The Nevada Northern Railroad’s relationship with S & S Rail appears to be the main subject of the forensic audit now being conducted on behalf of the Ely City Council.
“That seems to be all that is being looked at.” NNRY Director Mark Basset said Tuesday.
“The auditor just this week sent me a request for 30 invoices and supporting checks and five deposits all connected with S & S Railroad,” Basset said Tuesday, “Hopefully when nothing wrong is found we can go back to business.”
Political squabbling between the city of Ely and its railroad management board derailed plans at least temporarily for a commercial rail line to Wendover said Basset.
“I had applied for a Tiger Grant (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) to refurbish and repair the line between Ely and Wendover,” Basset said. “The grant was supported by the entire Congressional delegation including Senators Harry Reid and Dean Heller as well as Governor Brian Sandoval.”
According to Basset, the multi-million dollar grant was all but approved until the Ely City Council led by Councilman Marty Westland got involved and created just enough controversy for the grant to be withdrawn.
“…Once I requested the money all of a sudden my phone calls started being ignored. You don’t think that this statement from Marty’s website had anything to do with do you?” Bassett wrote in an email. “‘The Nevada Northern Railway Company is a transportation company dedicated to bringing safe, affordable transportation of nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.’ From Marty’s bogus Nevada Northern Railway website.”
Bassett and other NNRR board members also alleged that Westland’s “bogus company” using the NNRR logo may have contributed to the denial of the NNRR $12 million grant application for upgrades to the northern line that would have made it able to ship ore from area mines to the Union Pacific line at Shafter about ten miles east of Wendover.
According to Basset the grant would have paid for improvements to the line so that freight could be transported by rail instead of trucked into Ely.
“The grant would have saved the (Robison) mine millions of dollars in transportion cost each year. Thus extending the life of the mine and protecting local jobs” Basset said.
On the return trip the train would haul mine waste back to Wendover that is also now being transported by truck.
Beyond generating money, the grant would have turned the Ely rail road from a quaint tourist attraction to a real money making rail road.
Currently the rail road management board in undergoing a forensic audit ordered by the Ely City Council that is looking for wrong doing in the rail road’s books.
“I believe they are most closely looking into our relationship with S & S Rail Road out of Utah.” Basset said. “Marty and others keep on harping that the City of Ely will be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars if the arrangement is broken. First of all it isn’t true. The arrangement to store equipment is a trade out where both sides benefit. Hopefully their audit will clarify that.”
The testimony in first court hearing in this matter made it clear that the forensic audit was started only because of months without answers to the Trustees, and broken promises (e.g. the personnel manual revision) made the the railroad board. The railroad management board brought it on themselves.
Mr. Bassett’s statements in this article about the audits don’t make sense, and everyone knows it. The grant applications he mentions were at different times, one long ago. The denials that came in writing did NOT mention Westland’s railroad plans (in the oldest grant) or the forensic audit (in the case of the 2014 denied grant). Mr. Bassett has not made the grant denial letters public. And he has been asked several times to back up his statements.
Lastly, the $12 Million grant would not “would have made it able to ship ore from area mines to the Union Pacific line at Shafter about ten miles east of Wendover” as Mr. Bassett says — and again he knows this is incomplete information. The track rehabilitation costs roughly $900,000 per mile, with total restoration estimates running as high as $110 Million for the approximate 130 miles. The existing track, if restored in its current form, would limit the the freight traffic to 10 MPH, and a trip to Shafter would require two crews due to duty time limitations.
Even the headline demonstrates the lack of research and fact checking at the paper — there is no discussion about passenger service to Wendover, Mr. Editor — and you only confuse your Wendover audience in saying that. Its freight and its Shafter, and try as he might to convince the public otherwise, the Audit is and will strengthen the railroad with better debt management, fewer personnel problems, and sound reporting to the City that is, ultimately, responsible for the employees, volunteers, contracts and debt.
[…] am quite pleased that you have taken a forensic audit. I will give it to the professionals, the auditor-general of the federation, so that within the […]