Construction underway on cooperatives’ rail grain-loading facility
Leading grain growers from across Eastern Washington gathered Thursday along Craig Road near Medical Lake to kick off construction of a $26.4 million rail loading facility.
The grain shipment terminal will have a capacity of 2 million bushels and will be able to assemble 110-car unit trains for shipment on BNSF Railway.
Members of five grain cooperatives from Reardan west to Almira are participating in the project through a separately organized HighLine Grain LLC.
“Their vision has helped us move forward,” Kevin Whitehall, CEO of HighLine, said of the co-op members.
The goal is to preserve favorable shipping rates for grain growers in the upper Columbia Basin.
They rely on the state-owned Central Washington Branch of the Palouse River and Coulee City line, which serves agricultural communities across Eastern Washington, to get their grain to the BNSF main line.
The terminal will have an “eight-pack” concrete grain elevator, a concrete storage tank and a steel storage tank.
The project required approval by the Federal Aviation Administration because the terminal will be 190 feet tall and is located beneath the flight path for Spokane International Airport.
That was just one of a number of regulatory obstacles that the project had to overcome, Whitehall said, including permits from Spokane County.
The project is about three months behind schedule; it is to be finished in a year.
Participating in the project are the Almira Farmers Warehouse Co., Davenport Union Warehouse Co., Reardan Grain Growers Inc. and Odessa Union Warehouse Co.
Smaller trains will bring shipments to the terminal to be assembled into longer trains.
In addition, the facility will be used to prepare truck deliveries to two Spokane flour mills operated by Archer Daniels Midland Co. in Spokane and Cheney.
A portion of the financing will come from Northwest Farm Credit Services, a customer-owned financial cooperative based in Spokane.
“We see global exports increasing rapidly,” said Mark Nonnemacher, executive vice president for the lender.
He said there is an increasing need for improved infrastructure serving agriculture.
The state is seeking funding for a $7 million project to upgrade 6.9 miles of rails between Cheney and the new facility so it can safely handle the length and weight of the unit trains, including BNSF’s locomotives. A federal grant is being sought.
Also Thursday, the rail division of the Washington state Department of Transportation held a strategic planning meeting to take public input on the strengths and needs of the PCC line.
Shipments more than doubled on the line from 2007 through 2012, when 11,600 carloads moved on the PCC. That removed 41,900 trucks from state highways and county roads.
Shipments declined to 33,800 carloads in 2013 partly because of higher demand for rail shipments and equipment, state officials said.
About half of the existing 296 miles of PCC track is old and outdated, requiring trains to travel at only 10 mph. Upgrading 141 miles of substandard track and bridges to handle 25 mph trains would greatly improve efficiency, said Chris Herman, a program manager for the state transportation department.