Chelatchie Prairie Railroad project tops commissioners’ wish list

Rebuilding the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad isn’t the first thing Clark County’s commissioners would do with their own budget.

But as long as Barack Obama is planning to hand out $800 billion for this or that, that’s where they think 0.0007 percent of it should go.

The rickety little rail line, which runs from Lake Vancouver past Brush Prairie to Battle Ground, has gone begging for state subsidies one year after another, but never attracted wide support in Olympia.

On Wednesday, commissioners put $5.8 million in improvements at the top of the wish list they plan to send to Washington, D.C., for consideration as part of the president-elect’s proposed $800 million stimulus package.

The rail line beat out projects such as Fairgrounds Community Park, the widening of 88th Street between St. Johns and Andresen roads and a big storm drainage project to maintain water quality in Curtin Creek, east of the Salmon Creek area.

Unlike the other projects, the rail line’s boosters say their project would feed industrial employers offering 209 permanent family-wage industrial jobs.

The county’s economic development manager figures it would also add 174 temporary construction jobs.

Projects that aren’t “ready to go,” such as the Salmon Creek highway interchange and a new Interstate 5 bridge, weren’t eligible for the list being prepared Wednesday.

The Chelatchie Prairie line belongs to county taxpayers, but its chief advocate has been Eric Temple, the Yakima businessman who operates the track for the county and hopes to make a profit if it becomes busier.

“This line has a huge amount of economic development potential,” Temple said in a press release Wednesday.

Temple’s firm, Portland Vancouver Junction Railroad, says it’s spent $1 million on improving and marketing the track. Before the line can haul more industrial freight, Temple says, millions more will be needed for new rock ballast, wooden ties and steel rails.

An improved line is at the heart of county plans to industrialize hundreds of acres between Battle Ground and Prairie High School. County leaders hope companies will snatch up the land to take advantage of low rail transportation costs.

Today, eight industrial businesses have cargo access to the line.

Also Wednesday, the commissioners said they didn’t want to ask the state Legislature for a legal change that would make it easier to spend the county’s own tax money on the rail project.

The local tax money has “been spent,” Commissioner Steve Stuart said. “It’s gone.”

Commissioner Tom Mielke said he was hesitant to spend any local money on the line.

“I have concerns as a funding source for Eric Temple,” Mielke said. “We all want to improve it, but I think he needs to play a bigger part.”

But he didn’t object to asking the federal government to pay, instead.

If the 383 positions appear, they’d be 0.013 percent of the 3 million new jobs Obama says he expects to create.

Michael Andersen: 360-735-4508 or michael.andersen@columbian.com.