ATLANTA – It’s a battle over land in one of Georgia’s poorest rural counties, but it could have implications for property rights across the state and the nation.
A hearing is scheduled to begin Monday to determine whether a railroad can legally condemn property to build a 4.5-mile (7.25-kilometre) rail line that would serve a quarry and possibly other industries.
A hearing officer will take up to three days of testimony and make a recommendation to the five elected members of the Georgia Public Service Commission, who will make the final decision.
The line would be built by Sandersville Railroad, which is owned by a powerful Georgia family. It would connect to the CSX railroad at Sparta, allowing products to be shipped far and wide. Sparta is about 85 miles (135 kilometres) southeast of Atlanta.
People in the rural area don’t want a rail line through or near their property, in part because they believe it would allow expansion of a quarry owned by Heidelberg Materials, a publicly traded German company.
Some residents already dislike the quarry because of the noise, dust and truck traffic it generates. Supporters say if the railway is built, the quarry will move its operations further from homes, the trains will reduce the number of trucks on the roads and the railway will build berms to shield residents.
But property owners say losing a 200-foot (60-metre) wide strip of land to the railroad would ruin land they value for its peace and quiet, hunting, fishing and family heritage.
“The Sandersville Railroad does not care about the destruction of my family’s property or our way of life,” Donald Garret Sr, one of the owners, said in written testimony in August. “They only care about their own plans for my property, which won’t serve the public, but will only help them expand their business and the quarry’s business”.
The opponents have high-powered allies, including the Institute for Justice, which hopes to use the case to chip away at eminent domain, the government’s power to legally take private land while paying fair compensation.
The libertarian-leaning legal group was on the losing side of a landmark 2005 case that allowed the city of New London, Connecticut, to take land from one private owner and give it to another private owner in the name of economic development. The decision sparked a widespread backlash, with more than 20 states passing laws to limit eminent domain.
Railroads have long had the power of eminent domain, but Georgia law says such land seizures must be for “public use”. Opponents targeted the project, saying it would only benefit the quarry and didn’t meet the definition of public use.
“This is not a necessary taking of private property to serve truly public interests and the public at large. Rather, it is a naked transfer of wealth,” Daniel Kochan, a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia, testified for the opponents.
The Sandersville Railroad says there are other users, including a company co-located with the quarry that mixes gravel and asphalt for paving. Several companies have said they would truck products from the Sandersville area and load them onto the short line, noting they want access to CSX, but opponents question whether that business will materialise.
The case is important because private companies need to condemn private land not only to build railroads, but also to build other facilities such as pipelines and electric transmission lines. There’s a particular need in Georgia and other states to build additional transmission lines to carry electricity from new solar and wind power plants.
Sandersville Railroad President Ben Tarbutton III said in testimony that the Institute for Justice is engaged in ‘transparent efforts to change federal and state constitutional law regarding eminent domain’.
Others who live nearby, organised as the No Railroad In Our Community Coalition, are represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Janet Paige Smith, a leader of the group, testified that the railroad would further burden a neighbourhood with many black retirees on fixed incomes.
“We already suffer from traffic, air pollution, noise, debris, trash and more from the Heidelberg Quarry, but this project would make everything worse,” Smith testified.