b'CARGOGEG 95Department of Transportation. The airport also spent $2 millionKrauter reports that the entire project team was excited of its own revenue and received $1 million from the Consolidatedabout delivering a key piece of infrastructure for the region and Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program, aestablishing a line of business for the airport that didnt previously Transportation Department initiative that helps fund capital projectsexist. The other opportunity is to use the transload facility to to improve the safety, efficiency or reliability of passenger andleverage a sale or lease of surplus property at appreciably better freight rail systems. Since then, even more funding has becomeprice points as well as to leverage the facility to support job available for improvements. creation, all of which comes back to the airport in additional We were already making plans for improvement and recentlydemand for air service as well as additional revenue to invest received an additional$1.5 million in congressional-directedin capital projects, he adds. All of that was just executing the funding from Senator Cantwell for constructing crossings fortotality of our vision.vehicle and loading equipment, Krauter says. We also receivedLooking ahead, Krauter foresees increased regional growth and money from the state legislature transportation capital budgetexpansion because the new Transload Facility will help attract to build a dedicated liquids line that will be state-of-the-art inmore companies to the area. terms of its environmental safety design element. This will provideWe had something like 15 companies write letters of support full containment, which allows us to handle any kind of liquid,for our grant application, he says. From our perspective, the including volatiles. value of what this project has done for our property is significant, Contractors appreciated working on a greenfield site locatedand we can sell property to fund capital improvements we need on the far western edge of airport property. Because the jobsitegoing forward. Its a positive development and illustrates that the was fully two miles from the airfield, crews could work withoutairport and our Board are very entrepreneurial. And its exciting disruptions from flight operations and didnt need special securityto deliver on a strategic multimodal infrastructure priority that had credentials.been thought about for many years by the community. AirportImprovement.comMay | June 2023'