ROANOKE TIMES
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, October 2, 1993                   TAG: 9310020052
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEVE KARK Correspondent
DATELINE: PEMBROKE                                LENGTH: Medium


NS SAYS IT NEEDS SEWAGE-SYSTEM SITE FOR REPAIR AREA

The town of Pembroke has run into another snag in its negotiations with Norfolk Southern over land it hoped to buy from the railroad.

Pembroke needs less than an acre of railroad property for a pump station in the town's proposed $5.5 million sewage treatment system.

Pembroke is the largest town in Western Virginia without a sewage treatment facility, said Randi Lemmon, who consults for the three-state National Committee for the New River.

Norfolk Southern introduced a new factor into the negotiations Monday when it told town officials it needs to keep the the site as a staging area for maintenance activities.

Until then, cost for the land seemed to be the only point left to negotiate, Mayor Donald Martin said Thursday.

In a Sept. 13 letter to the town, Jeffrey George, an agent in NS' Atlanta office of real estate and contract services, offered $8,500 as the railroad's price for the property.

The town and the railroad already had negotiated for months on the size of the plot for the pump station.

The town said it needed only one-third of an acre for the facility. The railroad asked that the town also purchase and adjoining half acre, which it claimed would be worthless to the railroad without access rights.

The town said it had to deny access rights because the pump station would have to be fenced.

Pembroke offered $5,000 for the entire site in June. The railroad returned with the $8,500 counter-offer two weeks ago.

Officials from the town met Monday morning in the town hall with George and Steve Obenchain, who oversees NS track maintenance in the Pembroke area, and Banny Caldwell, an assistant trainmaster out of NS Radford office. The town representatives were Mayor Donald Martin, attorneys James Hartley and Phillip Steele, consultant Lemmon, and Charles O'Quinn, a surveyor from Dewberry & Davis, the Marion engineering firm that designed the proposed sewage treatment system.

Obenchain indicated the railroad needed to keep the property as a storage area for maintenance materials and for temporary housing of work crews.

Martin said he was stunned by this turn of events. "We've been trying to negotiate this thing for months, but this is the first time we've actually met with them. And what they told us at Monday's meeting caught us completely off guard."

Lemmon has warned that if the town and Norfolk Southern don't reach an agreement soon, the whole project may have to be scrapped. The $5.5 million project will be funded by close to $4 million in grants from the Department of Housing and Community Development and the Farmer's Home Administration.

However, if the money isn't used within the next 3 to 4 months, part of the funding could be pulled. If that happens it would likely kill the whole project, he said.

In a letter to NS later that day, Hartley said all of the property in that area - including the railroad site - was part of a 100-year flood plain.

In fact, he wrote, the railroad's use of the property appears to be in violation of the town's federally mandated flood plain ordinance. It is illegal, he proposed, for the railroad to house workers - even temporarily - at the site.

Negotiations over the size of the site continue. As part of its latest offer, the town is willing to reduce the size of the plot it needs to its absolute minimium should Norfolk Southern plan to continue using the property, Hartley wrote.

The town cannot consider moving the pump station, Hartley says, because the state Health Department requires that such a facility can be no closer than 100 feet from a residence. Moving the station a substantial distance would mean redesigning the project and put the cost over budget.

Having the pump station within the flood plain would be no problem for the town, he wrote, because the facility planned by the town would be flood-proofed.

The town would to go with the reduced plot and the necessary changes in the route of the piping between the pump station and the treatment plant if the railroad agreed to participate in the increased costs of construction.

The town's latest proposal was mailed earlier this week.

Bob Auman, director of Norfolk-Southern's Roanoke office for public relations, said Thursday that the railroad has received the town's latest offer and is in the process of preparing a reply. He said it was company policy to not release the contents of such letters before they had been received by the town.



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