Plans for cargo center collide with concerns about prairie

Maytown residents have misgivings about land’s future amid proposed freight facility

By Jim Szymanski | The Olympian • Published August 19, 2007

It's shaping up as a classic Northwest confrontation, pitting proponents of economic development against advocates for quality of life and the environment.

• On one side is the Port of Tacoma, which, in cooperation with the Port of Olympia, has proposed building a cargo transfer facility on 745 acres of prairie land in southern Thurston County. The site is larger than Olympia's 530-acre downtown.

• On the other side are nearby residents, who fear that the facility would disrupt the tranquility of the area, and environmentalists, who are concerned about the destruction of habitat for many species of plants and animals.

Avoiding gridlock

The Port of Tacoma spent $22 million to buy the site last year for development of the proposed South Sound Logistics Center.

It would be used to transfer cargo containers from trucks to railroad cars for the final leg of their journey to the port for overseas shipment.

In turn, cargo from overseas would be taken by rail from the port to the logistics center, where it would be transferred to trucks for distribution throughout the country.

Port officials say moving cargo by rail through the crowded Puget Sound region would be faster and more efficient than continuing to use trucks, which can get bogged down by congestion on Interstate 5. And, they say, it would reduce truck traffic on the freeway.

Port officials say they must find more efficient ways to move cargo in the region if the Tacoma and Olympia ports are to remain competitive.

"We are competing on a global scale now," said John Wolfe, the Port of Tacoma's deputy executive director. "We need to look at how we compete differently."

Planning for the project still is in its early stages, so details are sketchy. Wolfe, former executive director of the Olympia port, said he hopes to know by the end of the year the potential economic effect of the logistics center on Thurston County.

"We need to understand more fully what the operations would look like, how it would impact economic development and how to develop such a site," he said.