Port backs local group if state pulls tracks

After meeting with four landowners at their regular session last Thurs-day, Port of Whitman commissioners decided to support an abandonment policy in the event the railroad tracks from the now idle Colfax-Pullman line are removed.

The port authorized Chairman Tom Kammerzell to urge the state’s PCC rail authority to abandon the line instead of following a policy of banking the rail property for possible use at some point in the future.

The state is now awaiting a report on strategic development of the rail system before deciding on the fate of the railroad line.

Kammerzell serves as the port’s liaison with the state’s PCC (Palouse River & Coulee City) rail authority with members also from Spokane, Lincoln, and Grant counties.

The former Union Pacific line between Colfax and Pullman has been out of use since August of 2006 when a range fire along the South Fork of the Palouse River destroyed the railroad trestle which crossed the river three miles east of Colfax.

Karen Hinnenkamp, Larry and Sheri Farr and John Pearson, who represented the Friends of the Railroad, urged the port commission Feb. 5 to endorse a policy of abandonment of the railroad property in the event the state opts to pull up the lines.

In her statement, Hinnenkamp said the group has shared their concerns in a letter to the state Department of Transportation (DOT) which was signed by 54 adjoining landowners.

Abandonment would mean the right-of-way would go to the adjacent landowners to use.

“Personally I hate to see anything removed,” said Port Commissioner John Love after Hinnenkamp read a prepared statement. “We want the rail to be operative,” he added.

The Colfax-Pullman rail link has also been proposed for development of a trail in the event the state removes the rails, and the option has been discussed at Pullman in sessions about the future of the line.

Hinnenkamp in her statement said the Friends of the Railroad group includes more than 80 percent of the people who own land or farm along the rail corridor.

“We know that you work closely with the PCC railroad whose line runs through our area. WSDOT officials have indicated their intention to pull up the rails and ties along this line. We are overwhelmingly against a recreational trail. We advocate abandoning the line and reverting the rail property to adjacent landowners.”

She noted abstracts for property along this line from the 1880s clearly restrict the use of the rail corridor to legitimate railroad purposes.

“We are hopeful WSDOT will review and honor these deeds,” the statement said.

The statement also noted a vacant rail bed put aside under a rail banking policy would “still attract walkers, whether an improved trail or not.”

Hinnenkamp noted the group was concerned about weed control along the 100-foot right of way and where the funds would come from to develop and maintain a trail.

Preliminary estimates for development of a trail have been in the $9 million range, although proponents of a trail contended it would be less.