Essex, Newcomb seek to protect Tahawus rail line

NEWCOMB | The Town of Newcomb and Essex County Commissioners have both passed resolutions asking the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to block a state Department of Environmental Conservation request to abandon the railroad that runs from the old National Lead mines in Tahawus to points south. Abandonment of the Tahawus Line would allow the state or some other agency to put the line to some other use, most likely as a recreational rail trail. The DEC, in court filings, has said the 30-mile Saratoga and North Creek Railway spur, built specifically to serve the mines of National Lead, doesn't belong, due to the unique character of the Adirondack Park. SNCR's parent company filed for bankruptcy in 2020, but the issue has been simmering for years. Newcomb and Essex County believe that freight cars can still roll on the railroad again and that there is economic potential stemming from an 80-million-ton pile of tailings left over from the mines, which were abandoned by National Lead about 40 years ago. That might keep the line viable, and an operable railroad might encourage the location of some other economic development project, said Newcomb Supervisor Robin DeLoria. The assets of the line at this point essentially belong to a court-appointed trustee, whose interest — presuming there is any workable way for the line to be economically viable — is in selling the track to a freight carrier, either in a negotiated deal or at auction. The trustee has asked the federal government to toss the DEC's request, but on Wednesday the state reiterated its belief that the road should be abandoned. The town and county resolutions are in support of the trustee. "We don't want the tracks to be ripped up, we want them to remain," DeLoria said. While a carrier has yet to materialize, allowing the process to play out in bankruptcy court at least gives the line a fighting chance, he added. The tailings pile at the old National Lead mines is owned by Mitchell Stone Products, which sells various grades of stone for uses that include road bases, decorative walkways and as an ingredient in asphalt. It is currently removing stone from the Tahawus site by truck. Another use to the tailings may be at hand, Newcomb wrote in a Wednesday filing with the STB because officials are "learning that concentrations of 'rare earth elements' are present in this aggregate. These rare earth elements remain of strategic importance to the United States Defense Department and further study of the quantity of these materials justifies the STB's denial of the adverse abandonment. Today, the search for these elements is considered the 'Gold Rush of the 21st Century.'" Rare earth elements are used as catalysts in dozens of applications, from cameras to cancer treatments. The state, however, argued that if a viable carrier existed, the trustee would have found it by now. The trustee "fails to provide other than purely speculative evidence of a present or future public need for freight service over the line," the state wrote. By contrast, the Open Space Institute, court papers indicate, bid $1.5 million for the line in late October, under a proposal that it be "railbanked" for at least three years — meaning the line could be used nominally as a trail, but the rails would remain in place in case a carrier were to materialize. The trustee rejected the offer Nov. 1. The only other offer for the line to date has been from a recreational rail-biking company, which bid $700,000, according to STB documents. The former mine owner sold the line to Saratoga North Creek Railway in 2011, but the most excitement over the next decade was in 2017 when the line parked empty tanker cars on a siding. DeLoria said the cars were not a contamination risk, but they conjured up images of a junkyard in the wilderness, and the bad publicity made sale of the line more difficult.

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Essex, Newcomb seek to protect Tahawus rail line

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