From Wheat Life 12/09... "At a meeting of the US Wheat Associates board of directors in Snowbird, Utah, Nat Webb, a Washington Grain Commission representative from Walla Walla, updated the group on a planned Snake and Columbia River barge system outage from December 2010 to April 2011. The river closure is occurring to allow seven of the eight dams on the system to undergo much needed lock repair. Webb, who is among the thousands of farmers who depend on the river system to get their crop to market said customers need to be ensured of getting the wheat they need while farmers need to be protected against price gouging by rail providers. Webb introduced a motion at the meeting directing USW staff to study the effect of the river closure on red and white wheat exports. The motion passed unamimously."