The U&I (Utah & Idaho) Sugar refinery was built in 1953 on 1600 acres about two miles west of Moses Lake. It was the latest (and largest) of dozens of U&I processing plants in the US. It processed 1.5 million TONS of beets in the year 1978, serving farmers growing 12,500 acres of beets in the Pacific Northwest.

About 400 employees worked around the clock in three shifts. In addition to tending his farm, Sam worked a second job at the sugar beet plant. His job entailed monitoring systems in the processing control room. The job was high-stress both because it required close concentration in extremely noisy environment but also because the shifts rotated every three weeks, which is very hard on the human body, messing up the normal circadian rhythm (sleep pattern).

On September 25, 1963, a huge sugar dust explosion ripped through the Moses Lake plant, killing seven workers and injuring seven others. Sam was among the injured. In addition to the beet processing area being reduced to rubble, five sugar storage silos, 108 feet tall each, were seen blown straight up into the air.

The plant was rebuilt, but the beet sugar industry was declining due to the lifting of tarrifs on cane sugar imports from Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Cuba. Additionally, drought plagued the farmers for years, so U&I Sugar shut the operation down in 1979 after 87 years of operations in the inter-mountain region of the Pacific Northwest. The 1977 crop paid its farmers $40 million.

Much of the beet-producing acreage lay fallow for years other than where farmers planted other crops.

In 2024, with over $600 million of funding from Microsoft, Alaska Air, TPG Rise Climate (a $7.3 billion climate impact fund) and other green-supporting entities, and bolstered by the enthusiastic support of Washington State governor Jay Inslee, a group called Twelve (for the atomic weight of carbon) constructed a green project called AirPlant™ on the site once being home to the sugar beet processing plant.

The new project produces E-Jet®, a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) produced with energy from nearby Grand Coulee Dam hydro-electric power, breaking down water (H₂O) into hydrogen and oxygen, then re-combining it with biogenic CO₂. Twelve says, "Carbon transformation uses CO₂ to displace fossil fuels as a feedstock." So, effectively this is saying, "we're sacrificing the food of plants and trees for the sake of flying jets."

The Mormon Church, with more than 50% interest in U&I, turned its focus to large-scale farming and potato crops in Washington and northern Oregon.