move water to the other side of the tracks. Irrigation districts would face greater fuel costs just to tend to canals. Berry said the rail authority has pledged to pay for the improvements, but questions remain about who would pay to maintain them in the future.
• Some farmers may have to dig new wells or install new pumps if their old ones are in the way – a cost that could reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, said Diana Peck, executive director of the Kings County Farm Bureau.
• A pesticide-free buffer zone may be created around the tracks, said Fresno County Farm Bureau executive director Ryan Jacobsen, whose family farms grapes in the Easton area. But how large those zones may be is unclear.
• Farmers who grow nuts and tree fruit need bees to pollinate their crops and wonder what kinds of wind vortices would be created by 220-mph trains flying by every 10 minutes or so during peak periods, and how bees could be affected.
• Whether the authority acquires land through negotiation or by condemnation, farmers don't know whether they would be paid only for the value of the land or also for future lost income from permanent crops like grapes, nuts or fruit crops. If a farmer is forced to relocate and plant new trees or vines, it could take several years before a crop could be harvested, said Peck.
Barker, the rail authority official, said he understands that farmers are anxious.
"They have legitimate questions about bees, pesticides, how they're going to get their tractors across," he said. "Those are real concerns about how they're going to be able to continue using their property."
But, he added, the authority cannot provide more specific answers until environmental reviews are completed on the route options. A draft of the environmental documents is expected to be released in February, after which farmers and the public will be able to comment.
Those reports, and the final versions that will emerge after comments are considered, will spell out how the state plans to minimize the high-speed trains' effects on agriculture, transportation, and the environment.
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