3 Wash. ports consider eminent domain of Columbia River islandvvv

3 Wash. ports consider eminent domain of Columbia River islandvvv Three Washington state ports plan to hold an eminent domain vote by the end of the month to force a Columbia River family to sell the 447-acre Martin Island to facilitate a river channel-deepening project that will benefit the ports.
   The ports of Longview, Kalama and Vancouver and project partner, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, require the island as mitigation for negative environmental impacts in other portions of the river-widening project. The state Department of Ecology has warned the Corps of Engineers that if the federal agency does not make 'significant progress' toward purchasing mitigation property to offset impacts of the project by the end of the month, the state may revoke the Corps' water permit, ending the project.
   The roughly two-mile-per-side, triangle-shaped island is separated from the western shore of the Columbia River near Woodland, Wash. by a 500-foot-wide channel on two sides. The eastern side of the uninhabited and heavily wooded island faces the 3,000-foot-wide main channel of the Columbia River.
   Port officials have said they are hopeful an agreement can be reached with the Colf family, which owns the island, by the end of the month. If the ports do vote to use eminent domain to obtain the property, the matter would then move to a judge who would need to approve the proper use of eminent domain.
   Representatives of the Colf family have met with the Corps of Engineers several times over the past month, and according to Port of Longview officials, the meetings have gone 'better than expected.' Last month, the three ports delayed action on an eminent domain resolution to give negotiations with the Colf family more time. At the same time, commissioners from the Port of Woodland, also a partner in the river-widening project, rejected the use of eminent domain to obtain Martin Island.
   Longview port officials are to vote on the matter July 21. Vancouver port commissioners will take up the issue June 24 and Port of Kalama commissioners are scheduled to discuss the island issue June 25.