Company seeks to make paper from wheat straw

MOSES LAKE — Wheat farmers looking for another source of income may eventually have one if a new project in Columbia County is able to make a go of it.

Columbia Pulp is slated to begin work on a mill to be located along the Snake River near Lyons Ferry that will convert farm waste — wheat straw and chaff — into pulp suitable for paper making.

“People have used straw for centuries to make paper,” said Columbia Paper CEO John Begley. “Ancient Egyptians did, that’s where the word paper comes from.”

Begley, who has more than 40 years experience in the paper and pulp industry, including time with industry giant Weyerhaeuser, said his company has developed a “proprietary process” that is less damaging to the environment and should be more cost-effective than traditional processes of making paper from wood pulp.

“It doesn’t use high-pressure boilers and isn’t sulfur-based,” he said. “Pulping mills use lots of energy, and there’s a bad smell. This process takes places under atmospheric conditions and at a lower temperature, about 150 degrees.”

Begley, noting that a number of potential customers have expressed interest in Columbia Pulp’s product, hopes the company’s products will quickly be competitive simply because they use something most farmers currently plow under or burn away.

“Our raw material is a waste product, so our actual costs are a lot less than the traditional pulp process,” he said. “It’s very similar to wood-based fiber.”

In addition to producing an expected 140,000 tons per year of pulp from straw, Begley said the facility will also produce around 90,000 tons annually of a “co-product” that has a number of varied industrial uses.

Should all go well, the facility should be up and running toward the end of 2018, Begley said. While the facility will only buy wheat straw right now — around 4 million tons of wheat straw and chaff are believed to be produced within 75 miles of the plant — almost any kind of farm waste could work.

“Corn, barley, any of the straws would work well,” Begley said. “There’s a lot more agricultural residue than there are trees, and this can take the pressure off the forests.”

“There’s just so much wheat,” he added.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.