Co-Ag files initial permit for McCoy train loader

Whitman County’s Board of Adjustment will consider next Thursday, May 26, a permit application from Cooperative Agricultural Producers to build a new grain storage and loading facility with a railroad spur near McCoy.

David DeGon of Fairfield, president of Co-Ag’s board of directors, said the grain cooperative is proposing to build a single-destination loading facility for 110-car grain trains. DeGon pointed out the plans are preliminary. They have undertaken the permit process to get that part of the project finished in the event they decide to continue.

Since December 2008 the Washington & Idaho Railway Co. has been filling larger unit trains by dropping cars at Co-Ag stations in Oakesdale, Plaza and Spangle along the P & L line.

Co-Ag’s application is to build two tanks capable of holding 430,000 bushels of grain at a site nearly one-half mile north of McCoy siding located approximately five miles southeast of Rosalia on Highway 271.

Also part of the plan is a circular rail loop off the state-owned P&L rail line. The loop would encircle the grain tanks. The 110-car trains would have a capacity to haul more than 410,000 bushels of wheat.

Co-Ag’s permit application said the new facility would be able to load out grain at a rate of 60,000 bushels per hour.

With its spouts dumping full speed, the 55 cars the W&I has been dropping at Oakesdale have been filled in about 15 hours.

The trains are hauled using power from 3,000-horsepower engines loaned to the W&I by mainline carrier Burlington Northern Santa Fe which links up with the P&L line at Marshall.

The larger grain trains are preferred by the BNSF because they can pull them to Portland without having to switch in more cars to make up a train at the Marshall junction.

DeGon said Co-Ag is considering the loading station to provide shippers a competitive alternative with river shipping.

The May 26 Board of Adjustment hearing will begin at 7 p.m. in the Public Service Building. A Board of Adjustment review is required because the elevators and rail loop would be sited in the county’s ag zone.