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This report, titled “Value Added and Subtracted: The Processed Potato Industry in the Mid-Columbia Basin,” examines the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the frozen potato products industry in the Mid-Columbia Basin of Washington and Oregon. Here are the key findings and policy recommendations: Key Findings:
- Competitive Advantages: The potato processing industry in the Mid-Columbia Basin boasts significant competitive advantages, including low-cost water and energy from publicly subsidized systems, ideal climate and soils for Russet Burbank potatoes, and the world’s highest potato yields. These advantages make state and local financial inducements to attract investment unnecessary.
- Water Quality and Supply Impacts: The industry significantly impacts water quality and supply. Processing plants use 2 to 3 million gallons of water daily, typically four to five times more than their host communities. Wastewater, high in nitrogen, is often sprayed onto insufficient acreages without adequate winter storage, leading to:
- Nitrate levels in alluvial aquifers exceeding legal maximums by up to 12 times.
- Septic flooding in residential areas due to excessive irrigation.
- Contamination of basaltic aquifers through uncased wells and basalt fractures.
- Exacerbation of groundwater depletion due to the industry’s use of municipal supplies and its own wells.
- Socioeconomic Impacts: The industry’s socioeconomic effects are mixed. While it provides several thousand full-time jobs, it also generates seasonal unemployment. The predominantly Latino workforce is concentrated in lower-wage jobs, with a significant proportion living below the poverty line. This creates social overhead costs for communities that the industry does not address. The example of Othello, Washington, highlights issues like high winter unemployment, low per capita income, and overcrowded housing.
Policy Recommendations:
- States’ Tax Abatement Policies: Tax abatements should be more sophisticated and targeted, requiring a quid pro quo from beneficiaries to address community infrastructural problems or attaching socioeconomic/environmental conditions to abatements.
- Rural Economic Development Programs: Community Development Block Grant funds should be restricted to programs benefiting the exposed population. A value-added strategy should focus on greater diversification of production to assist growers’ cooperatives and increase employment prospects.
- Conservation of Water Resources and Hydroelectric Base: Policy reviews should restate the system’s intended purposes (rural economic opportunity) and promote sustainable resource exploitation. More realistic costs should be assigned to water through appropriate pricing.
- Groundwater Quality: The EPA should develop standard, nationwide permitting and monitoring procedures. States should restore contaminated residential well supplies, protect basalt aquifers, and halt the use of toxic agricultural chemicals like atrazine and aldicarb on porous soils above perched aquifers, holding producers liable for contamination costs.
The report concludes that existing economic development policies have failed to account for the substantial environmental and social costs imposed by the industry. It advocates for internalizing these externalities to achieve a sustainable frozen french fry industry.
