By Joe Angelino
Sun Contributor
Martin Shkreli. Just reading that man’s name invokes deep-seated feelings of anger. In case you forgot, Mr. Shkreli is the man with the boyish face flaunting the most infuriating grin that has ever deserved slapping. He is also the pharmaceutical businessman who raised the price of the drug Daraprim 1300% overnight, just because he could. Soon after his dubious business decision, the FBI arrested, and then convicted Shkreli for unrelated charges of securities fraud resulting in a collective cheer that was heard across America.
There is a new businessman attempting to reach the depths of Shkreli by tainting New York’s Adirondack Park, legally, because he can. The man is named Edward Ellis and he is the President of Iowa Pacific Holdings of Chicago. Iowa Pacific owns a half dozen short-line railroads in the US, one of which is the Saratoga and North Creek Railway which has track in Saratoga, Warren and Essex counties north of Albany. A portion of the Saratoga and North Creek Railway extends into the forever wild Adirondack Park.
There isn’t a great deal of railroad freight traffic, if any, in the Adirondacks, with only a few trains dedicated to tourists and sightseers riding the rails in the North Country. But there is a need for the long stretches of unused tracks for storage of surplus railroad tank cars. There is a marked decline in crude oil and coal use which has caused a glut of unused tank and hopper cars. Coal hopper cars can be employed for other cargo, but an oil tank car is designed for only one use.
A couple of years ago, Mr. Ellis’s company began parking surplus oil tank-cars on the tracks in the middle of the New York northern wilderness. In order to paint a picture in the reader’s mind, let me remind you of the string of tank cars along Route 12 south of Chenango Forks. On my last trip home from Binghamton I noticed them; a flat black, graffiti covered, wall of cylindrical steel. As I drove past them I guessed there were 50 to 80 tank cars, less than a mile in length.
