Portland Harbor: Behind the Scenes at Columbia Grain

The Port of Portland series Portland Harbor Behind the Scenes has proven incredibly popular with neighbors. According to event creator Brooke Berglund, Community Affairs Tour and Outreach Manager, the series is meant to demystify the port by providing the public with a series of lectures and tours of port facilities and partner businesses [that are normally closed to the public]. Topics include port history, an overview of how containers move through the port, the environmental efforts of the port and its business partners and, most recently, grain.

On Wednesday, 25 lucky neighbors (there were 39 more on the waiting list!) seized the opportunity to visit the largest wheat export hub in the United States and tour the Columbia Grain facility, which was recently featured on Modern Marvels.

Columbia Grain handles about 15% of the wheat grown in the US, moving from the plain states to its facility at the port where it is loaded onto ships for export around the world. Last year, Columbia moved about $1 billion dollars of wheat. Columbia also handles corn, soybeans, feed barley, lentils, and more.

The facility runs 24 hours a day, approximately 250 days a year. Trains, 330 cars long, arrive at the facility. The cars are offloaded into a high speed cleaner where non-millable material—such as straw or the occasional wallet or cell phone—are removed. While being offloaded samples are continually taken and transported through pipes to the government and Columbia's onsite test facilities where the grain is tested for protein content, impurities etc. The grain is then stored in the huge cement grain elevators until it is loaded onto ships.

The whole process is highly automated and very interesting. It also involves lots of big, heavy equipment which makes for great photos.

The Behind the Harbor Scenes series continues. if you have the time, make the effort to attend a one or two. You won't look at the port the same way again.

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