In 1996, the Oregon Coast was hit with one of the worst floods in decades, and I lost over 100 of my 175 Holstein and Jersey milkers. It was a terrible day for our farm and our business. The water inundated our land and didn't recede for a long period of time, in part because of old tidegates.
Leo and the folks from Nehalem Marine Manufacturing built a spillway a few miles from our land, and now they're manufacturing a new tidegate that could be installed on my land as early as this fall. The spillway helps ensure that flood water leaves our land as quickly as possible. The new tidegate will be higher than the old one, which will help to prevent catastrophic damage from flooding in the future, and it's new design will also allow for better fish passage.
Some people think that having fish-friendly tidegates means you can't protect farmland from flooding. But Leo's tidegates do both, and he's been building these tidegates up and down the Oregon coast for years.
I never want to experience another flood like the one we had in '96, but I'm confident that my farm is better protected today than it was back then thanks to Nehalem Marine Manufacturing's work.
-Steve Neahring, Owner, Neahring Family Farm