Odessa crushing plant progressing

Owner finds infrastructure already in place

ODESSA — In the wake of low wheat prices, farmers hope a new crushing facility will open up their area for an alternative fuel crop.

"The infrastructure is already there," said Fred Fleming, owner of the Reardan-based Reardan Seed. Fleming is at work on locating a facility in Odessa that would bring in, crush and refine winter and spring canola products into biodiesel.

As the wheat industry is slowly scaled down due to the federal Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, Fleming said, there are elevators in the mainline rail areas not being used to their full capacity, or storing items like boats and combines instead of wheat.

"What has happened down in the Odessa area, they have this fabulous flathouse that's sitting there, just laying idle right at the moment," he said, noting the land's proximity to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad mainline.

Keith Bailey, general manager of the Odessa Union Warehouse Cooperative, which owns the flathouse property, said the 28,000 square-foot building would perform two processes, crushing 4 million gallons of oil and refining 8 million gallons.

The Odessa area also sits right on the corridor of the Columbia Basin, and is centrally located, Fleming said, adding that there's a network of farm communities 80 miles around the area, including the Spokane, Sprague and Ritzville areas, and on into the Basin.

"The beauty is the fact the meal and any of the byproducts can also be moved down into the Yakima Valley and/or palletized, and you can also ship it overseas," he said. "It's one of those things that just fits."

Fleming said he is in the process of getting the loans and agreements with the state in place. He hopes to have everything necessary to move forward in hand by the end of August or early September, and noted that the crusher has already been purchased and is being built in England. If all goes well, he hopes to have the building retrofitted in October or November, and hopes to be crushing next summer.

"We are actually out, right now, trying to get growers to produce the product," he said, estimating less than 3 to 5 percent will come from Washington at first, as growers wait to see if a crushing facility is built, and how canola will compete with the other commodities grown in the state.

"The farmer's also going to have to change his cultural practices of raising this product," he said. "If everything lines up, I'm going to say probably in five years, probably half of our production could — could — be sourced in the state of Washington, but it's going to take a long process to get there."

Spring products do well in the eastern, Rainier corridor of the state, but in the central part of the state, winter canola needs to be grown, Fleming said, with major research from Washington State University used to help the transition. It could be a 10-year process, he said.

"Then it comes down to price," he said, noting hard red winter wheats are more attractive to raise than soft white wheat under the right circumstances. "If you can take the risk out of soft whites, and get the yield and protein, it's almost a dollar premium over white wheat right now."

Canola will have to compete and be grown consistently, Fleming said, "and not have it fail or have it winter-kill out and all of these other risk factors that have to be mitigated before the farm community's going to embrace it and grow it as a second crop."

Bailey said area farmers are anticipating a positive result from the development of the facility.

"The wheat markets in our local areas have been plagued with low prices," Bailey said. "We're traditionally soft white wheat country, so with the rising fuel costs, rising fertilizer costs, we need the alternative crops that can provide a livable income for these agriculture-based farms."

The crushing facility is also intended to provide an income for cooperatives and other investors, Bailey added, which would provide another revenue stream to the farmers.

Farmers will have to look at their climatic zone to see if the area where they're located are conducive to raising canola, Bailey said.

"Probably more importantly, some of the chemicals being used for control of weeds in our area are not compatible with canola growth," he said. "So it'll take, in some cases, two years to work through that chemical residual before it's gone and we can raise canola."

Fleming echoed Bailey, saying growers are going to have to change their approach to soils and consider the crops they want to grow two to four years down the line when they make a chemical application to their land.

"If it truly is something that makes an economic return to the farmer, then he's going to say, 'No, I can't use this product, I'm going to have to sit there and clean my ground up so I can at least plant this stuff,'" he said. "It's not an easy wave your wand and it's going to happen, it could take some time and energy."

Fleming added that a large percentage of canola will have to be sourced out of the Dakotas or out of Canada, where the major source of canola is being raised in rotation.

But the Odessa community is bending over backwards to make the crushing facility venture happen, Bailey said, calling it a project that's high risk.

"But yet, not to do it is even more risky," he said. "If we don't do it and we continue down this path, these companies out here, due to consolidation, rail abandonment and CRP — agriculture is changing and most of these companies are going to go away."