Water shortage threatens sugar mill future

Source: Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, TexasSept.迷你倉 07--SANTA ROSA -- The future of the Rio Grande Valley Sugar Mill hinges on water, either water that falls from the sky or water released by Mexico.Randy Rolando, the sugar growers president and chief executive officer, said the co-operative is now in a critical situation, and mill management is looking toward March, when it will decide what its next step will be."It's all contingent on the rain, and the growers have to plant the cane," Rolando said. "You have to have enough rain to encourage the growers to plant."The alternative to rain is Mexico and whether the nation that shares the Rio Grande will release water, he said.In either case, sugar mill operation for the 2014-2015 season is in question."While I remain hopeful, the company's future will depend on the availability of water, the amount of sugar cane planted, and most of all, future raw sugar prices," Rolando said in an Aug. 29 letter to employees.Last year, the mill processed 1,592,000 tons of sugar cane, producing 165,000 tons of raw sugar, he said. The price of that sugar cane averaged 32.24 cents per pound. This year, the price is 21.5 cents per pound.The current water and economic situations will prevent pay increases or bonuses for the 500 employees during peak operation, he said. The mill has 242 regular workers."We don't know if we'd mothball the plant," Rolando said, adding, "We're doing what we can to keep the mill open."One step toward keeping the sugar mill operating is an incentive plan, offering $200-$250 per acre to encourage growers to plant more sugar cane, Rolando said. About a dozen of the co-operative's 130 growers have accepted the offer.These are not loans, he said. The bonuses offset the sugar mill's costs."We need some additional acres planted," Rolando said, explaining that if the growers don't plant and harvest, the mill has nothing to process.Sugar cane文件倉is planted from about mid-August to mid-November, and then grows for about a year, he said. Cane that's planted now will be harvested next fall.The harvest season is followed by the "repair season," from March to October, when the mill's industrial grinders and other equipment are disassembled, cleaned and repaired.Tudor Uhlhorn, a member of the sugar mill Board of Directors, said the lack of water is not a natural disaster."It's a manmade disaster because Mexico won't release water," he said.Uhlhorn, who is also a city commissioner in Harlingen, said sugar cane requires an average of 60 inches of water per acre per year. The Valley's average annual rainfall is 29 inches.Growers will use about 6 inches of water per acre to irrigate the cane, he said, and will irrigate, on average, six times a year.In a worst case scenario, he said, growers will irrigate 10 times.He said he has been meeting with growers to encourage them to plant, explaining that the sugar mill must "have so many thousand tons (planted) to cover (the mill's) fixed costs."He has met with U.S. State Department officials in Washington, D.C., pleading a case to exert pressure on the Mexican government to release water, he said.Mexico is obligated under a treaty with the U.S. to release a certain amount of water over five-year cycles."Barring any pressure from the U.S. State Department," he said, "my expectation is that Mexico will not give us any more water than they absolutely have to."Nor are federal officials in the four-county area giving the water shortage the attention it really needs, he said."It's sad, but these four counties here are like the embassy staff in Benghazi," Uhlhorn said. "We're not worth worrying about."cvandini@valleystar.comCopyright: ___ (c)2013 Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, Texas) Visit Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, Texas) at .valleymorningstar.com Distributed by MCT Information Services存倉