Onion Cleanup

Onion Cleanup

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
From a distance, the onion pile at Clay Peak landfill looks like another rolling foothill. As a regional landfill, the facility will be taking the majority of all of the ruined onions that were a result of collapsing roofs of onion storage facilities due to snow load this winter. The trucks role in, dump ruined onions, the piles get bigger. Up close, it's a mountain of onions. In case you're wondering, no onions impacted by cave-ins were salvaged for market. Shea Myers at Owyhee Produce packs and ships onions all over the USA. His operation is just one of the many onion shippers hit hard this winter by heavy snow loads collapsing storage facilities. "Food safety reasons did not let us use the product. We didn't feel like as an industry and as a business that it would be good with those onions on the market, regardless of where they went or how they were put out there. There was an insulation and fiberglass, nails and boards and everything that came down on them. So, they are not on the market." Growers and packers are anxious to get clean up behind them. The 20 17th planting is looming and like all farmers, they are looking to a brighter future.
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