With an idea for expansion that was seeded 11 years ago, the Cloud County Co-op Elevator Association in Kansas has begun work on a facility that will boost its storage capacity by 2.8 million bushels, reports the Concordia Blade-Empire.
"Cloud County Co-op was asked by AgMark to find a bunker site," General Manager Mark Paul told the Blade-Empire. "That proved to be difficult for awhile. Much of what we found was in the flood plain."
The co-op needed emergency storage space because of the tremendous amount of grain it is handling.
Paul expects another record harvest this fall, and needs the storage space in case there is an interruption in their transportation system.
"We rely heavily on the railroad to keep us moving," he says. "We ship a lot to Beaumont, TX, and Houston, and the recent hurricanes affected that. We want to have a place for our farmers to unload their grain, so we need the capability to store the overflow."
