By Greg Grisolano
ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com
CARL JUNCTION, Mo. — A 16-mile rail-to-trail conversion in Jasper County is winding its way back through court.
This time, property owners along the Ruby Jack Trail have filed for class-action status in federal court. They are suing the federal government, citing alleged infringement of their Fifth Amendment rights to just compensation for the loss of the property they claim should have been awarded to them. The lawsuit was filed Feb. 27 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
“The United States has taken these landowners’ property and has not paid, nor has the federal government offered to pay, any compensation,” the plaintiffs’ attorney, Laurel Stevenson, wrote in a complaint filed with the court.
Stevenson, an attorney in Springfield for the law firm Lathrop and Gage, declined to comment when reached by telephone this week. All of the residents named in the suit either declined to comment when reached by phone or were unavailable.
The dispute is over land that was granted as a railroad easement in 1876 to the Memphis, Carthage and Northwestern Railroad Co. The easements established a 28.25-mile corridor from Columbus, Kan., to Carthage. It later passed to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.
The property owners argue in the lawsuit that when the railroad quit operating on that line — the plaintiffs’ lawyers contend that the line was “abandoned” — they should have regained their right to exclusive use and physical possession of the property.
The lawsuit was filed by Edward Bright II, Earleen Fauvergue, Clarence Forkner, Homer and Debbie Hamilton, Ricky Russell, and Brady and Rose Stuart.
A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice declined to comment Tuesday when asked about the suit. Legal counsel with the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a national organization supporting the development of trails along former rail lines, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
‘Diminished value’
In their lawsuit, the landowners argue that the federal government, through the Federal Trails Act, has taken property that should have reverted to them, and that they deserve compensation.
“Creating an easement for a current or future public access recreational trail across the plaintiffs’ land and appropriating a new easement for possible future railroad use has taken from the plaintiffs not just the value of the land physically appropriated for this rail-trail corridor, but has also greatly diminished the value of the plaintiffs’ adjoining property,” they argue in the lawsuit.
They’re asking for full, fair-market value of the property and unspecified “severance” damages suffered for the loss in value of their remaining property.
But Joplin Trails Coalition president Perry Johnson said part of the reason for not allowing the land to revert to adjacent property owners is that the railroads can still come back and use it. It also could be used as some other transportation or infrastructure corridor in the future, he said.
“The railroad could still, at any time, come and take the property back,” Johnson said.
That’s why these deals are called “rail-banking” agreements, said Paul Teverow, a past president of the Joplin Trails Coalition.
“It was not being taken out of the public domain, but being kept in there, but in the interim, we could use it,” he said.
Roadblocks
The coalition initially hoped for a 29-mile trail from Carthage to Columbus, Kan., but there have been roadblocks along the way.
In 2002, the Cherokee County (Kan.) Landowners Association filed a statement opposing extending the trail into Kansas, saying some trail groups lack funding, manpower “and quite frankly motivation” to develop and maintain the trails they control. They expressed concern about littering, vandalism and inadequate policing.
The coalition pulled out of the Kansas portion after the Cherokee County Commission ruled that the trails group would have to post a surety bond of about $10,000 per mile to ensure that the trail would be maintained.
Teverow said that would have made it prohibitively expensive to run the trail to Columbus.
“The state of Kansas, I would say, has made it more difficult than any state in the nation,” he said.
Other property owners along the 16-mile Missouri portion of the trail sued in federal court to try to get the land back, but a federal judge in 2006 sided with the Joplin Trails Coalition.
“We actually, 100 percent, hold in hand the deed to that property,” Johnson said.
Trail plans
The coalition is working with the city of Carthage, Jasper County and the Missouri Department of Transportation to develop the Ruby Jack Trail.
The group has received two MoDOT grants to improve the rail bed. It is doing work on the first three miles west of Carthage and will begin putting down compaction rock, running to County Road 180. Some work with the grant money also is being done near Oronogo.
A second MoDOT grant will be used to connect the two improved sections.
“Hopefully we can get that finished this fall,” Johnson said. “It’s a great recreation trail.”
Why Ruby Jack?
The trail name, Ruby Jack, refers to one of the varieties of zinc mined in Southwest Missouri around the turn of the 20th century.
Source: Rails-to-Trail Conservancy.
Trail facts
There are 1,534 open rail-trails for a total of 15,346 miles in the United States.
There are 789 rail-trail projects in the works for a total of 9,501 miles
The longest developed rail-to-trail in the country is the KATY Trail along the Missouri River in Missouri, at 225 miles. The state eventually plans to connect it to Pleasant Hill in the Kansas City area.
Source: Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
Other area trails
Frisco Greenway Trail, Joplin to Webb City, four miles.
Frisco Highline Trail, Springfield to Bolivar, 35 miles.
