HARPTREE, Sask. – Twenty kilometres from the end of a rail line, an elevator is felled and a community wounded.
Built in 1982, the last United Grain Growers elevator within 80 kilometres of this south-central Saskatchewan community was knocked to the ground and burned last week after being closed last December.
Local farmers now face a 25 km haul to the nearest elevator but the community says that is only a small part of the loss.
“This isn’t the loss of an old elevator. It is the loss of a new elevator and the only one for miles. It’s the biggest waste of our money I’ve ever seen,” said local farmer and former local UGG board member Neil Buckler.
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Population zero
Facing the northern edge of the Big Muddy Badlands, Harptree, once removed from the province’s grid road map, then after lobbying reinstated last year, has a population of zero – down from “a handful.” But local farmers point out you don’t need a town to have an elevator.
Built to replace aging 1920s grain facilities, the 120,000 bushel elevator was nurtured by local farmers through lobbying the company, CP Rail and the federal government.
“It was a major mistake to build there in the first place. It was never very busy,” said Art Klassen, of UGG. “It is the newest elevator I’ve ever had anything to do with demolishing.”
The facility was blessed with all that a modern wooden elevator could ask for: a fast leg, 120,000 bushels of storage, a modern office, a grain cleaner, a 23-metre scale for semi-tractor trailers, a farm supplies shed and loyal producers.
Leaning against the dusty box of an older pick-up truck, anger and disappointment well up in the voices of farmers as they discuss the loss of the partly demolished elevator about 100 metres away.
“We offered to buy the elevator. We could have used it as a trucking point or for loading producer cars. UGG told us there was no way they would sell it to us. To another grain company yes, but to the people whose money built it, forget it,” said Doyle Kemp, local producer and former board member.
Klassen said UGG, like the other grain companies, will not sell elevators to farmers because the land is leased from the rail company and UGG doesn’t want to be stuck with a clean-up bill if the elevator is abandoned.
The elevator once handled about one million bushels a year.
CP Rail upgraded the rail line during the past decade and it is not listed for future abandonment, say locals, who feel the elevator should be open as long as a rail line is available.
Grain shipping costs will rise
Buckler is now left with the decision of how to transport his grain.
“We’ll either have to pay to have it custom hauled or buy a tandem. Neither choice is cheap … not to mention the cost of more grain bins,” he said.
Leo Campbell, a farmer and former board member said: “I’d like to get that big UGG sign down off there (from the elevator) and take it up the cemetery and plant it… there’s not a UGG share left in the district and you know, I don’t think they care one bit.”
