Feds threaten eminent domain grab on Vermont farm

FRANKLIN, Vt. | This is one sleepy border crossing.

At the Morses Line Port of Entry, on the U.S.-Canada border, the border station is located smack-dab in the middle of a Vermont dairy farm.

On average, 2½ cars pass through an hour. The pace is so slow that U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents who man the station have been known to fill their days by driving golf balls in an adjoining meadow, shooting skeet or washing their cars. Some here think the World War II-era brick structure that houses the border station should be abandoned.

Not the U.S. Department of Homeland Security: The government, which received $420 million from the federal bailout to modernize land ports like this, wants to spend about $7 million to build an expanded station. To do it, the government says, it needs an adjoining 4.9-acre parcel now used to grow hay and corn.

Owners of the Rainville dairy farm were told last week that if they won’t sell the hayfield for $39,500, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will use eminent domain to seize it.

“The arrogance of it is breathtaking,” said Brian Rainville, 37, whose parents and two brothers run the 220-acre farm and milk 80 cows on it. “Why are we being asked to make that kind of sacrifice when they can’t demonstrate a public need?”

The public need is national security, according to Customs and Border Protection.

The building, which went up in 1936 after the government seized about a half-acre of land from the farm’s owner at the time, is outdated by any standards. Its detention area is a bench with a set of handcuffs attached to one end, just inside the glass front door.

Trucks passing through have to be inspected as they sit on Morses Line Road, because the porte-cochere that hangs over the one inspection lane isn’t big enough to accommodate them.

The original plan was a $15 million expansion using 10 acres of the Rainville farm. That plan has since been scaled back. It calls for a two-story building on 1.5 acres, with the rest of the parcel devoted to parking, vehicle turnaround space, a storm water pond, a water well, a septic system and security fencing.

“Our airports, seaports, and land ports of entry are all part of an interconnected security network to facilitate entry and exit to and from our country,” the agency said in a statement Tuesday. “When we fail to fortify one, we weaken the entire system, putting our national security at risk.”

If the Morses Line Port of Entry can’t be expanded, it may have to close, the CBP statement said.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has vowed to hold a public hearing on the project.

Pressed in a committee meeting by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, she said the government tried to make the expansion as small as possible but that it couldn’t get any smaller and still work.

“This is one of those things where we are trying to work with the owners to get down to the footprint. I believe it’s actually been reduced down from 5 acres to 1.5 acres in terms of what CBP has determined it needs to actually do the kind of port improvement there — there’s a certain minimum amount, unless you do it, you might as well not do it at all.”

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