In an empty parking lot at the Bellingham Shipping Terminal, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) looked east toward the railroad tracks where in the future, cargo from ships will be loaded into rail cars for transport from Bellingham to as far as California and Chicago.
She’d just come from watching 155-foot pilings being hammered into the water as part of the shipping terminal’s modernization project — a $27.5 million project expected to be completed by the end of 2025.
Both the rail line extension and the modernization project are being funded in whole or in part with federal infrastructure dollars. The federal dollars highlight the investments being made to improve ports across the nation.
“I don’t think everybody always thought about port infrastructure as a key economic development tool for our country,” Cantwell said. “We’re in the era of the Pacific.”
Prior to her tour of waterfront developments, Cantwell sat down with Port of Bellingham officials to discuss the port’s future.
Rob Fix, the port’s executive director, told Cantwell that having the railroad to shipping terminal connection would allow for the port to do more business. The $17.9 million project, fully funded by federal dollars, will connect the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe mainline to the shipping terminal. It is expected to be in service by 2028.
The shipping terminal modernization received $6.85 million in federal dollars.
The last time rail ran to the shipping terminal was in the early 2000s before the former Georgia Pacific mill site closed.
“We have various customers who want to do business in Bellingham, and as soon as they hear we don’t have a rail connection, they hang up the phone,” Fix said. “So that’ll be key to getting our shipping terminal reactivated.”
It is the port’s belief that the ship-rail connection will also make it a competitor with the Port of Vancouver. The port has already seen interest from Canadian customers.
The Port of Vancouver is experiencing cargo congestion because of an influx of imports and a dearth of railcars to transport the materials, according to ASI Canada.
“With that rail connection and the deeper berth here, we can peel some of that cargo off and bring those jobs here,” said Matt Cress, Marine Terminals business development manager at the Port of Bellingham.
Ultimately, between the rail connection and the modernization efforts at the shipping terminal, which also includes applying for federal funds to help electrification efforts at the terminal, Fix sent Cantwell back to Washington with the port’s future vision for the waterfront.
“We establish ourselves as a maritime-focused community,” he said. “We always have been historically. It was a very busy transactional terminal that has fallen off in years because it lacked investment. Now that we’ve seen that investment re-occur, we’re going to establish those business lines and be busy again.”
Annie Todd is CDN’s criminal justice/enterprise reporter; reach her at annietodd@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 130.
