July 21, 2017
CapitalPress.com
5
E. Oregon ag community applauds
$26 million for rail transload facility
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
Courtesy of Columbia Riverkeeper
As part of its Port Westward expansion, the Port of St. Helens
would rezone 786 acres of adjacent farmland to allow additional
industrial development.
Port’s expansion proposal
would plant industry on ag land
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
A long-running Oregon
land use question — under
what conditions can farmland
be rezoned for other econom-
ic uses — returns to Columbia
County northwest of Portland
with an Aug. 2 public hearing
before the county commission.
At issue is an expansion
plan for Port Westward, an in-
dustrial park owned by the Port
of St. Helens. The park in-
cludes 4,000 feet of deepwater
frontage along the Columbia
River. The facility has a 1,250-
foot dock, a pair of electrical
generating plants, a 1.3 mil-
lion-barrel tank farm and a bio-
mass refinery, according to a
summary by the state Land Use
Board of Appeals, or LUBA.
In a proposal first filed in
2013, the port seeks to rezone
786 acres of adjacent farmland
to allow additional industri-
al development. Mint grower
Mike Seely, who farms next
to the site, opposes the idea.
Columbia Riverkeeper, an en-
vironmental group based in
Hood River, sides with Seely,
who could not be reached for
comment.
The opponents say addi-
tional industrial development
could harm water quality and
wildlife habitat and interfere
with farm operations through
dust, noise, increased traffic
and train crossings that would
delay farm vehicles.
Environmentalists
are
chiefly concerned the proper-
ty will be used by coal trains
and crude oil trains.
The state Department of
Agriculture raised a couple
of concerns in a letter to the
county from Jim Johnson, the
agency’s land use and water
planning coordinator.
He said industrial devel-
opment could harm mint and
blueberry production. The
land proposed for rezoning is
primarily Class 2 and Class 3
soils, and is considered high
value farmland, he said.
The case has bounced back
and forth through the land-use
appeals process, with LUBA
ultimately siding with Seely,
the farmer, and Columbia Riv-
erkeeper on a couple points
and remanding it to the county,
which had approved the plan.
Paula Miranda, the port’s
deputy director, said the ex-
pansion is important for the
county’s economic health. The
facility is one of Oregon’s few
deepwater ports, and providing
more room will allow it to at-
tract more businesses.
She said the plan includes
protection for agriculture. The
port is required to assess any
impact it might have on farms
and to demonstrate it has taken
steps to mitigate the impact.
County
Commissioner
Alex Tardif said the board has
to balance potential economic
growth with the cost of con-
verting farmland.
“What will the long-term
consequences be?” he asked.
“Maybe it makes sense for the
here and now, but what will the
long-term viability of the coun-
ty be?”
ONTARIO, Ore. — East-
ern Oregon is on the path to
landing a major rail trans-
load facility, and that news is
sending a jolt of excitement
through the region’s agricul-
tural industry.
The Oregon Legislature’s
recently passed $5.3 billion
transportation bill includes
$26 million to create a trans-
load facility near Ontario in
Malheur County.
A transload facility allows
shipping containers to be
transferred from one mode of
transportation to another, in
this case between truck and
rail.
The facility would be a
big benefit to the area’s ag-
ricultural sector, particular-
ly the onion industry, Rep.
Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, said.
“It would drive down the
cost of freight significantly,”
he said. “It would be a real
benefit to our community.”
The facility could benefit
the region’s alfalfa, timber,
dairy and other industries as
well but it would be a huge
win for the onion industry,
Bentz said during a pub-
lic presentation June 13 in
conjunction with a Malheur
County Onion Growers As-
sociation board meeting.
“The entire facility is
built around the onion in-
dustry,” he said. “Eighty to
ninety percent of the facility
is going to be for you guys.”
Onion growers and ship-
pers applauded plans for the
facility.
“This thing is huge,” the
association’s president, Paul
Skeen, a farmer, told Capital
Press. “It’s a big, big deal. It
will allow us to move prod-
uct faster and cheaper.”
Most of the region’s on-
ions are shipped by rail to
the East Coast. They cur-
rently have to be taken by
truck to the nearest transload
facility in Wallula, Wash., be-
fore heading east.
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, answers questions about plans for a rail transload facility in Eastern
Oregon during a July 13 presentation in Ontario. The facility is expected to significantly reduce freight
costs for farm and other products shipped from the region.
It costs onion growers in
Eastern Oregon and South-
western Idaho about 50 cents
per 50-pound bag to do that,
said Grant Kitamura, gen-
eral manager of Murakami
Produce, an onion shipping
company.
With a transload facility
near Ontario, “That could
be money in our pockets,”
he said. “This is going to be
a real salvation for our local
onion industry.”
Shay Myers, general man-
ager of Owyhee Produce, an
onion shipper, estimates the
transload facility could result
in about $15 million per year
in freight savings for the Ore-
gon-Idaho onion industry.
