Kansas health department honors Cimarron Railroad, Watco and UP for discarding waste ties

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) recently presented awards to Union Pacific Railroad, Watco Cos. L.L.C. and Cimarron Railroad for cleaning up significant quantities of railroad ties in the state.

For nearly 20 years, KDHE has worked with concerned citizens, local government officials and responsible parties to address large accumulations of waste ties throughout Kansas. This is the first time awards were bestowed to companies that disposed of waste ties, KDHE officials said in a press release.
 
Since 2005, UP has worked with KDHE to identify sites where the railroad's contractors discarded ties. In total, the Class I has removed about 200,000 ties in Beaumont, Bushong, Culver, Edwardsville, Ellis and Lucas.

Watco worked with KDHE to clean up several tie accumulations; most recently, the company removed 15,000 ties south of Great Bend that were creating public health and aesthetic concerns, KDHE officials said.

The department also honored Cimarron Railroad for gathering and properly disposing of 184,000 ties while replacing a line running through Ford, Grant, Gray, Haskell, Morton, Stanton and Stevens counties.

"With the help of these three partners [we] recognized, we have removed almost 400,000 old railroad ties from Kansas … [which] will prevent fires and other public health hazards," said John Mitchell, director of KDHE's division of environment.