A french-fry boomtown emerges as a climate winner — as long as it has water

By Eli Tan August 21, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT The Washington Post

Potatoes at the farm of Adam Weber and Deven Johnson in Quincy, Wash. As climate change has affected other parts the United States, the Columbia Basin has become the most productive U.S. potato region. (Rajah Bose for The Washington Post)

Climate change has helped a small town become the world capital of french-fry production. But a dwindling water supply could reverse its progress entirely.

OTHELLO, Wash. — From miles away, you can smell this 8,700-person hamlet on the high plains of central Washington. To locals, it smells like home. To anyone else, it’s the smell of french fries.

Othello produces more frozen french fries, hash browns and tater tots than anywhere else in the world — 1.5 billion pounds a year, or 15 percent of North American production. Every 10 minutes for roughly 10 hours a day, a truck carries more than 60,000 pounds of potatoes into town.

Over the next two decades, Othello is positioned to produce even more. The town is abundant with renewable energy and sufficiently far north for its surrounding potato farms to flourish as the Earth grows hotter. Potato processors are betting hundreds of millions of dollars that Othello will be a haven from climate change.

“Yes, we’re a boomtown,” said Othello Mayor Shawn Logan.

But rapid investment has brought rapid growth, and now — like many places across the American West — Othello is running out of water. Unless local officials can come up with $400 million to pipe water from Columbia River canals to the north, the region’s wells could run dry in as few as five years.

Population growth and climate change pose significant challenges for water management across the country. Only 2.5 percent of the planet’s water is freshwater, much of which resides in underground aquifers — half of which will be depleted in the next 40 years, according to Colorado State University research.

In Othello, the water shortage threatens “the livelihoods of farmers and the continued existence of multiple communities in eastern and central Washington,” said Sara Higgins, executive director of the Columbia Basin Development League, the group tasked with funding the expansion.

“But this isn’t just about them,” Higgins said. “This is about an entire country’s food security.” (Visit The Washington Post for the full article)