Washington port obtains grant to continue rail, road expansion

The Port of Warden in Washington has been awarded $175,000 in Strategic Infrastructure Program (SIP) funding from Grant County for the Phase 2 road design and engineering portion of the Port of Warden Rail and Road Infrastructure Expansion Project.

The SIP award will help set the stage for the port’s federal funding request for $6 million for the project, which would further expand rail and road infrastructure within the port’s borders and to port-owned industrial zoned properties on the southwest side of Warden to handle increasing industrial, food processing and agricultural freight, port officials said in a press release.

The award follows $2 million in state funding the port received in the 2015-2017 biennium for the first phase, which was completed in 2019. That project involved the construction of a one-mile siding track in the port along a Columbia Basin Railroad line between Connell and Moses Lake.

During the past few years, economic development and freight growth at the port have included a canola crushing and canola oil refining facility, a new fertilizer distribution facility, additional fresh produce packing, frozen and dehydrated food processing, and an associated warehousing for those products.