DESERT SUN IRRIGATION, INC.

About DESERT SUN IRRIGATION, INC.

Burbank sits where the Snake River gives itself up to the Columbia, near the Wallula Gap that funnels wind hard enough to have built wind farms on the bluffs above it, and the same wind that dries this country out every summer turns brutal the moment a winter cold snap moves through. The crew spends its warm months running irrigation lines through the orchards and vineyards out here; in a hard freeze, that same knowledge of every farm road and pivot lane pays off, because they know exactly which lanes ice first where irrigation water lingers on the gravel. They clear those farm access roads and yard driveways before dawn, while the geese are still stacked up thick over the McNary refuge just down the road. The desert cold here is dry and sharp rather than wet and heavy, and it can freeze standing water solid overnight. By the time the sun clears the bluffs, the lanes are open and the day's farm work can start.