Pasco port gets $7.1 million for snow damage

The U.S. Department of Commerce has awarded $7.1 million to the Port of Pasco for road and storm water improvements at the Big Pasco Industrial Center.

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced the award from the department’s Economic Development Administration on Tuesday.

The project will support a reported 270 new jobs and retain 100 more.

“The Trump Administration is working extremely hard to help communities impacted by recent natural disasters not only to recover, but to build back stronger,” Ross said in a news release.

The grant acknowledges that Big Pasco operations were hurt by the 2017 winter snowmelt that caused widespread damage to area roads and caused a building in the neighboring Port of Kennewick to collapse.

Big Pasco is a 600-acre facility with access to rail, the Columbia River and local freeways. It provides almost 2 million square feet of space for manufacturing, warehousing, fruit and vegetable packing and other activities.

The facility was developed in 1942 by the U.S. Army as an inland engineer supply depot. It operated as a military installation on and off until 1955, when it was deactivated and eventually sold to the Port of Pasco, which leases space to industrial tenants.