Landowners along the Katy Trail struggled through a protracted land-rights battle as a rail line became a state park. After years of legal wrangling, they are being vindicated by a federal payoff.

It was a long time coming. After the initial battle against the transformation of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad to a state-run park, some landowners acquiesced. The trail was an affront to their personal property rights, but they'd fought the good fight long enough, or at least as long as they had time and money. Others, with help from land-rights stalwarts like Farm Bureau and privately funded groups, stayed with the fight. For that persistence, the payoff has arrived. Late in 2002, the U.S. Court of Claims awarded 13 landowners along the Katy Trail some $410,000.

Gary Heldt, a participant in the class-action lawsuit and manager at Cooperative Association #130, an MFA affiliate at Rhineland, Mo., said that the initial settlement is only a part of what is owed landowners.

"The $410,000 is a representative amount paid to 13 landowners," said Heldt, spokesman for Citizens to Preserve Private Property Rights. "Those 13 landowners represent the different types of operations, activities and land uses that stretch the length of the trail."

Using these 13 examples as a payment formula, other participants in the suit will be paid according to their land use along the trail.

The co-op Heldt manages abuts the original rail line, and he has personal property along the Katy Trail. These tangible things, affected by the decision to make the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas line into a state park, along with a deep belief in basic property rights, have kept Heldt atop the rails-to-trails issue for 15 years.

"The decision," said Heldt, who has waited out two landmark court cases and countless hours of meetings and telephone time, "proves that our legal process works. But it took too long."

Based on the payment formula, settlements are forthcoming for another 285 landowners who opted into the class-action suit. Heldt figures that the total payout could reach $10 million. And he said, cautiously, that the money should reach landowners by the end of 2003.

"But, as we've seen throughout this experience, there is always something that could come up," said Heldt.

Indeed, the path to compensation for the Katy Trail has been long and arduous. When the former rail bed was appropriated in 1987, under a then little known federal "railbanking" law, landowners and sympathetic parties scrambled to raise public awareness and money to fight the acquisition of the rail bed.

Tim Engemann, whose family has farmed in the Missouri River bottoms and nearby hills since the mid-1800s, said the taking of the old rail bed rallied landowners.

"We had an auction to raise money in 1987. It stretched to communities all along the rail line, simultaneously. Just in Hermann, it raised $40,000 with people bringing antiques and all kinds of items to benefit the cause. It was real grass roots," said Engemann.

And this upswell of activity helped form Citizens to Preserve Private Property Rights, the group of landowners who live along the rail line. Farm Bureau helped that organization by acting as the group's treasurer and adviser.

Over time the group and other landowners were able to form a case against the formation of the trail. Their efforts led them to the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1990s. But arguments there only led to a prolonged legal battle.

Justices at the Supreme Court told landowner plaintiffs that the case should be tried under U.S. Claims Court as a class-action suit. Landowners regrouped to introduce the class-action suit. In November 2002, under the U.S. Claims Court, Judge Eric Bruggink rendered a decision on the Katy Trail and land takings. Landowners would be paid a fair value for takings. Because the rail bed was acquired via the Rails-to-Trails Act, the federal government was liable for the damages.

Engemann said the news wasn't a complete surprise, but he had been skeptical.

"Honestly, in the 1990s I had my doubts that there would ever be payment, at least until the class-action paperwork came through," he said.

Coincidentally, for Engemann, filling out that paperwork highlighted some concerns landowners have about a public park bisecting their land.

To enter into the class-action suit, landowners were required to measure the tract of trail on their property. For Engemann, whose family farms a sizeable bit of land abutting the trail, the task would take some time walking the trail with a measuring wheel.

Instead, he used a 4-wheeler. You can guess the rest--a Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) ranger happened along (in an SUV) to issue a summons for driving a motorized vehicle on the trail. Engemann called Heldt, who called Engemann's father, and soon a group of concerned citizens gathered around Engemann and the DNR ranger to dispute the summons. Eventually, a state patrolman arrived to mediate and the issue was resolved without a summons being issued.

Incidents like this one, along with the recreational traffic on the trail, highlight the concerns landowners have about the trail. From trespass to litter and liability, the Katy Trail offers a set of issues different from when the corridor was used and maintained by a railroad.

"I worry about trespassers," said Engemann. "One thing people don't think about is the isolation, the attractive nuisances and the liability that this generates."

Judge Bruggink acknowledged as much in his opinion.

"The landowners and others were sincere and persuasive in explaining to the court that their proximity to the trail on occasion resulted in trespass, litter, loss of privacy, fear of liability and even danger," wrote Bruggink.

But ultimately, the court decided to award damages for takings, not severance damages--damages that result from loss of property value due to the fact that a recreational trail abuts the property.

"The court can only award severance damages if there is some reliable proof that these physical intrusions, concerns and annoyances have actually translated," wrote Bruggink in his decision.

William Travis, an attorney for the landowners, said that the court's decision doesn't preclude individual landowners from pursuing severance damages, however.

As mentioned, the damages awarded property owners vary by type of property use and location. But Heldt said agricultural landowners figure to receive about $3,000 to $4,000 per acre of trail easement.

"Over the fence that might be a $1,600 value," he explained, "But the formula multiplies that amount by 2.56 to account for interest."

The money provides Missouri's DNR with an easement for the recreational trail. And the federal government can still appropriate the land by invoking the Rails-to-Trails Act. In theory, if Missouri's DNR quit using the trail, the easement would revert back to landowners.

In the end, the settlement for individual landowners isn't a grand sum of money given the amount of time and effort many of them have provided in the fight over the Katy Trail. But for Heldt, it offers closure and no small amount of vindication.

"After 15 years we are vindicated," he said while standing on the trail just north of Hermann. "We were right initially to challenge what was going on here."