Thursday, August 11, 2022
East Oregonian
Let me tell you a story
about those French fries
A lot happens before you take that first
scrumptious bite of a French fry. Potatoes
need to be planted. They need water to
grow. After they are harvested, they go to
a food processing plant like those located
in Boardman.
Potatoes are peeled, washed and turned
into strips that become French fries.
The water used to wash French fries is
re-purposed. The Port of Morrow
receives wastewater, processes it and
sends it to local farmers for irrigation.
Water is applied by local farmers to
prepare ground to grow more potatoes.
Because the water is nutrient-rich,
farmers can reduce their use of
commercial fertilizers.
What we’ve learned from French fries
We need larger wastewater
lagoons to process and
store water, especially
during winter months when
applying wastewater to
farmland has a limited
beneficial impact.
We are constructing our
anaerobic digester to
process larger amounts
of wastewater to better
control the amount of
nutrients in the water
used for irrigation.
We will take the
opportunity to capture
methane gas emitted
when wastewater is
processed via an
anaerobic digester
system like ours.
“We are investing Port resources to make a
good thing for the community even better.”
Rick Stokoe, Port Commission President
A7