Dirt Hugger’s 13-acre commercial compost facility located at 111 East Rockland Road in Dallesport. Established by Pierce Louis and Tyler Miller in 2010, Dirt Hugger produces 60,000 tons of compost per year, reducing methane emissions from landfills and improving regional soil health.
A front-loader moves compost at Dirt Hugger's facility from the aeration pad, which keeps material around 135°F to encourage microbial activity, to the curing stage where it gets turned before another round of screening. From start to finish, the process takes about 45 days.
Dirt Huggers’ new electric screener, which filters out large and unwanted materials like dog toys or plastic. Pierce Louis and Tyler Miller plan to gradual electrify all of their heavy machinery to become more sustainable.
Dirt Hugger’s 13-acre commercial compost facility located at 111 East Rockland Road in Dallesport. Established by Pierce Louis and Tyler Miller in 2010, Dirt Hugger produces 60,000 tons of compost per year, reducing methane emissions from landfills and improving regional soil health.
DALLESPORT — Around 14 years ago, Pierce Louis and Tyler Miller ate lunch in their makeshift trailer office parked behind Miller’s house. After working together at Cloud Cap Technology, an unmanned aircraft manufacturer, the pair had just begun a much less glamorous, but more fulfilling venture: Cultivating nutrient-rich, organic dirt.
“I was in shock. I was just panicked. Normally, I’m a pretty chatty and talkative, but that lunch I couldn’t say anything because I was freaking out,” said Louis, already worried about their financials, uncerain whther they could pull it off. “We’re on the line — we’re on the hook.”
With no prior experience, Louis and Miller co-founded Dirt Hugger, a now 13-acre commercial composting facility in Dallesport and retail space in The Dalles. Dirt Hugger produces 60,000 tons of compost annually with their 30-person team, recycling organic waste from Hood River, Vancouver, orchards, breweries and more. Friends for 20 years, Louis and Miller saw an opportunity and pounced on it, hoping to benefit local sustainability rather than working with military and defense contractors.
The impetus was a 2010 report released by the Tri-Counties Hazardous Waste and Recycling Program, which found Hood River, Wasco, Sherman, Skamania and Klickitat counties generate 210,000 tons of organic waste annually, with few cost-effective processing options. Most of that waste ends up in landfills where it releases methane while decomposing, a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
“It permeates everything that we do,” said Louis. “Our mission is driving forward sustainably and trying to minimize our environmental impact, and to create a net positive impact of being here.”
But achieving that goal hasn’t been a smooth journey. For one, large-scale composting requires a lot of expensive machinery: Trucks to haul waste, front-loaders and screeners to process compost, an aeration pad to keep compost at the perfect temperature, among other things. When Louis and Miller relocated to their Dallesport facility in 2014, they relied on bank loans, state grants, a public kickstarter campaign and incurred substantial debt to keep going, but a new site also meant new permits.
A front-loader moves compost at Dirt Hugger's facility from the aeration pad, which keeps material around 135°F to encourage microbial activity, to the curing stage where it gets turned before another round of screening. From start to finish, the process takes about 45 days.
Nathan Wilson photo
“We always joked coming from aerospace to composting that it was easier to fly a drone than it is to cite a compost facility,” said Louis. “I’ve had one of the most emotionally challenging times of my life getting one of our expansion permits.”
Feeling the financial pressure and realizing they didn’t meet their original goal of establishing 10 separate facilities a decade after starting, Louis and Miller decided to sell Dirt Hugger to Atlas Organics in June 2022. A nationwide company with nine sites, Atlas had the capital to keep Dirt Hugger afloat, and they aligned philosophically.
Six months after their deal, however, the two founders of Atlas left. Louis and Miller also spent a lot of time away from home, helping manage facilities in California, Texas and Florida, which wasn’t ideal for either of them.
“We missed being more involved locally and in the community, and we were traveling a lot. I remember one of my kids being like, ‘You’re never here,’” said Louis. “That was painful. I couldn’t have that be the narrative of their childhood.”
Louis and Miller bought Dirt Huggers back in September 2023, and they’ve “really dug back in” since, Louis said. According to Project Drawdown, a group of scientists that evaluates climate solutions, reducing our food waste globally is the most effective way to prevent global warming higher than 2°C by 2100.
Dirt Huggers’ new electric screener, which filters out large and unwanted materials like dog toys or plastic. Pierce Louis and Tyler Miller plan to gradual electrify all of their heavy machinery to become more sustainable.
Nathan Wilson photo
In selling compost to farms, vineyards, orchards, landscapers and construction companies throughout the Gorge, Dirt Hugger is also bolstering the region’s soil health, which Louis said generally contains less than 5% organic material. Making those impacts, and getting to this point, has required a strong circle of support.
“Tyler is the hardest working person I’ve ever known, which is incredible as a business partner,” said Louis. “He’s multi-hyphenate: A hyper-motivated, hyper-talented and driven person.” For Dirt Hugger’s kickstarter campaign, their neighbors collectively donated $55,000, and Louis credits several other mentors for getting their operation off the ground, including David Skakel, who works in rural electrification.
Recently securing a deal to process Portland’s organic waste, and a $500,000 grant to expand their facility, Dirt Hugger's future looks bright. With solar panels powering and the heat generated from compost already warming their office space, Louis and Miller plan to gradually electrify their equipment and make every truck trip count to further minimize their environmental impact.
True to his determined, ecological attitude, Louis hopes to see our waste stream get smaller and smaller. “It’s bananas that we don’t have food waste composting in every home, at every business,” said Louis.
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