Approximately 200 workers will be employed during construction and the facility will employ 50 when it’s completed.
Freight key to economic growth in near future and beyond
Big things are happening at the Port of Longview, where a new $200 million grain terminal is scheduled to come on line in time for the 2011 harvest. Access to BNSF and Union Pacific lines were key considerations to the design of the new terminal, which will be capable of holding 110-car unit trains, as well as a shuttle train system for unloading barges from the Columbia River.
The grain terminal, which Portland-based EGT Development began building last summer, would handle a year’s worth of soybean exports to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. The facility will be able to handle more than 8 million metric tons annually.
The terminal could handle rail cars filled with wheat, corn, and soybeans that stretch for 743 miles — the distance from Longview to San Francisco. In fact, farmers in Washington’s breadbasket — the sprawling fields east of the Cascades — export 85 percent of their wheat and barley. Freight rail is crucial in getting the grain to export facilities such as the Port of Longview.
Grain could travel on freight rail as far north as Canada and as Far east as Iowa. The Longview facility is likely to compete with Gulf Coast ports in grain-producing states that are roughly the same distance from Longview and New Orleans, such as Minnesota, the third highest soybean producer in the country. While Minnesota, which exports half of its soybean yield, barges its grain down the Mississippi River to ports along the Gulf Coast, the new Longview terminal is good for growers who ship their crop to the Pacific Northwest by rail.
The terminal is also a big win for the Longview area. Port Director, Ken O’Hollaren said building the terminal and berth would give the area’s economy a much-needed boost. Washington State saw its unemployment rate jump a full percentage from March 2009 to March 2010. The state’s unemployment rate now sits at 9.5 percent.
Approximately 200 workers will be employed during construction and the facility will employ 50 full-time workers when complete. Added revenue which the port will derive from the new facility could also give the port the ability to eliminate the tax that residents currently pay to help it operate.