Project Chinook Could Mean 200 New Jobs

Company Considers Moses Lake

MOSES LAKE — Port of Moses Lake commissioners approved a state funding application on Monday to build an electrical substation for a mystery company eyeing Grant County.

If the money is obtained, it would help a company dubbed “Project Chinook.”

The real name of “Project Chinook” hasn’t been revealed publicly.

In October Terry Brewer, executive director of the Grant County Economic Development Council (EDC), described “Project Chinook” as an international manufacturing company expected to create more than 200 new jobs.

He said it was a “well-known” company and a “clean energy project.”

The EDC was working with a site selection company representing the business.

Brewer wasn’t immediately available for additional comment late Monday.

The port’s application to the Washington State Community Economic Revitalization Board (CERB) involves a $500,000 grant and a $1.5 million loan, said Craig Baldwin, the port’s executive manager.

“My understanding is, they’ve made no decisions yet,” Baldwin said about Project Chinook’s location decision.

In order for the port to meet the CERB application deadline, the port went ahead and made the application, Baldwin said.

The application is pending if the project comes to town, he added.

Port Commissioner Brian McGowan made a motion to approve the resolution. It passed unanimously.

After the meeting, Baldwin said he understood the company was looking at two sites in Moses Lake and a site outside the country, possibly in Canada.

The port didn’t have any property available, but is allowed to process state grants, he explained.

Lynne Lynch/Columbia Basin Herald
Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Asleep for the Winter

The vines are now dormant. In the last weeks of September growth came to a halt and the canes began to lignify (become woody). I dehydrated the vines to promote this lignification, then after the first frost I gave the ground one final shot of water to help protect the roots over the winter. I then drained the irrigation system, and just in time, too, because the nighttime temperature dropped rapidly and for a short period was in the mid-teens at night.

So now we will see how well the vines survive the winter cold. Winter temperatures in Moses Lake normally differ little from other Eastern Washington locations, including wine-growing regions of Walla Walla, the Yakima Valley and Quincy (30 miles west). However, in those years when the temperature gets freaky cold, a nearby unfrozen body of water can help moderate the extreme lows, and that is why many vineyards are clustered around the Columbia and Yakima Rivers (and Lake Chelan, for that matter). But the biggest single factor for minimizing winter damage is having a site with good "air drainage," where cold low-lying air moves downhill away from your vineyard to pool in lower areas below. And of course, it's important to have planted grape varieties which are relatively winter hardy and cold tolerant. We're in good shape on both counts, and I believe most if not all of the plants will do just fine. I'm already looking forward to spring!

Drip Hose on the Wire

Oh my aching back.
Also, when you're on a 15-degree slope, what's the trick to keeping the water from traveling down the outside of the hose rather than dropping straight down out of the emitter?

PUD Selling Dark Fiber

This is potentially a big deal. Grant County has become a favored spot for internet data centers because of cheap available power and relatively inexpensive land. Microsoft, Yahoo & Intuit have put their data centers 30 miles away in Quincy. So far, internet companies have stayed away from Moses Lake because the PUD has inexplicably refused to sell them desireable "dark" fiber which give the companies the reliability & control they demand. The PUD has finally seen the light (pardon the pun) and conceded the obvious.

An LA-based group including some former Microsofties recently purchased a former Air Force missile control center located near Grant County International Airport and have turned it into a state-of-the-art data center facility. (The ultra-secure building, called the TITAN I Data Center, was supposedly designed to withstand a 10-megaton nuclear strike! Good luck with that.) The group expects to sign multiple tenants now that the dark fiber moratorium has been lifted.

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Nearly Done

We're close to being done for the year. All the plants are trimmed and tied to the wires. The grow tubes are off. The only real job left is to get the drip hose off the ground by attaching it to its wire.
I don't think I'll water any more this year. I'll let the vines dehydrate as they head toward dormancy, which should help them deal with winter cold.

beaucoup cailloux

"Cayuse" comes from the French word cailloux meaning "stones." Grapes love 'em. I don't.
Rocky ground is good for grapes for several reasons. First, when the soil is lean, the vine's survival mechanisms tend to direct the limited nutrients to the berry rather than the foliage. The grapes are smaller and the flavors more concentrated and powerful.
Second, the root systems can be deeper and stronger in rocky soil as they dig deep in search of water & nutrients. This makes for a hardier vine.
Rocky soil also ensures good drainage, which is critical for growing good grapes.
Finally, certain types of rock absorb heat from daytime sunshine and then radiate that heat after dark. This warms the ground and can promote the ripening process and help prevent winterkill.
I plan on gathering the rocks in the rows and around the plants as a sort of rock mulch.

