Kankakee Times

Kankakee County's fight against the Great Lakes Basin Transportation (GLBT) rail project, which Rep. Lindsay Parkhurst (R-Kankakee) had called a "boondoggle in the making," is officially over following its rejection by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB), County Board candidate Colton Ekhoff said on his Facebook page.

"The previous fight against GLBT has ended according to the Chicago attorney!" Ekhoff posted on his campaign Facebook page Nov. 1. "There was no appeal of the STB decision filed in the courts."

In his posting, Ekhoff thanked everyone who "worked so hard to help us keep our homes" and gave a special thank you and kudos to Julie Piunti Kokos of Rock the Rail and the Block the GLB group.

Illinois State House Rep. Lindsay Parkhurst (R-Kankakee)

"Thank you Colton but you and Tom and everyone in Grant Park and Sumner Township and all the other townships and all the Block groups and anyone & everyone who had any involvement in this fight are due the thanks," Kokos replied in the same thread. "So Thank you to everyone."

The proposed project included a rail line that would have run from downtown Chicago and wound 38 to 89 miles through counties in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana.

At issue for Kankakee County had been worries about the impact of a last-minute addition of a 15,000-acre rail port. That portion of the overall project was added during the environmental review process and opponents claimed there was no advance warning and no time for the county to analyze the impact of that addition. The rail port would have affected 271 homes and two cemeteries, opponents have said.

The Kankakee County Board's opposition to the GLBT proposal officially kicked off on July 12, 2016, when its executive committee recommended authorization of a letter to the  Surface Transportation Board opposing the proposal.

Kankakee Board members and county residents also expressed concerns about the proposed railroad route on existing infrastructure, traffic patterns and farrmland and waterways, and the board proposed that the railroad expand and improve the existing infrastructure instead of building a new rail line.

About a week after the County Board authorized its letter in opposition, Parkhurst, then a Republican candidate for the 79th House District seat, weighed in against the rail proposal. "I'm pleased that the Kankakee County Board unanimously approved a letter opposing the Great Lakes Basin Rail project," Parkhurst told the Kankakee Times.

"This project is a boondoggle in the making – similar to the Illiana Expressway or South Suburban Airport – and ought to be opposed," Parkhurst said. "I proudly stand with the folks at Block GLB Railroad and many other local entities in opposing this project. Any possibility of using eminent domain for private gain is a gross abuse of state power. This project threatens the lives and livelihoods of farmers, homeowners and rural communities in our area and is not the way forward for our state."

In August, the Surface Transportation Board rejected the GLBT railroad application and discontinued environmental review because enough money for the project didn't appear to be available. "The financial information provided in GLBT’s application, as supplemented, is fundamentally flawed, making it impossible for the board to determine whether GLBT can meet the statutory criteria," the board said in its rejection of the project.