Iowa

Meet Our Members - Colfax Tractor Parts

Recently I took a trip down a gravel road in tiny Colfax, Iowa to visit with Jeff Bucklin of Colfax Tractor Parts. They own 100 acres full of nearly every type Jeff Bucklin 17 May 2024 of used agriculture equipment out there. The founder of the business, Bennie Bucklin (79) still puts in a full week of work helping identify where various tractors, combines, planters, skid loaders are located. Now, get this: They ship these tractor and construction parts all over the globe. It's a big deal. In addition they also buy "gently used" vehicles, detail 'em and sell those as well. Come along for a great family story we think you'll enjoy. 

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Natural Disasters, Oil Spills and Community Effort

Over the past month a number of our NTPDA members have had to deal with weather related disasters. In Iowa there has been a rash of flooding and then in Rock Valley there was a major oil spill.  Rock Valley is the home base of our President Scott Schelling. We sent an email to Rock Valley Flood 2018 Scott to check up on him. We thought his answer mirrored so many of our members and their communities that we're sharing it with you:

"Sorry for the delay in responding.  I have been out for over a week for various reasons including sandbagging and flood relief.  We are getting back to normal, the river is back in its banks but we still seem to get rain every couple days so it doesn’t go down much.  We set an all time record back in 2014 when the river got to 22.7 feet over floodstage.  This year we topped out at 21.5.  We were more prepared this time and we knew where and what to do so things went a little smoother, but ultimately we still got our butts kicked by the river.  We were able to avoid the major property damage with the work we did and most people just had to empty their basements Rock Valley Flood 2018 Twoand pump water.(they still are pumping water)  We took some steps after 2014 to prevent that same event in the future, we built a permanent berm on the north end of town to keep the river out and bought a couple huge pumps to pump out our storm sewers.  When the river is in flood stage it is higher than our storm sewers and cant run away so we have to pump it out.  And that takes a HUGE pump to keep up when you keep getting rain and everyone is pumping water out of their basements.  We also made some changes to make the river flow away better so it don’t dam up as high.  All the steps we took helped, but we still can do more.  I’m sure we will have more ideas to help for future events. 

 

The oil spill was just 6-7 miles upriver from us and I understand it was the worst oil spill in the US in the last 5 years.  The last number I Rock Valley Oil Spill heard was 230K gallons spilled, and as of last Thurs, only about 100k of that was recovered.  We could see oil in the river and of course it puddled up along the banks in the quiet water.  You could smell oil all thru town on Thursday and Friday.  We had to shut down the city wells to try to keep oil from getting into them.  The DNR has been out and testing dirt in places as the river recedes to see how bad the contamination was.  They have cleared the soccer fields and ball fields to be played on, they say the contamination was minimal in those areas.  The cleanup crew that BNSF brought in was excellent, they went right to work with cleanup and repair and last Thurs the trains were running again down those tracks.  We will see how long before they are finished with oil cleanup, but they don’t stand around, those people are here to work. 

 

The silver lining of it all is the way the communities come together to fight back against the water and how they come out to help others that are in need.  We again had several thousand volunteers from the surrounding towns come to us and help, and they still are coming to help people they don’t even know with cleanup.  This is the reason I love to live here, we don’t just throw up our hands and cry about it and quit, we show up any time of day, and help out people we might not know, and we stand shoulder to shoulder in chest deep water throwing sandbags all night, and we pick each other up when things seem like they are hopeless.  It is a beautiful thing to witness, and it keeps you going even after no sleep, or when your muscles don’t want to go anymore.  I love my town!!"

Scott Schelling - Rock Valley Tractor Parts


Rock Valley Tractor Parts

Rock Valley Tractor PartsNational Tractor Parts Dealer Association member spotlight this week showcases long time member Rock Valley Tractor Parts

Rock Valley Tractor Parts has been in business since 1938 and has a large, centrally located facility in Rock Valley, IA.  They sell Used, Rebuilt and New tractor parts to farmers, ranchers, restorers, dealers, and other salvage yards.  They are proud of the reputation they have built in the 70+ years of doing business by working with many reputable vendors to give their customers the best quality parts at the lowest possible price.

Their entire inventory of over 150,000 part numbers is on the computer and they are ready to ship.  That means there are over 5,000,000 parts cataloged and inspected so when customers call they can ship the part the same day it is ordered.  They don’t have to go pull it off the tractor and hope it is good, and that saves customers money and downtime.  For orders over $1,000 they will include a free RVTP T-shirt as well.

To learn more about Rock Valley Tractor Parts visit their website at http://www.rvtractorparts.com/.  


Flooding in Iowa

We reached out to our NTPDA member, Scott Schelling of Rock Valley Map_of_rock_valley_iaTractor Parts for an update on the flooding that Iowa community has faced. Many of you know we have several members there.  Here is what Scott told us:

"We had about 6 feet of water in our boneyard, including some old buildings that we store hoods and glass in, but it looks like after the water went away it didn’t ruin anything, it just made a  big mess.  We also have a steel frame building that had 2 inches of water in it for about 6 hours on Tues nite right at the peak of the flood.  It also didn’t do much damage.  The most important part is that my house and main buildings were all spared.  If the river had gone about 4-6 inches higher, it would have gotten in to our main buildings and probably my basement in my house.  The previous record for the Rock river was 19-1/2 feet, and last Weds morning it crested at over 23 feet.  It just went so much higher than any time before that it took many of us by surprise, we just didn’t expect it to go that high.  VH Mfg is very high and dry, they are in a higher part of town, but Brian Kooima had a very close call with his house.  The river was literally across the street from him and he was probably within a couple inches of having a flooded basement.   A&I is also in good shape, they are dry."

We were also able to pick up this video from a crew in the area.  It gives you a better idea to what our friends in Iowa have been experiencing.

 

In times like this...it's great to have friends.  Here's hoping everybody dries out soon.