Vines on the Wire

Cab franc, sans "underpants" (as Gilbert calls the plant protectors), tied to the wires after some late-summer pruning. Pruning is ordinarily not done in the fall, but was appropriate this year because I've just gotten the trellis wires up.
I emailed Jeff Cox, author of From Vines to Wines, and asked him about when & how to form the cordons, which will be the permanent horizontal trunks of the vine. He kindly responded and advised tying the main cane up now, trimming all lateral shoots, and then forming the cordon out of two new shoots next spring.
I mostly took Jeff's advice, but I have left a few laterals and some foliage on each plant on the theory that there are still several weeks of growing season til the first good frost and I might as well take advantage of all the photosynthesis I can get (for roots and cane) short of diverting excessive plant energy to useless parts of the vine. In other words, I can't bring myself to totally strip the plant naked yet. On several plants I actually did take a couple of likely-looking laterals and began to form the cordon, just for the fun of it.

First Fruits

OK, they won't be ripe for a month and won't be useable for 2 more seasons but... we have grapes.

Tying Up the Vines

April ties vines to the wire. (Sure easier on the eyes than the motley crew below)
I have a question about how to train the cordon. Option 1: Tie the main cane straight up, prune everything else back over the winter, then next spring train two new shoots out along the wire to form the cordon. Option 2: Take two existing canes and tie them horizontally on the wire now, forming the cordon. I'll figure it out in the next couple days.

The Crew

Cody, Esteban & his son Gilbert.
Esteban is old enough to be my father & Cody's grandfather, but he puts us both to shame. I call him el Martillo - the Hammer.
Esteban has taken to inviting us over to his casa for lunch. Senora Ramona fixes us frijoles con huevos, onions, queso, homemade salsa, some chile peppers, all wrapped up in fresh tortilla - oh yeah.

Cody Craps Out

Wires on the Posts

Sometimes I wondered if this day would ever come.

Pulling Wire

Cody & Esteban working our "spinning jenny." You're supposed to put this on the back of a tractor and let it unspool as you drive down the rows, but we just put it at the end of the row and pulled the wire out by hand. You wouldn't want to pull wire without a dereeling device, because you could end up with a real mess.
The wire is 12.5 guage, pretty heavy. We drilled holes in the end posts to run the wires through. We stapled the wire to the post on one end, then ran the wire down to the other end post, through the holes, and secured and tightened it with a "gripple" device. Pulling the wires tight allowed us to easily make straight lines with the line posts. (We had pre-dug the holes but didn't fill them in until the wire was pulled.)
At this time I'm going to put up three wires: one at 24" to attach the drip hose, one at 46" for the cordon, and one at 58" for the canopy. I also drilled holes for a future third wire at the top of the posts.

Cody's Last Hole

Cody's off to college next week. After a summer digging holes in the rocks, he's committed to getting an education!

My Last Hole

There were close to 2,500 holes dug for this vineyard, almost all of them by hand because of the rocky soil. This is my last one. For some reason one of the end posts was a foot off, so I decided to move it. I soon discovered why it had been put in the wrong place. There was a 600 lb rock sitting right where the post was supposed to go. But my motto is "the rocks can't win," so I spent 30 minutes digging a hole next to it and then using two pry bars to roll it over. The post is now in the right place.
After a summer of this, you get to know the nature of rocks pretty well. You get so you can tell the size, shape and orientation of a rock by the sound it makes when the the pry bar hits it. Rocks are tough, and heavy, but they have one big disadvantage: they can't think.

Agua!

Cody shows his best hustle getting to the water cooler

Sparkling Summer Morning at Cayuse

We got early starts this week to beat the heat. Beautiful out there in the cool of the morning.

2009 Babe Ruth World Series

16-18 year olds championships held at Moses Lake's Larson Field.
Here, the host Columbia Basin River Dogs are in action vs. team from San Gabriel Valley (CA)

Anchor Cables

These are cables connecting the end posts to the screw anchors. I bought the pre-made setup - a little more expensive but saved a lot of work. (The alternative would be to use 10-guage wire, cut each piece to size, and crimp the ends together.)
I get my trellis supplies from Wilson Irrigation & Orchard Supply in Yakima. Steve & Eric down there are pros and have been super helpful.

Line Posts

We're setting the line posts, which will hold the wires. We're using steel posts up here, 8' long, buried 2' deep, spaced 18' apart. Augured the holes as far as possible in the rocky soil, and now coming along behind and cleaning out the holes by hand.

