Back on track: Port approves railroad plan

MOSES LAKE — Port of Moses Lake commissioners voted unanimously Monday to build a railroad link connecting the port to a Columbia Basin Railroad line in Wheeler, allowing the port to have rail access while at the same bypassing the tracks that wind through downtown Moses Lake.

According to Jeffrey Bishop, the port’s executive director, the rail line could most likely be built for less than the $20 million in state transportation grants the port has on hand.

If the port fails to use the funds, it will have to pay them back to the state, Bishop told commissioners.

“We’ve already decided we can’t do nothing, the Chamber of Commerce and the [Moses Lake] city council don’t want to give the money back, but they also really don’t want trains coming through downtown again,” said Commissioner Stroud Kunkle.

The plan to extend the rail line from Wheeler, however, would require the port to buy — or legally take — land along the route, Bishop said. Some of that land has been developed, and would cost more to acquire than it would have in 2009, when the port last looked at expanding rail service.

However, Bishop said proposals to extend the rail line deeper into the port to serve major industrial customers are on hold because the Port of Moses Lake simply lacks the funds to build the rail line.

The port applied for, and failed to get, a federal transportation grant that could have covered the estimated $9 million needed to extend rail service directly to the port’s industrial tenants.

Bishop told commissioners he had a consultant review their grant application and was told it was worth a second attempt because “there was room for improvement.”

“We need to get better letters of support from customers regarding how they will use the rail,” he said.

The proposal would extend the existing Columbia Basin Railroad line in Wheeler west through Moses Lake, veering north and likely linking up with the current line near where the railroad crosses Kinder Road Northeast after crossing Crab Creek.

Bishop said, however, that the entire existing rail line through Moses Lake right up to Hangar 1 at the airport is in pretty good condition given that it is original track. The rail corridor is also wide enough to fit railcars hauling the fuselages of 737s, even the track that winds through downtown Moses Lake.

“Rail does well in our climate,” he said. “But it does need some attention.”

Bishop noted that while the current tracks are unused, the Columbia Basin Railroad has not formally abandoned them and if an industrial customer at the Port of Moses Lake (or elsewhere) demanded rail service, the railroad would be obligated to provide it or give some compelling reason not to.

“Legally, there’s still service on that line,” he said.