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CCS managers talk about expansion plans

Cawston Cold Storage managers explain land use position

Billy Potash of Cawston Cold Storage feels the recent controversy surrounding the organic fruit storage business’ attempt to build a cold storage facility on nearby agricultural land has resulted in some misinformation in the community regarding what CCS is doing. He spoke to the Review recently in an attempt to explain the company’s position on the matter.

“Cawston Cold Storage is a limited company owned by five main growers and run as a cooperative,” he explained recently. “It is a non-profit operation where the product (apple storage) pays for the operations. We are not a buy and sell - we are not adding on to enhance profitability. We are similar to the way the tree fruit co-op works.

In actual fact, there is no profit removed from CCS.”

Potash said that CCS has a mandate to provide the best possible return to all growers  in the cooperative.

“There is a misconception among some that there is an abundance of controlled atmosphere (CA)  storage,” he continued.

“In actual fact,buildings are closing all around us - in Naramata, Summerland, Kelowna - because of shrinking volumes and old  storage technology. There is simply no truth to that  - if it were true, we wouldn’t be building now.”

CCS currently ships 2,400 bins per year to a storage facility in Tonasket, WA, 50 bins per truckload. Potash argues that having expanded facilities in Cawston will result in a massive decrease in truck traffic for the company, reducing its carbon footprint and eliminating approximately 22,000 truck miles per year.

CCS Co-manager Dan Taylor explained that the new facility would incorporate state of the art refrigeration technology including an attractive, peaked roof building,  that would eventually be lined with solar panels. Plans also call for the use of insulated panels inside to create controlled atmosphere rooms and an environmentally friendly cooling system. The building would also incorporate a geothermal exchange to remove excess heat.

Potash’s philosophy regarding local opposition to the use of ALR land for the building related to the ultimate purpose to which the Cawston area aspired to be.

“What is the community?” he asked, “if it about farming, then to keep it agricultural, farming enterprises must be successful.

If it is just about rural living, then eventually pieces of property will be chopped up by Victoria - land doesn’t survive population density.

We feel we are enhancing agricultural viability by doing this.

Building on ALR land is a red herring. Any  site chosen in the area would require ALR approval. They don’t discriminate on whether or not one piece of land has more fertile soil on it than another.”

Opponents of the CCS  application  have pointed out other possible locations that they feel would have less of an impact on land use, but Potash countered that the land in question would be considerably more expensive to buy and redevelop, besides which the same application process would apply.

Potash expressed his commitment to the community as a natural extension of his involvement in Cawston Cold Storage, noting that 30 farming families and 600 acres of farmland depended on CCS.

“If Cawston Cold Storage shut down, where would they go?”  he asked. “To produce tree fruits, you must have the infrastructure to pack and store  the crop.”

Potash noted that the storage company’s current practises were too unstable to depend on, as their cross border storage could be lost at the whim of a border agent, while Keremeos storage facilities refuse to enter any long term agreements with them because of uncertainty over how much room their own growers might need.

Cawston Cold Storage consolidated the organic tree fruit industry  in 1996, helping to put the Lower Similkameen on the map as a major player in the organic tree fruit industry on both a national and international scale.

“Everything we make - beyond wages - goes back into CCS,” Potash concluded, “No one is making a fortune.

We are non profit oriented - the business takes only what it needs to operate.”