Reader discusses the CRC fight

Sen. Janea Holmquist Newbry, R-Moses Lake, recently decided it was appropriate to jump into the Columbia River Crossing fight by lambasting WADOT for proposing a bridge with 95' of clearance for river traffic. The bridge height has since been

revised to 116', which the Coast Guard has ruled meets the reasonable needs of river users.

I wonder why Holmquist would choose to climb in to the handbasket with Don Benton and Ann Rivers since any shipments from Moses Lake would have to pass under the 97' railroad bridge at the Dalles. Temperatures inside that handbasket will likely continue to increase as more information comes out about how the CRC was derailed and our options for moving forward. In fact, I would imagine the heat with respect to the height of the CRC became intolerable when the Coast Guard ruled 116' meets the reasonable needs of river users.

A height of 116' would have restricted 0.1% by value of the cargo that passed underneath the bridge between 2002 and 2012. Another way of stating that is that the shipments which wouldn't have passed under a 116' bridge during that 10 year

period represent 10% of the revenues of the three firms requiring mitigation.

That voters don't want to subsidize this tiny niche of the shipping industry by building a bridge with more clearance will become abundantly clear to lawmakers when they provide us with the cost estimate. The only question is how many

lawmakers will be present in front of the firing squad at that point in time.

Ben Grobe-Heintz,

Vancouver