OMAK — The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development awarded the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation a $16.5 million grant for a new meat processing manufacturing facility in Omak, according to a release.
Chairman of the Colville Business Council, Jarred Michael Erickson, said in an interview the processing facility will be around 28,000 square feet and be a home for cultural education on traditional foods of the Colville Tribes.
The Colville Tribes’ current meat processing facility is adjacent to Saint Mary’s Mission Church on 25 Mission Road in Omak and is around 1,500 square feet.
Erickson said the Colville Tribes hadn’t decided on a location for the new meat processing facility, but it could be somewhere close to the old one on Mission Road. He also said the tribes hoped to complete the facility by the end of 2026.
The new center will have a classroom for cultural education to show younger generations how to prepare and preserve traditional foods or “first foods” in traditional ways, such as fish, elk, deer, moose, and bison, he said. The facility will also incorporate new and modern processing units for cold storage, freezing, drying, smoking, filleting, packaging, and canning. Erickson said first foods are foods that are native to the land of the Colville Tribes before settlement.
“It’s going to be great for our membership and the educational component, and for things that are being lost that our elders and membership can help pass down for our younger generation. It’s going to be huge, I think, just them being able to get that traditional knowledge,” he said.
The new facility likely will process around 200,000 pounds of meat a year, according to the release on June 11. Erickson said much of that meat will go to elderly members who can’t hunt for themselves anymore and to schools on the reservation.
“We’re really thankful to the USDA for awarding us this grant,” he said. “It’s huge for our needs, for our membership, and we’re really excited to construct the facility.”
The $16.5 million grant is part of a $42 million package to eight different Tribal Nations through the Indigenous Animals Harvesting and Meat Processing Grant Program. The Colville Tribes were awarded the largest grant, according to Philip Eggman, public information officer for the USDA Rural Development of Washington state.
USDA Rural Development of Washington director, Helen Price Johnson, said the Indigenous Animals Harvesting and Meat Processing grant program is used to strengthen food sovereignty and eligible projects include either equipment, facility construction, or renovations.
“This program was born from the needs that were laid bare during the pandemic and how insecure our food systems were, and a particular vulnerability were our tribal food systems,” Price Johnson said. “So this particular program was part of the Build Back Better initiative to support those tribal nations to meet their nutritional needs, as well to strengthen their food security for their members.”
Price Johnson said it is also important to strengthen food systems in tribal and rural communities in case supply chain networks are disrupted.
“What’s particularly important about it I think in relationship with tribes is — food is culture,” Price Johnson said. “And so where we can support the harvesting and processing and availability of Indigenous protein sources… then it is also helping advance their cultural heritage and their sovereignty as a tribal nation.”
On Tuesday, the Colville Tribes announced the purchase of an 11-acre property at 7448 Stine Hill Road in Cashmere.
The news release stated there were no plans for the property, but it has “potential” to serve the Wenatchi tribal people and could become a spot for salmon fishing.
“The Colville Tribes is always excited to restore to our people ownership of lands their ancestors walked,” Erickson said. “Today we were able to reclaim a piece of the ancestral Wenatchi grounds. We hope that the Wenatchi will enjoy this land for many generations to come, and we will continue to restore all of our confederated tribes to their homelands.”
The Colville Tribes bought the property for $970,000 from”JK 2” according to the Chelan County Assessor’s website.
