Port puts brakes on dirtbike track

Without specific plans and having heard complaints from neighbors, Port of Whitman County commissioners last Thursday decided to deny the development of a dirtbike track at the Port of Wilma.

“It just is not something that is going to work, and it just is not compatible with the Port of Wilma,” said Port Commissioner Dan Boone.

Eric Christiansen of Lewiston and his firm, EC Enterprises, had asked the port to set up a 30-acre motocross and BMX track on the north side of Highway 193, across the road from Wilma.

Christiansen last month was granted a conditional use permit for the track from the Whitman County Board of Adjustment. The proposed track would have been on property leased from the port.

Port officials since that time heard concerns from neighboring private landowners and from tenants inside the port’s industrial park about the track.

Commissioners told the neighboring landowners at their April 15 meeting the conditional use permit was a preliminary step in allowing the track.

Joe Poire, port executive director, told the neighbors the port had not even seen preliminary plans from Christiansen.

Since then, Poire met with Christiansen to review his plans. He told commissioners last Thursday he thought Christiansen had vastly underestimated the cost of engineering, permitting and developing the track.

“He’s – by his own admission – not a developer. This is a guy that just wants to ride his bike,” said Poire.

Commissioner John Love said there appears to be enough of a risk to existing businesses at Wilma to put a stop to the proposal.