SUMAS — A planned expansion of the Sumas and Lynden border crossings is expected to assuage traffic and processing delays, but residents in Sumas worry the local economy will take a hit.
Ten downtown Sumas buildings would need to be sold to the federal government if the expansion of the town’s border crossing goes according to draft plans.
To the tight-knit Sumas community that has struggled to recover from devastating floods in 2021, the potential loss of more businesses is another blow. Some Lynden landowners would be affected, too, as an adjacent expansion of the Kenneth G. Ward land port would acquire farmland. The city’s population is estimated to be about 1,600 people.
A potential port closure for a period of time during construction has also spooked residents, with COVID-19 border restrictions a far too recent economic nightmare.
But plans will likely shrink in scale due to budgetary constraints, project manager Pat Manning emphasized to the more than 100 Sumas and Lynden residents who gathered for a Monday, Nov. 6 community meeting just south of the Canadian border.
The U.S. General Services Agency (GSA) project to modernize and expand the Sumas Land Port of Entry and Lynden’s Kenneth G. Ward Land Port of Entry is in its development study stage, with construction set to start in 2026.
For a small border town, a project like this is a big deal, said Liz Custer, a Sumas resident.
“The problem with the border expansion is that they’re going to take those businesses, which are our tax base,” she said before Monday’s meeting. “That’s a big chunk of Sumas businesses.”
Manning said the “red box” outlining what businesses would be impacted in Sumas was an “initial concept” that is not yet fully developed and priced.
“If you’re inside that area, please do not get too upset right now,” Manning told residents at the community meeting.
Manning said GSA should have a better sense of which businesses will be impacted by summer 2024, after a study analyzes the impact of the project on the people and the natural environment.
The Sumas expansion would add an additional personal vehicle lane and two commercial vehicle lanes, as well as more secure facilities, Manning told the crowd.
The Lynden project would ideally expand the border crossing into a 24-hour, full-service port with separate personal and commercial vehicle screening options. Currently, the port is only open 16 hours a day and has limited commercial traffic.
“This is not a situation where if you build it, they will come. The traffic’s already here,” Manning said. “These ports are totally overwhelmed with processing … It’s more like if we build it, we’ll be able to serve them better. But the traffic is going to come regardless of whether we expand the port or not.”
In 2023 to date, the Kenneth G. Ward port has seen 457,000 arrivals, while the Sumas port has seen 669,000. To compare, the Blaine crossings have seen 3.2 million arrivals so far this year.
The project could result in closures of the ports for a period, to the ire of residents.
Pamela Hill McBride, a Sumas resident, has family on both sides of the border. During COVID-19, she was cut off from them.
“This brought all of that up for me again,” she told Cascadia Daily News after the meeting.
Nicole Sandoval Postma runs Loca Mocha, a coffee shop in Sumas. While her building does not fall in the potential construction area, she said she would be impacted if the border closed.
She estimated that 20% of her traffic is Canadian, which would be enough of a cut to force her to lay off employees.
“After the flood, it took people a lot of time to get momentum again,” Sandoval Postma said, “and any momentum we gained would just be gone if the border closed or slowed down.”
Manning said he had heard the concerns about the border closure loud and clear.
“I’m doing my best not to shut the port down,” he said. “I can’t promise that they’ll never shut down during this entire process. But the intent would be, we would try to figure out ways to keep at least private vehicles moving back and forth.”
Many residents asked about the impact of the project on the rest of Sumas and if GSA could help address other infrastructure issues in the town.
Manning said while GSA couldn’t do any work outside of the project scope, he said he’d been discussing the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Thriving Communities Program with Mayor Bruce Bosch. The program provided technical assistance, planning and capacity building support to under-resourced communities.
For buildings that are impacted, the government would go through the Uniform Relocation Assistance Act — a federal law that ideally provides relocation assistance and fair treatment to people whose property is acquired in connection with federally funded projects.
Manning said the GSA hopes to hold quarterly community meetings in Sumas to keep the community briefed on the progress of the project.
