The Port of Morrow in Boardman is expanding a unique rail-to-barge grain facility with help from a $2 million grant from state transportation officials.

A unique rail-to-barge grain facility at Oregon’s Port of Morrow is expanding with help from a $2 million grant from the state transportation officials.

The Morrow County Grain Growers cooperative won approval from the Oregon Transportation Commission for funding that will cover about two-thirds of the $3 million project’s cost.

“It’s worked great so far and we hope it will give us that much more capability,” said Kevin Gray, the cooperative’s CEO, of the grain handling operation.

Originally completed in 2019, the facility is the only one of its kind along the Columbia River that can unload grain from rail cars and then load it into barges headed for downstream export elevators.

“It’s a time saver just because of the congestion on the railroads,” Gray said.

The expansion project will install a new 600,000-bushel grain bin and associated conveyors that will connect it to the existing facility.

Six grain bins already stood at the location when the cooperative built the $7.5 million rail-to-barge system, which included the installation of a seventh bin.

The project recently approved for Connect Oregon grant funding will bring the number of bins to eight, with room for five more and a grain bunker left at the site.

Gray said the additional bin is meant to improve the facility’s flexibility, since until now it’s occasionally been forced to reject proposed grain loads because the existing bins were in use.

Even if the bins have storage capacity left, they’re still limited to storing the type of grain each one already contains, he said. “You can’t put corn in the same bin you put wheat in.”

Grain shippers benefit from using the facility because their loads can bypass backed-up rail traffic in Portland, Gray said.

By switching to a river barge, shippers can have their grain loaded into export elevators in Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, Wash., within 18 hours, versus a couple days with rail cars, he said.

“It’s a great way to get grain to access the Pacific Northwest export markets without having to get a train into Portland,” he said. “It gave them another path to their export elevator.”

Local grain farmers can also rely on the rail-to-barge facility, but its connection to two major railroads is primarily intended for loads from distant sources, such as Minnesota and North Dakota, Gray said.

Unlike some grain storage facilities, which are dedicated to grain from certain major traders, the cooperative’s bins can be used by any shipper, he said. “We’re not tied to any one grain company. We have flexibility.”

Grain grown in the central U.S. commonly reaches Asian markets by traveling via rail to export facilities along the Columbia River, where it’s picked up by ships headed across the Pacific Ocean, he said.

Another option is for the grain to be shipped to Gulf of Mexico export facilities, where it’s loaded onto ocean carriers that must first pass through the Panama Canal — a route that’s typically more expensive, Gray said.

The cooperative saw a surge in demand for its facility in 2020 after storms shut down export facilities along the Gulf of Mexico, he said.

Aside from serving as a transit point for Asian-bound grain, the facility is also useful for local dairies and feedlots, since it can import and store feed grains, Gray said. Shipping feed grains by rail is less expensive than trucking it into the area.

“This provides a way to meet the local livestock demand as well as help our customers save on transportation costs,” he said.