NORTH SIOUX CITY -- Some property owners in North Sioux City unleashed a torrent of complaints about increased activity at a rail yard during Tuesday night's City Council meeting, claiming the operations have created an unacceptable amount of noise.
L.G. Everist aggregate-hauling operations in the Sioux City metro were disrupted last year after a 124-year-old railroad bridge spanning the Big Sioux River, just north of the Military Road, collapsed during the catastrophic flooding in late June. The bridge was shared by the BNSF Railway and D&I Railroad, a shortline carrier owned by Everist.
Sioux Falls-based Everist used the rail line to ship rock and other material from their quarry at Dell Rapids, S.D. BNSF expects to rebuilt the bridge by May. In the meantime, Everist is using their North Sioux City rail yard near Highway 105 as a major hub.
Jerri and George Bailey, owners of Bailey's RV Park, 675 N Highway 105, say that Everist's operations have turned life upside down at the nearby RV park, with massive granite boulders being unloaded from railroad cars into steel side-dump trucks, causing the Baileys' own RV to "jump," as Jerri Bailey described it.
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George Bailey compared the noise level to the controlled explosions that brought down the remnants of the railroad bridge after it collapsed.
"When that big rock hits them side-dumps, I'm telling you, it's about like the bridge being blown up," he said.
Randy and Judy Bailey, landlords who have rental properties along Highway 105, claimed in a letter to the city that decibel readings taken by Randy when the rock was dumped into the trucks showed readings between 80 and 95 decibels. "The ground shakes when they unload," Randy and Judy Bailey wrote in the letter, and one of their rentals developed cracks in the sheetrock.
The landlords said over the past 35 years they never had complaints of this nature until Everist re-routed its rock transport.
"The residents are understandably still complaining about the noise," Randy and Judy Bailey wrote in the letter.
The city, for its part, is working with Everist to see about putting in a noise buffer -- railroad cars, possibly loaded with material to block the sound. Jerri and George Bailey were unconvinced this would help.
"Putting in more train cars for a sound barrier -- that's not going to do nothing," Jerri Bailey said.
City officials also want Everist to move its rock-unloading operations north from where it is now.
"They haven't done exactly what they said they were going to do," City Administrator Jeff Dooley said of Everist. "They need to move that pile to the north."
Sioux City Councilman Greg Meyer floated the possibility of city ordinance action against Everist or the railroad, but railroad regulations are largely the purview of the federal government.
"I would hope our city could do something to help our residents," Meyer said.
Noone representing Everist spoke at the meeting Tuesday night. The Journal could not immediately reach the company for comment.
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