Valley man plans dirt bike track near Port of Wilma

Eric Christiansen wants a place to ride his motorcycle, so he’s decided to build one.

Christiansen is looking to set up a 30-acre motocross and BMX track much closer to home on a 50-acre lot north of the Port of Wilma.

The 38-year old Lewiston resident has been riding motorcycles for the past 20 years. He started out riding through the hills of the Lewiston Clarkston Valley and has since been a part of moto-cross events all around the nation.

Crowds regularly pack the stands and entry sheets at those events. Christiansen thinks the same craze could sweep through this area.

“One guy at a bike shop here said ‘It’s like Field of Dreams man. If you build it they will come,’” Christiansen told the Gazette this week. “So I’m gonna build it and see what happens.

“A lot of my old friends I used to ride with have told me they’d buy a bike tomorrow if there was some place to ride,” he said.

His plan is to dig a track out of the ground at the foot of the Snake River Canyon at Wilma.

Christiansen has been holding supercross and endurocross events at the Lewiston rodeo grounds. Those have drawn riders from all over the northwest, but local entrants are at a bit of a disadvantage because they have nowhere nearby to hone their craft.

The closest tracks are in Spokane, the Tri-Cities and Clarkia, but traveling to those tracks for a few hours of catapulting one’s body into the air means shooting away an entire day, Christiansen said.

“As far as around here, there’s nothing. I mean Clarkia’s still 65 miles away,” said Christiansen.

His hope is that the track gives area youth something to do with their free time.

“When I was a kid riding motorcycles we used to sneak off to Cozy Bluffs to ride,” he said. “The cops used to show up and chase us off. Until we got good. Then they showed up and just watched.”

Christiansen is in the process of permitting the track through the Port of Whitman and through Whitman County.

The port acquired the land as part of a land swap with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the late-1980s.

Port attorney Bruce Ensley explained Tuesday the port gave the Corps ground on the Garfield County water front it had acquired downstream from Wilma in exchange for land at the western tip of the Wilma port site.

Port officials have already signed off on the plans. Debbie Snell, properties and development manager, issued a mitigated determination of non-significance under State Environmental Policy Act guidelines earlier this month.

Snell found the development would not harm the environment as long as certain precautions were taken during construction.

The comment period on Snell’s determination expired yesterday morning, March 17.

As of Tuesday, Snell had received about a dozen comments on her decision, some in support and some critical. She would not say Tuesday if she would affirm her decision based on those comments.

The county’s Board of Adjustment is scheduled to hear Christiansen’s case for a conditional use permit in a hearing April 1.

Christiansen said he has been carefully planning the track since last June and hopes it will be approved by officials without a hitch.

“We want to be good neighbors. We want to be a first-class facility,” he said. “We’ve put a lot of time, thought and money into it.”

He said the location, across from the heavy industry of the Wilma port, is a perfect fit for the roar of motorcycle engines.

Sound tests at the Granger chipping plant inside Wilma were much louder than motorcycle engines, he said.

To suppress the noise, he has planned a landscaped sound barrier between the proposed track site and the state highway that runs along the river.

He also said he would hold riders to the American Motorcycle Association noise limit of 96 decibels. Most engines, he said, fall well under that limit, provided mufflers are properly taken care of.

His goal is to have the track up and running as soon as this summer.

“All the bike shops are real excited about it,” he said. “Not everyone’s going to rush out and buy a brand new bike because of the track. But more riders means there will be more demand for parts, tires, gears and used bikes. In this economy, any time you can bring in new business it is a big deal.”

Christiansen said the location in the temperate valley would likely provide for year-round riding.

“This winter we could have run all winter long,” he said. “It kind of mimics the golf industry Everybody from your area comes down here to golf in the winter because there isn’t three feet of snow on the ground.”