Mesquite rail yard leased

The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts recently leased its rail yard east of Glamis to Ecology Auto Parts, Inc., a logistics company that plans to use it to load and unload rail cars to support local trade, according to a news release.

Ecology Auto Part is a Southern California firm that has 35 years of logistics and intermodal operations experience. Ecology also has experience in trucking and recycling.

Leasing the rail yard to an operator is the latest in a series of steps taken by the Sanitation Districts to put this facility to beneficial use until the Mesquite Regional Landfill is needed, the release said.

Earlier this year, the Imperial County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a permit modification sought by the Sanitation Districts that expands the types of materials that can be handled at the rail yard, including locally grown agricultural products.

About 30 percent of the locally grown hay is currently loaded into intermodal containers and trucked to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach for export to Asia and other destinations.

“By using the Mesquite rail yard, this operation will more efficiently move commodities from Imperial County to the ports and other destinations,” the release said. It was noted local interest in the use of the rail yard has heightened over the past few years due to traffic congestion in the Los Angeles area and trucking regulations.

—Tom Bodus, tbodus@ivpressonline.com