Pasco just got a $3 million boost to help keep people working at these jobs
Pasco’s food processors are getting $3 million of federal government help with a project that will keep 700 people working in the city.
A U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration grant is covering part of the cost of replacing an aging pump and pipes between three food processors near Highway 12 and the city’s industrial wastewater treatment plant, a project that will cost about $11 million.
“The Trump administration understands that business in America will not thrive without reliable and up-to-date infrastructure,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a news release announcing the grant. “This project in Pasco will help enable the region’s critical food processing sector to create additional economic opportunity and will provide further incentive for investment.”
While Pasco runs the plant, each of the city’s six food processors pay the fees to run it and to cover construction costs. Hundreds of jobs rely on being able to get millions of gallons of water across the four and half miles to the treatment plant each day.
The water, which is used to get food ready, is cleaned and is sent out to nearby fields.
“We’re basically reusing the water,” Pasco’s Public Works Director Steve Worley said. “It’s a big system that helps a lot of these processors, so they don’t have to do their own individual systems.”
When the process works, it’s largely invisible, but without it, the city simply wouldn’t have anywhere to put all of the water.
The project
Pasco is wrapping up the first part of a three-part project near Commercial Avenue. The work will replace a 25-year-old pump that Simplot RDO and Freeze Pak use. The change also allows Grimmway Farms to pump water to the plant as well, freeing up space in the city’s municipal treatment plant.
The city is preparing for the second part of the project, which will replace and realign the pipes that carry the water to the facility. Right now city officials are seeking permission from other landowners to use property for the project, and they plan to start looking for a contract next year.
Combined, these projects are estimated to cost $11 million.
Officials are also planning the third phase, which would expand how much water the plant can process. They expect to finish construction in 2021.
“(The grant) allows us to continue to move the project forward and reduces the eventual cost to each of the processors,” Worley said.
Will create jobs and economic opportunities
The federal government has listed eastern Pasco as an “opportunity zone.” The Economic Development Administration made funding projects in those economically distressed areas a priority, commerce officials said.
Food processing makes up the majority of the Tri-Cities’ manufacturing sector, with about 9,000 people working in that industry in April.
Ajsa Suljic, a regional labor economist, told the Herald in April that food processing provides full-time work for people who have lost interest in the instability of retail and other part-time work.
The move drew support from both sides of the political aisle, with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., saying the investment will create jobs and economic investment for hundreds of people in southeastern Washington for years to come.
“This grant will not only provide much-needed infrastructure improvement, but it further incentivizes private investment in one of the food processing powerhouses of the country,” said Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside.