CHICAGO — CN announced it has reached a voluntary mitigation agreement (VMA) with the Village of Plainfield, Ill., located 35 miles southwest of Chicago, addressing the municipality’s environmental issues with CN’s acquisition of the principal lines of the former Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway Company (EJ&E).
With this agreement, CN has VMAs with 21 municipalities of the 33 communities situated on the EJ&E in Illinois and Indiana.
CN’s latest VMA will provide funding for environmental measures including maintenance of an existing quiet zone, operations mitigation, emergency response training, safety initiatives, and improved communication.
CN completed its EJ&E acquisition on Jan. 31, 2009, and, while traffic volumes overall remain down owing to general economic conditions, CN has rerouted a limited number of its trains over the rail line.
CN has been very transparent in its implementation of this transaction. In compliance with the Surface Transportation Board’s (STB) Dec. 24, 2008, decision approving the EJ&E transaction, CN files monthly operational and quarterly environmental reports at the Board with updates on the status of implementation of the environmental mitigation measures imposed by the agency.
