By Karen Robes Meeks
Business Oregon has awarded the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay a $50,000 grant to complete a feasibility study that would help expand trade opportunities. The study will look at infrastructure needs and develop a cost analysis for building a multi-use rail that would serve marine terminal operations on the North Spit.
The port, which owns about 400 acres of marine industrial use-zoned land on the North Spit, has the chance to expand its state’s import and export capacity with a marine terminal that has access to rail.
Moving goods through Coos Bay's channel would help Oregon-based shippers get their produce to customers more quickly and economically. According to a EcoNorthwest for Business Oregon study, close to 40,000 40-foot containers of agricultural goods coming from the mid- and southern Willamette Valley, Southern Oregon, and the Oregon Coast are sent to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma to be shipped overseas, creating congestion and lag time.
