Budget may help operation of rail cars

WSPC, others still seeking to mend ML transportation woes

MOSES LAKE — The Washington State Potato Commission's rail car program is moving full speed ahead, but some local transportation issues still remain.

Gov. Christine Gregoire recently placed $250,000 into the Department of Transportation budget to support the operating cost of the rail car program. The Potato Commission recently received $1 million from the House of Representatives to buy or refurbish cars for the program.

"The problem was that the Department of Transportation did not have any operating funds to actually have people set the program up," said WSPC Executive Director Pat Boss. In what he termed a "lucky circumstance," Gregoire met with the WSPC and with Sen. Patty Murray, and concurred with them on the importance of the program.

Boss said it's a good investment, as WSDOT needs to have the resources in hand to ensure that the program gets operational cars with good refrigeration.

"Now, obviously, the goal will be to get the House and the Senate to agree to the governor's budget," Boss said. "We feel fairly strongly that we've made some good contacts with a lot of legislators in Olympia."

State Rep. Janea Holmquist, R-Moses Lake, recently led 19 additional representatives to sign a letter urging Rep. Ed Murray, chair of the house Transportation Committee, to support the request for funding for the program. In addition, State Sen. Joyce Mulliken, R-Ephrata, has been working actively to get the money in the Senate budget. Boss said the hope is to get the House and Senate budgets to agree with the governor's budget.

"If that's the case, it's a slam dunk, you get all three budgets agreeing," Boss said. "What's probably going to happen though, and what usually happens is the Senate and the governor's budget may … have the same amount of funding and the House budget may be slightly different, or vice versa."

Regardless of what happens in the House and Senate budgets, the WSPC has a good foot in the door with the gubernatorial support and has access with many of Gregoire's directors. Boss said that the Commission is feeling good about the situation, noting that Julie Wilkerson, director of Community Trade and Economic Development, recently told him in a meeting that she wants more input from the agricultural community on how CTED can be doing more to help recruit food processors into rural areas.

"It appears to me like the governor and her directors are trying to do more with food processing and more on rail, and all that's going to help Moses Lake in the end," he said. "Obviously, we don't agree with everything that Gov. Gregoire does, but we'll work with her where we can and try to make sure that we find some common ground with her."

While cars are an important component, Moses Lake is at a competitive disadvantage heading both east and west when it comes to rail infrastructure, due to the fact that there's no rail link to Soap Lake, Boss said.

"All railroad traffic that heads east has to go down to Pasco, it sits in Pasco for a day, then it gets switched out onto the track, then it goes to Spokane," he said.

That leaves anyone looking to build a manufacturing or food processing facility in the area at a disadvantage right off the bat, he said. Furthermore, Quincy is on the main rail line, and its new intermodal system, concentrating on westbound traffic, is not accessible from Moses Lake and Othello and their surrounding areas because there's no railroad track connecting to the main line.

"If we wanted to get to Quincy, we'd have to truck everything over there, and then unload it, put it into rail cars there," Boss said. "Wheras if we had railroad track going up to Ephrata, we could then send it down the track to Quincy, put it into containers and then have it on its way to Seattle, to the Port or to Tacoma."

The WSPC and Port of Moses Lake both recently sent letters to Murray asking that the Moses Lake rail situation be examined. The WSPC has also talked with Murray and the Grant County Economic Development Council, Boss said.

"Our goal is to start ramping up this issue and maybe, every year, getting a chunk of it fixed," he said.

The WSPC is also looking to make sure widening of the Highway 17 corridor is on Murray's and Gregoire's respective radar screens at a time when the Columbia River is losing its ability for navigation because they cannot dredge the river right now. That's increasing demand for trucks and railcars and increasing rates and traffic on the highways, Boss explained.

"A lot of people in Mose Lake would probably think, 'Why does the Port of Portland affect us?'" he said. "It does, because it's pretty much the lack of steamship service at the Port of Portland because the lack of dredging is basically forcing everything to go on railroad cars and trucks."

That has a direct harmful impact on the Moses Lake area, Boss said. Twenty percent of the fries that used to be exported used to go out of the Port of Portland. Now all of those fries are put on trucks and trains to Seattle and Tacoma.

The upside is that the Quincy intermodal system is more important, Boss said, but if increased demand reduces the number of available rail cars and trucks, there's no viable transportation for products.

"This area, we can't rest on our laurels, and clearly rail and truck transportation is highly important here," Boss said. "Anything we can do to widen 17, get better connections to the main line tracks, get more equipment up here to use, all this sort of follows along with our theme. And it's not just about Moses Lake. We're talking about Quincy, Othello — this whole area up here, all would benefit."