Work Scheduled On Sugar Refinery

A new Moses Lake sugar refinery will break ground in September as a partnership of farmers and a processing company rush to capitalize on higher prices and reduced acreage nationwide.

Roger Hill, president of Colorado-based Holly Sugar Corp., said Tuesday that about 100,000 fewer acres of sugar beets will be planted nationally this year as farmers seed more high-priced corn during the wet spring. That should boost the value of an estimated 9,000 acres of beets in Grant County and increase the urgency to open the refinery.

Holly and Columbia River Sugar Co., a farmers’ cooperative, last year announced plans to open the $100 million Moses Lake plant in 1998. Growers will grow 25,000 acres of beets for the factory, which will employ up to 300 people.

The partners last month acquired 1,400 acres for the refinery from R.A. Hanson Co. of Spokane, RR Warehouse Inc. in Ritzville and the Mormon Church.

Producers this year will ship about 3,000 acres of beets to Holly’s Woodland, Calif., processing plant, which it acquired recently when it bought Spreckels Sugar Co. , DataTimes