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Protest in LaPorte County Over Loss of Rural Land

UNION MILLS -- Nearly every one of the 500 residents who turned out for a meeting Tuesday night in Union Mills were against a transportation hub rail yard that's proposed for their back yards.

Many of the elected officials in attendance said they are keeping an open mind until they can weigh the increase in traffic and other effects with the thousands of new jobs and millions in additional property taxes being projected.

"The challenge in this thing is how do you maximize the job growth but minimize the noise, the pollution, the traffic, the infrastructure problems," said LaPorte County attorney Shaw Friedman.

Already committed to opposing the intermodal facility is LaPorte County Councilman Terry Garner of Hanna.

"I will never sell my soul to the devil," said Garner, whose comments drew applause from an overflow crowd at the Noble Township Volunteer Fire Department on County Road 800S.

Many residents demanded to know who are the main financial players behind a proposal that could bring significant change to their quiet, agricultural community.

They also accused officials of knowing more than they're willing to share, despite repeated assurances from leaders such as county councilman Jerry Cooley, who said "basically, we don't know any more than you do."

One thing is for certain, however, a final decision on where to locate one of the intermodal facilities appears near, with Union Mills at the top of the list.

Officials said a 15- to 21-member task force of elected officials, railroad representatives, residents and others will be formed to evaluate all sites proposed for an intermodal facility.

Final approval will rest with the LaPorte County Board of Zoning Appeals.

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Facing the future

Rural county braces for billion-dollar transport hub

A sprawling 3,000-acre transportation hub is the 800-pound gorilla in Northwest Indiana's far east corner. It is expected to become one of the busiest transit centers in the country, an industrial area designed to be the meeting spot for trains, trucks and cargo from lake freighters.

Expected to arrive within the next two years, the intermodal center also will displace dozens of residents -- making some millionaires in the process -- and forever change the makeup of the now-rural towns of Union Mills, Kingsford Heights and Kingsbury in south central LaPorte County.

A confidentiality agreement designed by Grubb-Ellis Cressy and Everett, the corporate and investment real estate development company based in Chicago handling the mammoth development, has sealed the lips of every politician and businessman involved in the project. Even the people living in the area targeted for demolition don't know when they will have to move.

Chris Davey, president of Grubb-Ellis, said he didn't want to talk publicly about the intermodal, but he has already offered landowners $10,000 per acre for their farms and homes.

Davey said he has the billions of dollars necessary to pull the intermodal together.

He told the homeowners that he's always in LaPorte working on the project that will offer thousands of jobs and millions of dollars to the area.

It all sounds very promising --- except for the fate of the farmers and homeowners who chose that area of LaPorte County for some of the very same reasons it looks so profitable for developers: It's flat, quiet and sparsely populated. There are 70 children in the graduating class of the local school; fast-food restaurants are few.

That's why some with family ties that stretch back generations insist they aren't going anywhere.

"We will not sell," said farmer John Lowenthal. "This is home. This is where we are supposed to be."

Right now, they are about the only ones talking.