By the Red Rock Terminal on the Mississippi River, the St. Paul Port Authority has proposed redirecting rail traffic away from Red Rock Road. Trains would arch over a parcel of unused, city-owned land adjacent to Pig’s Eye Lake.

Some community members, however, have raised concern about the potential impact to future trails associated with Pig’s Eye Regional Park.

Residents living near Pig’s Eye Regional Park and the Port Authority’s Red Rock Terminal are invited to a community meeting Tuesday evening at the Battle Creek Rec Center.

The Port Authority, Canadian Pacific, St. Paul Parks and Recreation and Gavilon, an agricultural and energy business, will make presentations. The meeting was organized with the help of City Council Member Jane Prince’s office.

The District 1 Community Council will host a public discussion of the proposed changes to the Mississippi River terminal and the rail area around it. Up to 600 workers and 750 truck drivers enter the terminal area daily from seven access points, several of which are often blocked by passing trains for more than 45 minutes at a time.

“That’s 45 minutes where employees can’t get to work at the beginning of the day. It’s 45 minutes where they can’t go home at the end of a shift. It’s also 45 minutes where first responders can’t get in or out in the case of a medical emergency,” said Lee Krueger, president of the St. Paul Port Authority, in a written statement.

At a recent meeting, a business representative shared video of workers crawling under and between railroad cars to get to work.

“Traffic is often backed up to the extent law enforcement is called in,” said Chuck Nippoldt, president of the United Steel Workers Local 7263 at the Gerdau plant, in a recent letter to Prince’s office.

The Port Authority said river shipping has increased since the recession, and the Red Rock Terminal alone accommodated more than 2.7 million tons of product in 2017.

Terminal closures elsewhere along the river also have increased barge and rail traffic.

“That’s created a lot of tension and issues,” said Betsy Mowry Voss, executive director of the District 1 Community Council, which is based on Old Hudson Road. “At a meeting a couple of weeks ago, we had people from everywhere — the steel workers’ union, Canadian Pacific, you name it. The employees, they want this change to happen because it’s impacting the workers and if an emergency were to happen, like a spill on the lake, there’s no way to get in or out when the trains are on the railway blocking Red Rock Road.”

Mowry Voss also noted, however, that community members are upset because the development of Pig’s Eye Regional Park as a regional park is a vision for the future.

“If they rerouted the train track, people wouldn’t be able to get in that way,” Mowry Voss said.

Port Authority officials said there would be no cost to the city of St. Paul for redirecting rail traffic. The proposed funding strategy includes investments by the St. Paul Port Authority and businesses along Red Rock Road, as well as potential grant funding.

The public discussion will begin at 6 p.m. at Battle Creek Recreation Center, 75 Winthrop St. South. District 1 is accepting community feedback online through Aug. 31 at District1council.org.

The St. Paul City Council would have to approve changes to public land.

The terminal is a nexus of barge and rail traffic, and a major destination for steel scrap, asphalt, grain, fertilizer and coal. Businesses at the terminal include AMG Resources, Barton Enterprises, Continental, Gavilon, Hawkins, Simcote and Gerdau.

Clare Cloyd, a spokeswoman for St. Paul Parks and Rec, said the city

maintains a “no net loss” policy toward its parklands, and loss of

parkland would have to be compensated with the addition of new parkland elsewhere. No final decisions have been made about the Port Authority proposal.

“This really is a first opportunity for us to hear from the public,” she said.