2021 Spring Insights - Flipbook - Page 13
Maintaining the past and Building the Future
CRC -
Derecho recovery unfolds
After powerful winds destroy grain storage facilities, RVC unveils new bins
Mike Moellenbeck, VP Grain Business Unit
A group of storms that tore through
the Midwest on August 10th, 2020, left
homes destroyed, crops demolished,
and over a quarter of a million people
without power days later.
The rare group of storms called a
derecho brought rain and hurricaneforce winds of 70-100 miles per hour
to the Midwest, causing extensive
damage across most of River Valley
Cooperative’s trade areas in Iowa
and Illinois. The counties most
heavily impacted by the storm were
Delaware, Linn, Jones, Cedar, Clinton,
Jackson, Scott, and Muscatine in
Iowa, and the Illinois counties of
Whiteside, Carroll, and Rock Island.
The storm’s devastating winds
flattened crops in the field and
toppled grain storage facilities. Since
the storm, on-farm bin construction
has rapidly taken place, and
producers had to decide whether
to simply rebuild what was lost or
evaluate long term needs for space
and infrastructure as operations
continue to grow in acres and
production.
Three River Valley Cooperative
locations sustained grain facility
losses. Clarence, Stanwood, and
Martelle locations were heavily
impacted, resulting in the loss of
nearly two million bushels of grain
storage.
Just as many growers across
Iowa and Illinois consider plans for
grain storage options, River Valley
Cooperative’s management team and
Board of Directors has spent time
considering the best plan of action to
rebuild the loss of grain infrastructure
at these facilities.
The Martelle location lost nearly
one million bushels of storage space,
including a 450,000-bushel bin that
was newly constructed in 2019, and
damage was sustained on a second
450,000-bushel bin. Repairs were
made to one bin before harvest, and
the decision was made to rebuild
the destroyed 450,000-bushel bin.
Construction has already been
completed on this bin. The remaining
lost storage space, approximately
500,000 bushels, will be replaced with
an 850,000-bushel bin.
In Clarence and Stanwood,
approximately one million bushels of
bin space were lost. While the remaining
240,000-bushel space left at Stanwood
will be utilized for internal bean
storage, the other lost space will not be
replaced.
To compensate for the loss of
space at Clarence and Stanwood, an
850,000-bushel bin and 20,000-bushelper-hour receiving system will be
constructed in Olin. This will be a
solution to long wait times to unload
that often occurred at the Clarence,
Stanwood, and Olin locations during
the fall.
Olin’s growth is consistent with our
3-5-year strategic plan of making the
facility an accumulation point for grain
into Cedar Rapids, much like our facility
in DeWitt accumulates grain for the
Clinton market. Because of the storm
damage our locations endured, the
timeline of this project was moved up,
and we are moving forward with this
project before the fall of 2021.
Thank you for your continued
patience as we work through these
projects, and thank you for your grain
business.
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