Featured Employee - Dick Nunamaker (continued)
Nunamaker started with the port in the winter of 1984 as a temporary employee and became a permanent employee in the summer of 1985.
He was here for the construction of Riverfront Center, which is now home to the port’s administrative offices, meeting rooms and other office space. Nunamaker also saw the port’s industrial capacity increase from a handful of food processors to the region’s industrial and transportation hub that it is today.
Even with the significant amount of growth, he said the port has maintained a personal relationship with its employees in comparison to other organizations.
“There were about a half-dozen employees with the Port of Morrow when I started,” Nunamaker said. Now there are 43 Port of Morrow employees.
“I like working with the people,” Nunamaker said. “I’m part of a team and I’m not the only one doing this.”
In Nunamaker’s job, he is one of a few port employees responsible for getting water to port businesses, which varies from four to five million gallons of fresh potable water per day. He also works on handling waste water from those businesses.
“My job is making sure they get the water pressure and flows and the required quality and quantity of water to run the plants,” Nunamaker said.
When Nunamaker started work here, he was told if processors lost production because of water, the plants would lose tens of thousands of dollars per hour.
As part of his job, Nunamaker also holds several state certifications, which help him ensure that water meets the state’s drinking water standards among other specifications. Facilities like Portland General Electric’s Coyote Springs natural-gas fired cogeneration power plant need high-quality water for their boilers. Water has to be delivered to most port facilities 24 hours per day, every single day, with the exception of outages when plants go down for scheduled maintenance and some on holidays.
The port is also responsible for disposing of wastewater from plants like ConAgra-Lamb Weston, Oregon Potato, Tillamook’s Columbia River Processing and others. Nunamaker said wastewater is fed into settling ponds via gravity flow. After 30 days of detention time, the water can be used by area irrigators.
Nunamaker said the water has to be applied judiciously and the water must be monitored because of strict standards and the potential for crop damage if the nutrient content is too high.
Nunamaker’s job also requires him to help locate water and sewer lines when there is digging in the port area.
Infrastructure Improvements (continued)
The port installed an access road for the ConAgra expansion and new rail crossings for the road in mid-December 2013 along Industrial Way. As a result of the new rail crossings, a new rail switch was installed. The switch serves Boardman Foods and Collins Products Upper Columbia Mill. The remainder of the project will be Columbia Avenue improvements.
This spring the road will be resurfaced and an extra lane added to improve the flow of traffic going in and out of the port as well as the expanded ConAgra plant.
Port Commission Notebook
Jan. 14 Regular Commission meeting:
•Officer Election:
oDon Russell –President
oJoe Taylor – Vice President
oLarry Lindsay – Secretary/Treasurer
oAll officers were elected unanimously.
•Commissioners unanimously approved transferring an aggregate-site lease from Roger Britt to Mike Duncan. The gravel pit is located in Heppner at the port’s Kinzua property.
•Commissioners unanimously approved the purchase of about 17 acres of land from Alan Cleaver. The land is located adjacent to the west side of Columbia River Processing’s property. The outright purchase of the land costs $27,500 per acre bringing the total price to about $467,500.
•Gary Neal was appointed budget officer and the proposed budget schedule was approved unanimously.