State funds could help save port but railway plans falter

During the legislative session, Utah lawmakers committed $1.65 million in tax dollars to join in a lawsuit aimed at forcing the City of Oakland in California to permit a seaport where Central Utah coal could be put on ships for export to Asia. But the other half of the project, a new railway linking Central Utah to the Union Pacific line running to the West Coast, may be getting left by the wayside. And abandonment of the rail line could blunt much of the economic benefit Central Utah anticipated from a two-pronged rail-and-port development. The $1.65 million was appropriated to help pay the costs of a lawsuit that Phil Tagami, head of the proposed Oakland seaport, has filed against the City of Oakland. Sanpete Messenger