To help alleviate this shortage of grain cars, federal funds were used to purchase 29 used grain cars to carry wheat and barley from loading facilities in eastern Washington to export facilities in western Washington.13 Food products are also shipped by rail within the region. However, the rail system is facing congestion problems since commodity volumes will continue to grow and strain the near-capacity rail system. Rail is currently at capacity and will be near or exceeding capacity moving forward; as shown in Appendix 3-1, about 81 percent growth in freight tonnage is expected in the rail system. As a result, full capacity rail lines are expected to increase costs and delays of food products.
Marine Ports
The central Puget Sound region has three deepwater marine ports: Everett, Seattle, and Tacoma (Figure 3-6). As shown in Table 3-1, ports are dominated by food. As for the Port of Seattle, six of the top ten export items are commodities related to food. At Tacoma’s port, grain and cereals, meat, and prepared vegetables ranked within the top ten export commodities. Figure 3-6: Map of Ports in the Puget Sound
Source: WSDOT, “Washington State Ports Map,” http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Freight/MarinePortsMap.htm.
The region’s marine ports also have grain facilities to help receive, store, and blend export grain.14 While the region’s marine ports export all manner of food products, they do not have the facilities available to import and store fresh or perishable food. International imports therefore arrive predominantly through either Sea-Tac airport or from California, especially the Port of Los Angeles.
Ibid. “Grain Facility – Bulk Marine Terminal,” Port of Seattle, Accessed March 15, 2011, http://www.portseattle. org/seaport/cargo/grainfacility.shtml.
13 14
3-7