Rehabilitation of the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad is set to have more material support as the Clark County Council approved an agreement to accept railroad tie donations to help with the county-owned rail line.
During its Sept. 26 meeting, the council voted 3-2 to approve the agreement with Portland Vancouver Junction Railroad (PVJR), the operator of the 33-mile short-line railway. The agreement allows the county to accept donated railroad ties, the wooden beams that run perpendicular to the rails, from National Salvage, a Bloomington, Indiana, company that specializes in salvaging old railroads.
Once the county accepts the ties donation, ownership transfers to PVJR, according to the agreement. The rail operator will handle the transport and storage of the ties.
Both PVJR and the county can use the ties for grant-funded projects on the railroad and other maintenance obligations under the agreement, Kevin Tyler, lands manager for Clark County Public Works, told the council. The ties will also be available for BYCX, a nonprofit that runs passenger excursion trains on the north side of the railroad.
Though the agreement doesn’t specify the number of ties to be donated, the county needs the resource. In 2020, the county received two maintenance and repairs reports that identified more than 8,400 ties needing replacement, according to information provided alongside the contract.
Those ties, which in some cases were rotted, are located on the northern portion of the railroad, at or north of Battle Ground, according to the reports.
For donations that can’t be used for projects, the agreement also allows PVJR to barter its ties for maintenance services. Unusable ties can be sold so long as the proceeds are invested back into the railroad, Tyler said.
The agreement allows National Salvage to write off the ties as a charitable donation. Councilor Sue Marshall had concerns about allowing one for-profit company to write off its donations while another for-profit business received what was donated.
“That doesn’t strike me as an appropriate use of a charitable deduction,” Marshall said.
Tyler said the requirements on how PVJR could use the ties kept them from receiving any benefit that was only for themselves.
“It’s a benefit, in the end, to the county, the railroad that we own,” Tyler said.
As part of the agreement, PVJR has to keep and provide records on the ties to the county. Councilor Glen Yung wanted the county to keep a close eye on how the tie donations were used.
“I just want to make sure that there is a very locked-down path for making sure that the inventory is closely tracked,” Yung said.
The railroad operator already has maintenance obligations under the current agreement with the county, Kevin McDowell, county attorney, noted. He said any proceeds from the sale of unused ties would have to go to projects beyond what the operator is currently required to do.
The attorney also addressed the ownership transfer to PVJR, which he said was a better deal for the county, given the cost of storage and potential liability issues. Tyler noted the agreement allows the county to get the ties back from the railroad operator any time during the course of the agreement.
Marshall was concerned about the storage of the ties, which are treated with creosote to preserve the wood. Tyler believed the ties would be stored on PVJR-owned property outside of the county’s right of way.
Yung asked if there were any county or state laws on the handling of railroad ties. County staff didn’t have an answer at the time of the meeting, prompting Yung to ask to postpone the vote until the council had an answer.
“Creosote is nasty stuff, so I do want to make sure we have something set up,” Yung said. “It’s one thing if private business does things within the law that affect our environment. It’s a whole other thing when it’s something that we’ve been involved in the process and there’s a failure.”
Marshall joined Yung in voting to postpone approval of the agreement, but other councilors, Medvigy, Michelle Belkot and council Chair Karen Bowerman struck it down and voted to approve the agreement.
Belkot and Medvigy noted the months of work that had gone into drawing up a contract that will help take care of one of the county’s assets.
“There’s been a lot of work that’s went into this, and this is a very clever way to re-use a resource for our railroad where we have an obligation to partner with this private enterprise to keep it operating,” Medvigy said.
