(TNS) \u2014 The Port of Columbia has been awarded a grant of more than $2 million for a two-part broadband project.<\/p>\n
One part will make fiber-optic Internet available to every premises in and around Starbuck \u2014 a town of just over 100 people in northwest Columbia County \u2014 and erase the line-of-sight issues with existing wireless Internet in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrees, hills \u2014 those things always interfere with wireless technology, especially in a county like ours,\u201d said Jennie Dickinson, the Port\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n
The other part, which comes at the county\u2019s request, will help local emergency service agencies by bringing a fiber line up Crall Hollow Road southeast of Dayton to a lookout point populated with communications towers that the agencies use.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaking fiber to those towers will help\u201d with line-of-sight issues there, too, Dickinson said.<\/p>\n
The $2,018,192 \u2014 a reimbursement grant through the Community Economic Revitalization Board, or CERB, of the Washington State Department of Commerce \u2014 comes from the 2021 federal American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA. The funds had originally been awarded to the Port of Walla Walla, which declined them.<\/p>\n
To get the grant, the project must be completed by October 2026.<\/p>\n
It also requires a local match of $504,548, which will be provided by the county and the Internet service provider Emerge by Inland Cellular.<\/p>\n
The broadband project continues the Port\u2019s push to bring high-speed Internet to a rural region where service, when it has existed at all, has historically been slow or spotty.<\/p>\n
The Dayton Community Broadband Project and the Touchet Valley Broadband Project were completed in 2023 and 2024, respectively. The Port secured ARPA funds for those projects as well.<\/p>\n
So far, the Dayton and Touchet Valley broadband projects have adoption rates of more than 60%, which means that more than 60% of the identified premises in the project areas use Internet service provided through the Port\u2019s fiber-optic cables, Dickinson said.<\/p>\n
The latest project’s emergency communications piece extends the Dayton broadband project.<\/p>\n