Blunt asks for land to extend Katy

CLINTON — For 225 miles, the Katy Trail State Park winds past sweeping Missouri River bluffs, vast prairies and postcard-ready small towns. Then, abruptly, it ends here in an unceremonious thud.

Unlike its eastern starting point in historic St. Charles, there are no celebratory signs, no welcome banners, no acknowledgment of the nation’s longest cycling and hiking path carved from a converted rail bed. Just rocky gravel and overgrown brush in place of the trail’s packed sand and smooth, fine dirt.

Outdoor enthusiasts have long sought a 75-mile trail extension into Kansas City along an unused rail bed owned by two utilities. Now, with Gov. Matt Blunt calling on AmerenUE to consider giving up its rights to the dormant Rock Island corridor to compensate for unrelated damage from a hydroelectric plant spill, they hope the project finally becomes a reality.

“It makes a lot of sense to connect the two major metropolitan areas of the state to the trail,” said Brent Hugh, president of the Missouri Bike Federation.

“The thing that’s been missing is high-level support,” said Hugh, a Raytown resident whose home abuts the unused Rock Island corridor. “That’s what made the Katy Trail come together in the first place.”

The trail’s first stretch along the abandoned Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad line opened in 1990. Within a decade, it had grown to its present size, attracting cyclists and hikers from across the country.

More than 300 bike riders from 31 states and British Columbia descended on the trail last week for the state Department of Natural Resource’s annual Katy Trail ride, pedaling an average of 45 miles daily over five days.

Kansas City-area cyclists in particular voiced strong support for extending the trail. Most now are forced to drive more than one hour to begin their trail rides in Clinton, Windsor, Boonville or even Columbia.

Blunt issued a public statement in support of the extension in April, four months after a breach of the AmerenUE Taum Sauk plant in southeast Missouri flooded Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park with 1.3 billion gallons of water.

While Ameren is paying to clean up the flooded park, the Republican governor suggested that the utility, a subsidiary of St. Louis-based Ameren Corp., donate the Rock Island rail bed as well as land it owns adjacent to the damaged state park.

The utility has not responded to that request, but the governor’s interest in such a deal hasn’t wavered, a Blunt spokesman said.

“Expanding the Katy Trail would be a great deal for the citizens of Missouri,” said spokesman Spence Jackson. “It’s something that current and future generations of Missourians could get a lot of enjoyment from.”

Ameren owns the stretch of the Rock Island corridor from Windsor — a town 15 miles north of Clinton that also sits along the Katy Trail — to the Kansas City suburb of Pleasant Hill. Union Pacific Railroad Co. owns the unused Rock Island section from Pleasant Hill to Kansas City.

An Ameren spokesman declined to discuss any potential settlement with the state, as did a spokesman for Attorney General Jay Nixon. And a Union Pacific spokesman in Omaha, Neb., suggested the company is not eager to hand over its investment.

“We recognize the benefits of recreational interests and, where feasible, right of way is evaluated for these purposes,” said Union Pacific’s Jim Barnes.

“However, we are in a position of having to ensure our rights of way are being used to maximize our ability to handle the explosive growth and demand for rail service.”

That’s not the only hurdle. Blunt and Nixon — presumed opponents in the 2008 governor’s race — are at odds over a lawsuit Nixon filed last year against the DNR over a decaying Union Pacific bridge over the Missouri River in Boonville.

Union Pacific, which bought the MKT Railroad Co., wants to dismantle the bridge and reuse part of its steel for another bridge over the Osage River east of Jefferson City. The plan has the support of DNR director Doyle Childers, a Blunt appointee, in a reversal of opinion from Childers’ Democratic predecessor.

Nixon and some trail supporters fear a bridge dismantling could jeopardize the federal agreement on which the entire Katy Trail rests. The case remains under appeal after a Cole County judge ruled against the attorney general.

A longer Katy Trail could also serve as a linchpin in a proposed 700-mile Quad-State trail connecting Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa, trail advocates say.