Infrastructure woes cost Moses Lake investment, jobs
Bishop
MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake recently lost out on a major investment because of “a lack of infrastructure,” according to Jeffrey Bishop, executive director of the Port of Moses Lake.
Bishop, speaking during a question and answer period at the 2017 Rural Jobs Summit held at Big Bend Community College on Tuesday, said the investment would have meant “several thousand” new jobs for Moses Lake and “several billion dollars in investment” as well.
The company, which Bishop said he could not name because of a non-disclosure agreement, produces solar panels, and was looking for 400 megawatts of power and 10 million gallons of water per day to be provided by the Port within a year of signing a contract.
“This is an industry Washington wants to be competitive in,” he said.
“The challenges were enormous to get power to the site,” Bishop said. “We thought we could deliver, but not as quickly as the company wanted.”
“We had the only site in Washington that could meet all the standards,” he added. “It was a very difficult thing to comply with.”
Bishop said the number of jobs would have exceeded 5,000, as the company would have also needed to establish a local supply chain.
“They didn’t ask for massive incentives, but they wanted the infrastructure paid for,” he said.
The presence of Mitsubishi and SGL Automotive have prompted significant international interest in Moses Lake, Bishop said, which means the region is going to have to spend more on its infrastructure if it wants to capture any of that interest.
“I can’t tell you how much business we’ve lost out in Moses Lake because of a lack of infrastructure,” he said. “We need to work on some of those issues.”
Bishop said getting a full $30.3 million in funding for the Northern Columbia Basin Railroad, which will connect the Port to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, was his greatest accomplishment as port director.
The Rural Jobs Summit, staged every year by the Association of Washington Business, brings lawmakers, policy makers, lobbyists, and business executives together to look at the best ways to bring economic development to the state’s rural areas.