DM&E expansion poses serious threat to Mayo Clinic

by Leigh Pomeroy

It's no secret that Rochester's Mayo Clinic is the financial force behind The Rochester Coalition, which is trying to derail the DM&E Railroad's plan to send coal trains within 900 feet of the Mayo's front door. Just this week the Coalition released a video on tape, DVD and the internet explaining the dangers that more train traffic through Rochester will bring to the Mayo Clinic and the city.

The Rochester Coalition has taken a multi-pronged approach to stopping the DM&E project, enlisting heavy hitters from the Mayo's Board of Trustees, former legislators, top attorneys in Washington, media specialists and grassroots organizers. It has put up a website called Track the Truth and bought position placement on Google.

In short, the Mayo views the prospect of the DM&E running more traffic through Rochester as a serious threat to its well-being and is spending big bucks to fight the battle. It has purchased full-page ads in newspapers in cities along its route, including the Rochester Post-Bulletin, Mankato Free Press and Sioux Fall Argus Leader. In addition, it bought a full-page ad in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune during a recent visit by President Bush.

In the view of the Mayo Clinic, the DM&E's expansion plans are a dangerous threat. Were this a battle of the titans, it would receive national interest. But the DM&E is only a Class II railroad, in other words a regional carrier. And the Mayo Clinic, while internationally recognized, has little economic impact beyond the upper Midwest.

On the DM&E's side are antiquated railroad laws dating back to the 19th century, plus a congressional earmark in the 2006 transportation bill. On the Mayo's side is its international reputation, well-heeled contacts, sheer determination and what might be called the "white hat" factor. For in this battle, if it were decided based on the concept of good vs. evil, the Mayo would definitely be the good.

The differences between the two business entities are striking: The DM&E is a for-profit, privately-held corporation whose books are closed to public scrutiny, which is ironic since public funds are being requested for its expansion. On the other hand, the Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit charitable organization, whose books are open according to the extent of the law.

For Kevin Schieffer, the DM&E's CEO, this is a personal quest — a challenge he has dedicated at least the last eight years to. When he started his quest, expanding the struggling DM&E into the coal-rich Powder River Basin in Wyoming seemed like a no-brainer. Though the area was served by the Burlington Northern and the Union Pacific, their routes to the area were circuitous and their service questionable. With just a few hundred miles of extra track, the DM&E could come into the area directly and ship coal to the fuel-hungry coal-fired plants of the Midwest.

But as poet Robert Burns said, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft agley" — meaning "the best laid plans of mice and men often go wrong." In other words, what was once a solid economic argument for the railroad expansion may no longer exist, as argued convincingly by former Mankato, Minnesota, city councilman Bob Freyberg.

The conflict over the DM&E expansion is indeed small as compared to such global issues as the war in Iraq, the AIDS crisis, global warming and worldwide poverty. But it is, in fact, a microcosm, a sample perhaps, of the larger looming vision of what the future of the planet ought to be. The DM&E's arguments are couched in the legal, political and economic advantages of the present. The Mayo's arguments are based on the physician's charge, established in ancient Greece, of "first, do no harm."

The delivery of Powder River Basin coal to the antiquated, coal-fired power plants of the Midwest may be economically advantageous to the DM&E and to electricity consumers in Illinois and Indiana. But if it puts at peril people, cities, communities, businesses and nonprofit organizations along the way — including the Mayo Clinic — then what the DM&E advocates is robbing Peter to pay Paul.

And if that is the role of government, then we are indeed a socialist state.