Featured image: Earthwork begins at the reload center site, photo courtesy of Jason Pearson, a board member with Malheur County Development Corporation and sales manager with Eagle Eye Produce.
As work progresses on the Nyssa, OR-based Treasure Valley Reload Center, an intermodal transportation project involving Union Pacific Railroad and other servers, a tentative start date for operations has been set for fall of this year.
According to Greg Smith, executive director of the Malheur County Development Corporation that is overseeing the project, projections at this time “anticipate operations beginning in approximately September of 2022, although this timeline is likely to be pushed back because of some delays with the building contract and earthwork progress.”
Smith, who is also an Oregon state representative, has been a part of the reload center effort since its inception. He and Cliff Bentz, U.S representative for Oregon, played key roles in designing a bill that was ultimately passed by the Oregon legislature and signed by Gov. Kate Brown in 2017. The sweeping $5.3 billion state transportation bill earmarked some $26 million for the Nyssa facility.
The reload center has been designed to serve the region’s onion industry as well as numerous other commodities, and Smith explained, “This project all started when some local shippers expressed their struggles with current shipping options. In order to get product on rail without an existing rail siding, Treasure Valley shippers would need to truck their products to Wallula, WA, only to have the rail cars come right back by them on the UP mainline.”
He continued, “The extra mileage needed for shippers in this area resulted in a greater struggle to be competitive in various markets across the United States. The Treasure Valley Reload Center’s goal is to provide an advantage to valley shippers while taking trucks off of the road. With ongoing turbulence in the trucking industry, diesel prices skyrocketing and the loss of drivers over previous years, the Treasure Valley Reload Center is needed now more than ever.”
Negotiations among the players have been ongoing, and as of mid-May Smith said T’s have been crossed and I’s dotted.
“There is an Industrial Track Agreement in place with Union Pacific that has been fully executed,” he said. “The ITA spells out ‘the agreement by and between the Operator and Municipality or Industry, or both, governing the provision of rail service over and the maintenance of the project facility.’”
And, he added, “There is also a lease agreement with Americold to operate the facility for at least 20 years. So long as Americold operates the facility in accordance with the ConnectOregon grant agreement, the source of funds that requires them to operate the facility as a reload operation, Americold will have the option to purchase the building at the end of the 20-year lease. The Industry Track Agreement is technically on a three-year term, and then transitions into a month-to-month automatic renewal that will continue as long as the agreement is followed.”
Construction, he said, was broken into four separate contracts:
- Earthwork (bid, awarded, and currently on site)
- Rail and Ballast (bid, awarded, and soon to be on site)
- Building Construction (bid, not yet awarded)
- Roads and Utilities (bid later in the summer)
“As the project currently stands, power, fiber, and municipal water will be at the site, but sewer and gas will not be immediately available and are not needed for the reload center,” he said.
Smith said Americold is also working on establishing agreements with individual shipping companies to bring their products through the facility.
“The reload center will continue to take on additional commodities as Americold ramps up operations. As for other types of services, the goal for the surrounding industrial lands is to bring in other companies, with a focus on those needing serviced by rail. Many discussions have occurred regarding additional businesses locating to the park, but nothing is confirmed as of this point,” he said.
Earthwork underway at reload facility site in Nyssa, OR. Our thanks to Jason Pearson for the photos. Jason is a Malheur County Development Corporation board member and sales manager with Eagle Eye Produce in Nyssa, Oregon.
