Page 8A
NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
Saturday, March 11, 2017
Reconstruction of collapsed onion storage buildings begins
Onion country
rebuilding
95
84
Moving time?
Owhyee Produce General Manager Shay Myers points out the damage done when
this large onion storage shed in Nyssa collapsed under the weight of snow and ice.
About 60 onion storage sheds and packing facilities in the region collapsed this
winter, and the industry is trying to recover in time for the 2017 harvest.
“The bureaucracy
was bypassed as
much as possible,
where possible,
to allow things to
happen in the way
that they needed
to to make sure
that we’re in busi-
ness next year.”
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
An excavator clears debris from an onion shed in
Nyssa that collapsed this winter under the weight of
snow and ice.
and additional automation in
packing facilities.
“I don’t mean it’s a posi-
tive thing that this happened
but the end result will be
positive for the industry as
a whole because it forces
updates that otherwise
wouldn’t have happened,”
he said.
According
to
Jay
Breidenbach, a National
Weather Service meteorol-
ogist, the areas where most
of the damage occurred were
blanketed by unprecedented
amounts of snow. No offi -
cial records exist for snow
accumulation in Nyssa, but
total accumulation in nearby
Ontario, Ore., peaked at 48
inches on Jan 19.
“That looks like the most
snow they have ever had on
the ground,” he said.
Big question
But the big question is
whether the rebuilding will
be fi nished in time for the
2017 harvest, which will
start in earnest in September
and wrap up by mid-October.
Snake River Produce in
Nyssa lost three of its storage
sheds, three others that it
leased and about 25,000
50-pound bags of onions,
said general manager Kay
Riley.
The shipper had good
insurance coverage and
should be fi ne fi nancially,
Riley said, but a lot of the
storage sheds that were lost
were owned by individual
farmers, some of them
retired.
It’s unknown how many
of those structures had
adequate insurance and how
many will be rebuilt.
“I don’t know if building
an onion storage is a good
retirement scheme or not,”
Riley said.
He agrees with Myers that
the industry will be stronger
in the long term because of
the modernization that will
occur with rebuilding.
Short-term worries
“But in the short-term I’m
very ... concerned because I
don’t think there’s enough
— Shay Myers, Owyhee
Produce general manager
contractors, time, money
and insurance claims to get
all of this put back together
by this fall,” Riley said.
Reitz said it’s a major
question mark whether there
will be enough storage in the
region.
“People have to be
careful about that,” he said.
“They have to make sure
they have a place to put their
crop at the end of the year.”
Almost all of the region’s
lost onion packing capacity
will be replaced by this fall,
Myers predicted. “I don’t
think there are long-term
ramifi cations from a produc-
tion standpoint. Where there
may still be some is on the
storage side.”
John Wong, owner of
Champion
Produce
in
Parma, Idaho, which lost
one storage shed and part of
another, said he has heard
that most people plan to be
rebuilt in time for this year’s
harvest.
“I think a lot of people
in the industry wonder how
likely that is to occur,”
52
Vale
v er
201
ur
Ri
Ma l h e
Nyssa, Ore.
20
26
Lake
Owyhee
R.
10 miles
he said. “But I wouldn’t
bet against the American
farmer.”
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Payette
MALHEUR
Idaho
Ore.
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Weiser
ke
26
Nyssa, Ore., in the heart
of the nation’s largest onion
growing region, is recovering
from winter storms that dumped
unprecedented snowfall in the
area. Dozens of onion storage
sheds and packing facilities
20
collapsed under the weight
of the snow and ice, causing
an estimated $50 million to
N
$100 million in damage.
Clock is ticking
The industry must rebuild
in time for this fall’s 1 billion-
pound-plus harvest. Most of
the Spanish big bulb onions
grown along the border
between southwestern Idaho
and southeastern Oregon are
stored to be marketed later in
the year.
About 60 onion storage
sheds and packing facilities
either collapsed or sustained
major damage, according
to Stuart Reitz, an Oregon
State University Extension
cropping systems agent in
Malheur County.
Owyhee Produce in
Nyssa lost four storage
sheds, which had a
combined capacity of about
33 million pounds of onions.
