Port receives nearly $1M WSDOT grant for rail project

MOSES LAKE — The Port of Moses Lake officially accepted a $990,000 grant offer from the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Monday for engineering and right-of-way purchase for all three segments of its Northern Columbia Basin Railroad (NCBR) Project.

The port commission unanimously agreed to accept the nearly $1 million grant. Port of Moses Lake Executive Director Jeff Bishop said during the meeting that he had already signed a contract with the state for the grant, so the commission’s approval ratified his action.

Acceptance of the grant followed rigorous negotiation with the state’s Department of Transportation, Bishop said, which included numerous negotiations and intervention from Sen. Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake, during the process. He said the agreement that was reached allowed the Port of Moses Lake some flexibility in terms of when the grant dollars are used, which will be beneficial to the port as it works toward finishing the NCBR project.

“The key to the agreement is the ability for us to quote-unquote ‘borrow ahead,’” Bishop said during Monday’s meeting. “We will be able to utilize the line of credit that (the commission) obtained from Umpqua Bank to do more work than the initial outlay, but then seek reimbursement for that in subsequent bienniums because the way the money is allocated over a three-biennium period. It would have been impossible for you to complete the project by 2019 without the ability for you to spend more than is currently allotted.”

The Port Commission previously approved the hiring of HDR Engineers for an estimated cost of about $70,000 for help seeking funding through the federally-funded grant programs TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) and FAST (Fix America’s Surface Transportation). Monday, Bishop said port staff have worked with WSDOT to finalize the agreement with HDR Engineers and a couple of “tweaks” still need to be made to the “scope of work” portion of the agreement. He also said the cost of hiring the firm doubled from initial estimates because the firm will now also help with the right-of-way acquisition process for the NCBR project so the port can “get squared away this biennium.”

The port previously indicated it was seeking between $8 million and $14 million in federal funding to assure the rail project would be fully funded. The Washington State Legislature allocated about $20 million for the Northern Columbia Basin Railroad Project in the 2015-17 transportation package that passed last summer. Previous port estimates showed the $20 million in state funding left about a $13 million shortfall, as the project is estimated to cost about $13 million.