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The Port of Coos Bay is preparing to study the feasibility of building a marine terminal served by rail at the bay’s North Spit.

The port last week received a $50,000 grant from Business Oregon to study the feasibility, infrastructure needs and cost of building the terminal.

Port officials point to a need for another West Coast port to ease congestion at the ports of Tacoma, Seattle, Los Angeles and Long Beach, California.

鈥淭he state needs to have multiple outlets and inlets for cargo to travel through,鈥� said Margaret Barber, spokeswoman for the Port of Coos Bay.

The port owns approximately 400 acres of property zoned for marine industrial use on the North Spit.聽The port has a rail spur that connects with the Coos Bay rail link and allows access to Union Pacific’s Eugene yard.

Nearly 40,000 40-foot containers of agricultural goods from the mid- and southern Willamette Valley, southern Oregon and the Oregon Coast travel to the ports of Seattle and Tacoma to be exported, according to a study commissioned by Business Oregon and conducted by ECONorthwest. That increases truck traffic on Oregon’s highways, port officials said.

The port of Coos Bay could offer faster turnaround times and new technologies to a niche market, officials said.

鈥淎s a smaller port, the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay has the capacity to grow, but is not locked into legacy technologies and old ways of operating,鈥� port officials stated in a news release. 鈥淥ur port can be nimble and responsive in a way that the large ports may not, handling a variety of cargoes.鈥�

The port offers access to the federal navigation channel. Port officials are working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deepen and widen the channel from 37 feet deep and 300 feet nominal width to 45 feet deep and 450 feet wide.