The Georgia Public Service Commission has heard the last arguments around whether or not a railroad should be allowed to use eminent domain to cut through a historically Black community just north of the town of Sparta, about 60 miles west of Augusta.
Washington County-based Sandersville Railroad has sought for years to build a 4.5-mile rail line they call the Hanson Spur, connecting a Sparta granite quarry owned by a Germany-based company to long distance CSX rail lines running as far north as New England.
The land required to make that happen is owned by many families who have called the rural area home for generations. That includes the family of Blaine Smith which, in a rarity for Black families in the South, has managed to hold onto their acreage since it first came into the family in the 1920s.
The railroad has already offered cash for what it wants. Blaine Smith wants none of it.
“I just want my property; that's it,” Smith said. “The idea is not to compensate me adequately, it’s to stay the hell off my property. Let the property stay whole as it is, so we could pass it on to our children so they can enjoy it.”
But before the Tuesday arguments, an officer for the PSC advised the five-member board they agreed that despite Smith’s feelings and the feelings of his neighbors, the rail spur would qualify as “a public good” under Georgia law. That would allow Sandersville Railroad President Ben Tarbutton to take what he needs from landowners through eminent domain.
“It's a good project for the people that it's going to employ, for the county that's going to benefit from the tax dollars,” Tarbutton said after the hearing.
Throughout the process, Tarbutton has promised the spur will provide 12 permanent jobs with an estimated total compensation package of $90,000 a year each. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median income in surrounding Hancock County is just under $32,000 a year and about 27% of the community lives in poverty.
But in speaking on behalf of residents before the PSC, attorney Bill Maurer of the Institute for Justice argued Tarbutton’s promises are empty.
“[Sandersville Railroad] has not, for instance, produced documents showing that the Class I railroad to whom it wishes to connect will contract with them or not,” Maurer said.
While that point was not refuted by attorneys for the railroad, representatives of the rail spur’s prospective industrial customers attended the hearing in support.
Another question was whether helping those customers get their rock and asphalt to the CSX line and on to Northern markets the Hanson Spur would create a “New Channel of Trade." If so, that would be another point in favor of the line as a public good.
“This phrase means that companies may use eminent domain to open up portions of the state isolated from commerce here,” attorney Bill Maurer said. “However in Sparta, a channel of trade already exists.”
Southern Poverty Law Center attorney Jamie Rush said the existing channel is called truck traffic, which already carries a steady stream of granite away from the area, even if the railroad and their industrial partners say trucks are inconvenient, slow or too expensive.
“Now, it may not be economical for their business, but that doesn't mean that it's not available,” Rush said.
Rush said the only utility provided by the new line would be ramping up profits for a handful of industries. Attorney for the railroad Robert Highsmith characterized the argument as anti-progress.
“Opponents of railroad condemnations 100 years ago could have said, ‘Hold on a second. You don't need an expanded railroad. You have a two-horse wagon that you can use to transport your goods,’” Highsmith said.
The Georgia Public Service Commission was created in 1879 to regulate railroads, which, up to that point, had been given more or less free rein to take land.
Listening to all the back and forth were the residents who made the two-hour or so ride from Sparta to Atlanta together in a van. Jan Smith, sister-in-law of Blaine Smith, leads their coalition.
“Our community still lives on needles and pins every day,” Smith said. “We've lost two coalition members, 78 and one was 80. They didn't know if a railroad would not come.”
Regardless of how the PSC finds on the Hanson Spur issue when they vote in coming weeks, the standoff between the railroad and the community is likely to continue as both sides promise to take their fight to court.
