A new grain loading terminal along the Missouri River in western Iowa is now operational.
On Wednesday, NEW Cooperative, Inc. hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Port of Blencoe ? a newly constructed barge loading and unloading terminal ? at its site adjacent to the Missouri River near Blencoe.
According to Soy Transportation Coalition executive director Mike Steenhoek, the facility is currently operational and has already been used to unload fertilizer and load corn and DDGS. During the main export window for soybeans later in the year, the port will provide a new marketing option for four million bushels of soybeans produced in western Iowa and six to eight million bushels as demand increases.
?It?s very exciting when you see a company that has this aspiration to develop this new barge loading and unloading facility along the Missouri River,? Steenhoek said. ?It will provide this new marketing opportunity for soybeans, DDGS, and corn in the future. It will be loaded onto a barge, sent down the (Missouri) River, intersects with the Mississippi River, and then ultimately has access to the significant number of export terminals along the lower Mississippi River near the Gulf of Mexico.?
The facility is expected to annually accommodate 240,000 tons of soybeans, corn, dried-distillers grains, dry fertilizers, ag lime, scrap metal, and rock. This will allow high volume freight to be shifted from Iowa’s roads to a navigable waterway.
Steenhoek believes this project will help generate additional momentum for people to consider the Missouri River as a viable option.
?We think that the Missouri River should be increasingly accessed and utilized because there is such prolific benefit for using maritime transportation,? Steenhoek said. ?My long contention has been that the reputation of the Missouri River is worse than the actual potential of the Missouri River in terms of navigation and commercial traffic.?
Established in 1973, NEW Cooperative, Inc. is headquartered in Fort Dodge. The farmer-owned cooperative has over 4,700 member owners, 39 locations in Iowa, and 525 full-time employees.
Governor Kim Reynolds and Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig provided remarks during the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
