(The following story by John D. Boyd appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on January 6, 2010.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The ocean port at Everett, Wash., will build a rail spur to expand its freight train operations, largely paid with federal funds for disaster preparations.
The port plans to spend $3.1 million to build a 2,500-foot line this year that links to tracks of BNSF Railway. The money to pay for it includes a state loan of $700,000, but the rest is federal funding.
The Port of Everett said it won a designation as a strategic regional facility to aid in recovery and reconstruction efforts, in case a natural or man-made disaster were to knock out other ship terminal areas in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
“Everett was given this strategic designation,” the port said, “due to its geographical location in the event of an eruption from Mount Rainier or a man-made disaster at the ports of Seattle or Tacoma. An eruption from Mount Rainier would essentially shut down the ports of Olympia, Tacoma and some of Seattle.”
But if that happened, Everett said, “additional rail is needed to ensure the quick and efficient movement of goods.” The Department of Homeland Security is chipping in a $1.2 million grant, to be joined with a new federal appropriation of $1.168 million that made up the final amount the port needed to start work.
It expects to complete the line spur late this year. Already, the Everett port uses rail to serve the area’s aerospace industry, mining and oil drilling operations, and to haul machinery, power transformers and cement.
It projects that the added rail capacity will help it ship out by train more of the imported cement it handles, and thereby expand its marketing reach to more destinations.