While Spokane County officials negotiate with property owners over hundreds of acres of West Plains land, an important rail relocation project at Fairchild Air Force Base is stalled on a siding.

The Geiger Spur project has been in the works since 2004 when BNSF Railway Co. turned about $2.5 million worth of track over to Spokane County. The track is on the air base, where security-conscious Air Police had to open and close gates and inspect each passing train. The Defense Department decided the track had to go.

Unless the abandonment can be replaced by new track, which would skirt the base and reconnect with the BNSF main line near Cheney, several transportation and economic objectives are in jeopardy. But the county’s inability to acquire the necessary rights-of-way has the project more than a year behind schedule.

Several West Plains businesses rely on the rail line, and a 2005 study commissioned by the Spokane Area Economic Development Council concluded that three of them would probably relocate, at a cost of at least 300 jobs, if rail service couldn’t be preserved. In all, businesses affected by the rail uncertainty actually account for 400 jobs, and estimates suggest that $67 million a year in economic impact is at stake.

And that’s just based on current activity. In terms of potential industrial expansion, viable rail service in that area could account for more than $700 million a year and generate 5,000 or more jobs.

Local activists secured $860,000 in state funding to launch planning efforts to create a transloader facility that is considered key to the development of an international freight and logistics hub on the West Plains. Without the Geiger Spur project, that dream could be snuffed.

Meanwhile, rising gasoline prices have made rail transportation, which is considerably cheaper than truck transportation, even more critical to manufacturing businesses on the West Plains.

To date, the state of Washington has appropriated $7 million for the spur. That’s in addition to $500,000 in Defense Department funds secured early on.

Under original timetables, the project was supposed to have been completed last August. Officials now are looking at next fall. Meanwhile, the track is due to be removed from the air base by September 2009, although the Air Force would like the county to get the job done even sooner.

The Washington state Department of Transportation isn’t concerned, so far, that the delays will pose serious problems, but everyone will breathe easier if the project can get back on track.