The company’s packing
facility was damaged but is
still operating.
The shipper lost 22
million pounds of onions,
and
general
manager
Shay Myers estimates the
company sustained about
$10 million in damage to the
buildings.
He said at least three
other shippers sustained the
same degree of damage.
Demolition of damaged
buildings
is
occurring
now and the rebuilding is
underway.
Though
Owyhee
Produce,
which
had
insurance coverage on its
buildings, will experience
signifi cant fi nancial pain in
rebuilding, it will emerge
stronger, as will the entire
industry, Myers predicted.
“It’s forced us to make
some changes that, frankly,
otherwise we would have
taken longer to do,” he said.
That includes updates in
technology in storage sheds
Ore.
30
By SEAN ELLIS
EO Media Group
NYSSA — The snow is
gone, but much of the devas-
tation remains.
Many members of the
region’s vibrant onion
industry are rushing to
rebuild their storage and
packing facilities after four
feet of snow and ice crushed
the buildings and destroyed
the onions and equipment
inside.
The damage is extensive
— most estimates place
the total at $50 million to
$100 million. That includes
about 100 million pounds of
onions — about 7 percent of
the year’s crop — that were
lost.
Area in
detail
O re
.
Ida
ho
Snow, ice caused
$50-$100 million
worth of damage
Another unknown is how
many Oregon shippers that
suffered major damage will
move to Idaho.
Several industry leaders
have told Capital Press in the
past year that some shippers
are seriously considering
relocating in Idaho because
of Oregon’s much higher
minimum wage. Oregon’s
current non-urban rate of
$9.50 an hour will increase
to $12.50 by 2022. Idaho’s
minimum wage is $7.25.
Myers said this winter’s
catastrophe could well push
his company and others to
move. Owyhee Produce and
several other onion shippers
are a few hundred yards
from Idaho. The Snake River
separates the two states.
“There’s a high proba-
bility we’ll be across the
river in a new place,” Myers
said. He said he knows of
at least three other compa-
nies that are also seriously
considering moving to
Idaho.
Burying the debris
The onions that froze or
have debris mixed in with
them — worth between $7
million and $10 million —
are no longer good and will
be buried in area landfi lls.
That’s to protect the
region’s reputation for
quality, Riley said. The area,
which calls itself “Onion
Country, USA,” is under a
federal marketing order and
promotes and markets its
onions as a region, he said.
“We have a good repu-
tation for quality and if
somebody sent something
out that had problems it
would refl ect on all of us,”
said Riley, the marketing
order chairman.
In the meantime, the
rest of the region’s onion
industry, which produces
about 25 percent of the
nation’s big bulb storage
onions, wants customers to
95
know plenty of onions are
still available.
“We still have plenty of
onions to ship,” said Grant
Kitamura, general manager
of Murakami Produce in
Ontario, which did not
sustain any weather-related
damage. “Most of the onion
sheds have their normal
supply of onions.”
Disaster area
With the region declared
a federal disaster area, many
businesses are eligible for
low-interest loans, which
will help the rebuilding
process.
Myers and others said
Oregon and Idaho offi cials
have done a good job of
helping to speed up the
recovery by cutting through
red tape where possible.
That includes making
exceptions that allowed
more landfi lls in the area to
accept onions and building
debris, and relaxing restric-
tions that otherwise would
have slowed the recovery.
For example, buildings
usually can’t be burned
during
demolition
but
exceptions have been made,
Myers said.
“The
bureaucracy
was bypassed as much as
possible, where possible, to
allow things to happen in
the way that they needed to
to make sure that we’re in
business next year,” he said.
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter,
a Republican, and Oregon
Gov. Kate Brown, a Demo-
crat, toured the region on a
National Guard Black Hawk
helicopter and saw the
damage fi rst-hand.
Oregon farmer Paul
Skeen, president of the
Malheur County Onion
Growers Association, was
on the helicopter with them
and made sure they under-
stood the magnitude of the
damage.
“There’s no question they
saw the devastation because
I was pointing it out to
them,” he said. “They under-
stand it fuller now. They’re
seeing our plight.”
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