“That’s just freight sav-
ings; it doesn’t include new
market share that might be
created by that (new) freight
advantage,” he said.
Bentz, who was vice-co-
chairman of the 14-member
committee that hammered
out the transportation bill,
said the biggest advantag-
es of the transload facility
would be reducing freight
costs and reducing delivery
times.
He said the facility would
attract product from the near-
by Boise area and as far away
as Burley in southcentral Ida-
ho.
Kay Riley, general man-
ager of Snake River Produce,
an onion shipper, said that
when it comes to shipping
to the East Coast, the Ore-
gon-Idaho onion industry en-
joys about a 50-cent per bag
natural geographic advantage
over onion growers in Wash-
ington.
However, he added, that
advantage is wiped away by
the fact Oregon-Idaho onions
have to backtrack to Wash-
ington before being shipped
by rail to the East Coast.
“This (transload) facility
would re-establish that advan-
tage,” he said. “It’s huge (and)
could be a real game-changer
for us.”
Tour shows benefits of keeping USDA grants
White House:
Subsidies
inappropriate
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
A farm tour in northwest
Washington Monday show-
cased the rippling econom-
ic gains from USDA grants,
which the White House says
the government shouldn’t be
handing out.
The Northwest Agricul-
ture Business Center, which
helps farms apply for grants,
organized stops at two small
dairy processors and a produce
farm that have benefited from
USDA grants.
The federal grants spur pri-
vate investment and lead to
permanent jobs at small farms
trying to fill niches in markets
dominated by big companies,
the business center’s project
manager, Jeff Voltz, said.
“How do you do good for
the little guys?” he asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to
do.”
The Trump administration
has presented Congress with
a $137 billion USDA spend-
ing plan for the fiscal year
beginning Oct. 1, down about
$12 billion from the current
budget, according to a USDA
budget summary. Some of the
savings would come by cut-
ting grants to businesses.
The White House argues tax
and regulatory relief would be
more effective in helping rural
economies. “The government
should not be subsidizing the
advertising and promotion
of commodities, singling out
select commodities for spe-
cial assistance, or providing
subsidies to producers for the
processing of their products,”
according to a White House
paper on budget reform.
The Trump administration
proposes to entirely elimi-
nate “value-added producer
grants,” which help farms
add employees, buy pack-
aging materials and market
products. The farms also must
match the grants with capital
DID YOU KNOW?
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Larry Stap, owner of Twin Brook Creamery, holds a bottle of choco-
late milk at his processing plant in Lynden, Wash. Stap says a USDA
grant helped his dairy develop its own line of dairy products. The
White House has proposed cutbacks in USDA grant programs.
investments.
“You can’t buy ‘hard ob-
jects’ with the USDA grant,
but it frees up your capital so
you can do that,” said Lynden
dairy farmer Larry Stap, own-
er of Twin Brook Creamery.
Stap left the Darigold co-
operative more than a decade
ago to bottle non-homoge-
nized milk from his 200-cow
dairy. Twin Brook distributes
milk to about 200 stores and
has 11 employees, about nine
more than if it had stayed
solely a dairy, Stap said.
A $276,000 value-add-
ed producer grant helped the
business survive early strug-
gles, he said. “I don’t know if
we would have made it.”
The USDA last fall award-
ed 325 value-producer grants
totaling $45 million. Wash-
ington received 18 grants,
second only to Virginia’s 20.
The Washington grants will
support marketing a variety
of products, including cider,
mead, kale chips and organic
grass-fed milk.
Grace Harbor Farms in
Custer, Wash. — makers of
yogurt, flavored milk and
kefir (drinkable yogurt) —
received a $249,000 USDA
grant in 2015 for payroll, sup-
plies and marketing.
Meanwhile, the farm in-
vested in capital improve-
ments, said David Lukens,
whose parents, Tim and Grace
Lukens, started the business
in 1999.
“The grant was instru-
mental in becoming more ef-
ficient,” he said. “That was a
huge boost in the arm for us.”
Grace Harbor receives
milk from a 70-cow diary and
an 80-goat dairy. Its products
are sold in about 120 stores in
Western Washington.
The farm estimates that the
grant allowed it to add four or
five full-time workers. It has
a total of 12 employees, and
David Lukens said he has am-
bitions to grow. He predicted
rising demand for kefir. “We’ll
see in three to five years if I’m
right,” he said.
Cloud Mountain Farm
Center, in Everson, is a 42-
acre farm owned by a non-
profit organization. Interns
provide the labor and novice
farmers lease plots. The center
received a $49,000 rural-de-
velopment grant and bought
equipment to wash and spin
salad greens. Previously, the
center used washing machines
and clothes dryers.
The equipment helps the
center package the bags of
salad sold to restaurants and
cafeterias, Executive Director
Tom Thornton said. The cen-
ter may be a nonprofit, but it
won’t survive as a money-los-
er, he said.
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