Kansas City News Blog

When Eric Kirkendall and his wife, Mary, moved to Gardner in 1990 they found an idyllic little farmhouse built in 1870. The couple intended to live there until they retired. But eight years before that date, Kirkendall found out their quiet property might soon be sandwiched by the mammoth warehouses of a huge transportation hub.

BNSF intermodal

​The distressed homeowner threw himself into researching the effects of intermodal facilities, sprawling complexes where freight is moved from railcars to diesel trucks and shuttled to regional cities by highway. He created a website outlining the possible environmental and human health effects of the 400-acre project in Gardner proposed by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.

In 2007, Kirkendall traveled to a conference in California, where experts discussed the impact of the massive intermodals that service places like the Port of Los Angeles. Last night, Kirkendall brought the California experts to Johnson County. They painted a disturbing picture of what Gardner might become.

At least a hundred people showed up at the Holiday Inn in Olathe to hear from the panel of academics and attorneys. Many had read -- or heard about -- the draft Environmental Assessment the Army Corps of Engineers published in July. It said the Gardner intermodal "would not have a significant adverse effect on the quality of the human environment."

Andrea Hricko, an associate professor at the University of Southern California and a member of the Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center, strongly disagreed with the Corps' conclusion about the Gardner intermodal.

Hricko showed images of the rail hubs in California and the clogged freeway arteries flowing out of them. She shot holes in the environmental assessment, questioning the Corps' data and criticizing the scope of inquiry. She said it doesn't accurately reflect the serious health impacts caused by the burning and diesel fuel and the emission of fine particulate matter. "I would urge a more comprehensive environmental review be conducted," she said.

The most potent speaker wasn't an academic expert. He didn't talk about the environmental assessment, but about his community back in California. Angelo Logan grew up and still lives in Commerce, a city outside of Los Angeles that is hemmed in by gigantic rail yards. One of them is the BNSF's Hobart facility. His group, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, has researched and witnessed the intermodal's impact.

"We've seen a huge jump in activity with the traffic, the trucks and trains and all the other types of services that come with that," he said. "And we've seen tons of health impacts in our community."

He paused. "How many of you have family members with asthma?" he asked.

About 20 hands shot up.

"We did that in our community, and after they transferred from freight to intermodal, the whole room pretty much had their hands up," he said. "That's one of the reasons I dedicated my life to this work."

He showed pictures of Commerce, where cranes tower next to playgrounds, huge semis chug down neighborhood streets and homes are lit up with stadium-caliber lights all through the night. He had slides of disturbing accidents: a derailment that took out half-a-block of houses, a container spill that required a clean-up crew bundled in haz-mat suits. His group had done air quality tests, he said, and, after 24 hours outside, the white sample paper turned pitch black.

"We definitely have a diminished quality of life," he said. "Not just air quality, but noise, lights, the type of industry that comes in. It shifts the type of industry in your community."

Kirkendall said he recently visited Logan in Commerce and toured the community. He tied it back to Gardner. "Angelo's talk reminded me how sad the situation was," he said. "And I don't know how, unless our policymakers and our representatives negotiate properly with the railroad, we'll be any different."