REBUILDING A THIRD OF AN ELEVATOR
The Central Valley Ag (CVA) rail terminal that operates in Hinton, IA (712-947-4212) does so with higher storage, receiving, and drying capacities than it did before a March 2016 explosion that heavily damaged a portion of the facility.
The Hinton facility stretches north and south along a Union Pacific/BNSF main line in the middle of town. The blast, which injured two employees, damaged the “No. 1 house,” or the central portion of the elevator, including 180,000 bushels worth of concrete storage and a 15,000-bph leg.
“We looked at rebuilding that portion of the facility, but the cost- effectiveness wasn’t there,” says Grain Operations Manager Stanley Kallhoff, who moved to the Hinton location shortly before the explosion from a CVA elevator in Elgin, NE. “We tore down that portion of the elevator and built new storage and equipment, and in the process, we gained 450,000 bushels of new storage.”