Mouse Mansion

There's a mouse who lives in my valve control box. His pad must be the envy of the colony - high ceilings, running water. He's even drug in a cigarette butt from somewhere (not mine of course), for that special touch.

The property has just one tiny little drawback. Every once in a while a great monster suddenly lifts the roof and scares the bejeezus out of poor mr. mouse.

Well, no place is perfect. They have earthquakes in California...

Cody Spraying Weeds

Tumbleweeds, mostly (although I think this one happens to be a knapweed). The tumbleweed is an awesome botanical survival machine.

Screw Anchors

Spent two tough days putting in the aptly-named screw anchors. Have to auger them in (much of it by hand) because the ground is so rocky. They won't have any weight on them til next summer, though, and they should set up like concrete over the winter.

I figured this would be the toughest part of the whole project, and it didn't disappoint. Feel like we crested the mountain though - the tasks will gradually get easier from here.

I decided when this project is done I will never dig another hole in my life.

Too Big for His Britches

The Greening of the Vineyard

The Chardonnay are well up over the top of the 30" grow tubes, and the Cab Franc aren't far behind.

I'm amazed at how little water they require. It's 95 degrees, I'm down to one soak per week, and they're absolutely thriving. I'm going to keep cutting back and see how low I can go before they begin to stress.

Closing the Loop

Finished off the last of the end posts. (You may recall there was a gap in the line on the north end of the vineyard, where we had recently cleared and leveled additional space.) There are 110 of these altogether, one on each end of 55 rows. This week we'll put screw anchors into the ground behind each end post.

Cody Takes a Dirt Bath

Time to put in the last of the end posts and begin putting in the screw anchors. The soil up on top is brutal - I tried three holes by hand - it was like trying to shovel a sidewalk. Decided to rent a Bobcat with an auger. Only slightly easier. The rocks up there are like interlocking pavers. Just got to fight it from all different angles til it gives a little.

Got 'em done though.

Sunset Through the Vines

Isn't that a Boz Scaggs song? Oh wait, that's "Moonlight Through the Pines"

Big Sky Over Cayuse

"Grapes love the sight of water."

Who wouldn't want to live here?!

Lazy Summer at Cayuse

An exquisite couple of days out on the property. Weather was perfect. I wasn't too motivated to work, so took alot of photos. More on flicker

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

Neighbor Travis baled the season's first cut of alfalfa. Lovely sight laying down there in the morning light.

Smoothing the Aisles

Took my nephew Cody out to work with me for three days. We rented a tractor with a front loader and a "Gannon box" on the rear. It just fit down the aisles and leveled them out nicely with one pass. Cody became the Gannon box expert, but he made me back the tractor out of the rows so he wouldn't run over any grapes.

The aisles look great but I do regret destroying my "cover crop" of native grasses.

By the way, I strongly recommend leveling the site before planting vines!

Line Posts

Spent a full day putting in line posts on the slope. Decided to use my treated wood posts there - Old World Style, I call it. I think the wood has a nice look to it. I'll use steel line posts up on top, in the "real" vineyard.

Explosive Growth

Vines already overflowing their grow tubes. Gotta get the wires up quickly now.

Building Activity Rises in Moses Lake

GRANT COUNTY — Single-family housing permits increased by 21.5 percent from March to April in Grant County, reflecting a national trend of improvement in one area of housing permits.

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Bud Break; Pruning; Weed Control

I did a head count and all but about 200 plants have budded. Some of the rest are alive but slow. And a few simply didn't make it. I figure we'll have to replant something like 10%, which isn't great but isn't bad considering we're rank amateurs.

I think I've done all the pruning I'm going to do this season. Most experts advise simply letting the plants run wild the first year, which is supposed to promote a robust root system. The downside is the vines won't reach the first wire until next year, and will take an extra year to bear fruit. "My" expert says you can prune down to one bud in the first year, which will promote a vigorous shoot that should reach the first wire and minimize the wait to production of wine grapes. I took the more aggressive approach and pruned heavily, although I did leave at least two and often three buds unless one of them was so robust that I didn't feel I needed backup.

I also bought a backpack sprayer and a gallon of glyphosate (generic Roundup). It went smoothly and I was able to spray the entire 2.5 acre vineyard in one day. I just sprayed in and around the rows, leaving the aisles with some cover grasses which will brown over the summer. I mixed in some dye so I could see where I was spraying. The grow tubes keep overspray from drifting onto the vines. (At least I hope they did!)

A neighbor came by to see what I was doing. Said he had lived in Moses Lake since he got out of the Navy in 1944. Never saw grapes being planted before, he said. I told him I hadn't either.

The slope looks good, don't you think?