PORTSMOUTH – The state Department of Transportation is launching a $1 million project to upgrade five railroad crossings in the city.
City officials requested the upgrades in 2014 while Sea-3, a propane storage and distribution facility in Newington, was going through a review process to expand their facility. The Newington Planning Board approved the expansion, but the city appealed the decision to Superior Court. No date has yet been set for that appeal.
Eric Eby, parking and transportation engineer for the city, told members of the Parking and Safety Committee Thursday that the DOT will put out a request for proposals on the project sometime in April.
“The city’s share will be $100,000, or 10 percent for the project,” Eby said at the Thursday morning meeting in City Hall.
Numerous area officials and residents fought the proposed expansion, citing the substantial increase of propane carrying rail cars that would result from the project, and worries about the condition of Pan Am’s tracks.
The railroad crossings will be upgraded at Barberry Lane, Maplewood Avenue, Green Street, Michael Succi Drive and Gosling Road, Eby said.
After the RFPs are responded to, the DOT will “select a contractor and get working on the project,” Eby said.
Meanwhile, Portsmouth attorney Alec McEachern, who represents Sea-3, recently filed a motion to dismiss the city’s appeals of the facility’s expansion, claiming Portsmouth “lacks standing to appeal the relevant decisions by the town of Newington’s Planning Board,” because the city is not an abutter to the propane facility. McEachern also argues the only impact to Portsmouth of the proposed expansion of Sea-3 is to “increase rail traffic and decrease ship traffic.”
He also filed a motion to intervene in the case, which was filed against the town of Newington.
Portsmouth staff attorney Jane Ferrini argues in the city’s objection to Sea-3’s motion to dismiss that the court shouldn’t consider the motion because Sea-3 is not yet a party to the appeal. Ferrini argues if the court does allow Sea-3 to intervene “this court may be opening the door for several corporations and associations to request to intervene in the underlying matter, such as … Pan Am, Norfolk Southern Railway and the Propane Gas Association of New England.”
But Ferrini says if the court does allow Sea-3 to intervene, it objects to Sea-3’s motion to dismiss because Portsmouth and three other towns received notice about the proposed expansion after Newington determined the project was a “development of regional interest.”
Ferrini also contends the city is not “attempting to deprive Sea-3 of its federal” railroad rights, but rather, the city wants a “safety/hazard study of the site and Sea-3’s use of Pan Am railway.”
Sea-3 is seeking to build “five additional rail unloading berths and associated handling equipment at its existing” facility, McEachern said in a recent filing with the state’s Site Review Committee. This will allow the company to receive via rail and stockpile excess propane to be used during winter months.
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