Rail project would abandon downtown line

Impacted businesses react to track abandonment

MOSES LAKE — Community members turned out to hear the latest on a railroad project designed to spur local business, including some companies that may find themselves without a rail spur to do business.

The Port of Moses Lake held a meeting Tuesday morning in the conference room to listen to Kirk Fredrickson, rail planning and policy coordinator in the Washington State Department of Transportation rail office, deliver a presentation explaining the findings of the feasibility study of the five-phase Northern Columbia Basin Railroad Project.

Sen. Joyce Mulliken, R-Moses Lake, stressed to attendees that Moses Lake failed in its bid to house Boeing's 7E7 manufacturing plant because it was lacking infrastructure.

"We were in the running, folks; in fact, we were the chosen spot," she said. But the area was lacking about $26 million in infrastructure, which meant Boeing could not have brought a fuselage in except by air lift. "From that, I think the discussions have evolved into, 'How do we prepare for the next opportunities?'"

Two people in attendance were managers of businesses that presently use rail on the existing rail line through downtown, now marked for abandonment in the fourth segment of the plan.

Glenn Dart, manager of Moses Lake Iron and Metal, and Jerome Brotherton of Brotherton Seed, said their businesses would not be able to exist without rail access.

Dart said his business ships scrap metal by rail cars and cannot afford to ship via trucks. More than one truckload could fit into one rail car, he said.

"We don't have rail service, we're going to have to move our business," Dart said, adding that Moses Lake Iron and Metal has been in downtown Moses Lake for more than 50 years. Four businesses using the rail line would be out of business if it closed, he said. "The whole purpose of this railroad improvement is to bring in business and to improve the business. If you're going to shut four existing businesses down and build it with future businesses, that's speculation. To me, it seems like the plan should take care of the existing businesses we have."

Eighty percent of Brotherton's business is export, and each increase in the price of crude oil makes shipping by truck less desirable to customers, he said.

"I've already got commitments from customers in the Midwest and the East Coast for double the amount of rail shipments next year that I'm doing this year," Brotherton said. "If they abandon it, it's going to be very crippling to our business."

Brig Temple, president of Columbia Basin Railroad, said his company has been subsidizing the four businesses using the rail segment that would be abandoned over the past two decades.

"They've received, without knowing it, a subsidy, because our interest in keeping the rail service to them really is more keeping the service to the air base," Temple explained, stressing the importance of being able to say there is rail service to the port in attracting prospective businesses to the area. "They've received the benefit of that, but if there weren't an air base out there, would we have continued to provide service? No."

Temple said the line is headed toward abandonment because of its condition.

"We've been supporting the line at our cost for over 18 years," he said.

Even if a major company requiring rail service decided to locate in that impacted area, the effect on the community in terms of rail crossings and the waterfront leads Temple to think it's better to focus rail elsewhere. The railroad has to do something soon, he added.

"This line doesn't have an unlimited life left to it, and there's no money to rehabilitate it at all," he said. "Any money you spent rehabilitating it would be wasted because you don't want long trains, you don't want hazardous materials, you don't want fuel cars going through your city; you want those out in the industrialized urban areas."

Dart said he felt the railroad had already made its decision.

"The railroad stated that their desire has been for years to close the rail that serves us in downtown Moses Lake," he said. "I just feel that the nails have been put in my coffin, so to speak."

Port industrial development manager Albert Anderson said the port would look at the downtown rail line as an issue separate from the rest of the project.

"What the railroad has told us is they're going to abandon it, whether we build this thing or not," he said. "What we need to be working at as a community is, how do we move on after the abandonment?"

Following the initial meeting Tuesday, an advisory discussion was held on whether to proceed with the project, and in what form.

WSDOT officials' questions for the port commissioners include whether to advance the project, if the port is willing to serve as co-lead with WSDOT on the development of Surface Transportation Board and National Environmental Policy Act permitting, and whether to use some funds to hire an attorney specializing in Surface Transportation Board law to provide guidance to the study team.

The port asked 14 questions to the community members present, including whether the community thinks it is important to develop rail to the airport's industrial area, the priority of the project compared to other transportation projects around Moses Lake and how to mitigate the impact to current industries that would be impacted by the abandonment of rail downtown.

The consensus appeared to be to move forward with the first three segments of the project (see sidebar for a detailed explanation), keeping the fifth segment in mind for later down the road.

About $260,000 of $2 million earmarked by the state for the study was used. The rest has to be used by June 30, 2007, Anderson said, and WSDOT is now waiting for further direction of the port.

"Without funding, you can't do anything, and we're talking significant numbers, maybe up to $20 million for (segments) 1,2 and 3," he said. "We know it's going to be some local money, some county, some state, some federal money. It's got to be a broad approach, otherwise, we're not going to get it done."