date:Oct 30, 2012
tors.
Washington's sugar beet decline started when Utah Idaho Sugar Co. closed the only two refineries in the state in 1979, one in Toppenish and the other in Moses Lake. Attempts to resurrect the industry in the 1990s failed, with Pacific Northwest Sugar Co. of Moses Lake closing its doors in 2002, according to Herald archives.
Sugar beets once covered about 95,000 acres in the Columbia Basin, according to Herald archives.
Washington had only 2,076 acres of sugar beets in recent years, all