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The story and development has a hidden gen inside in the form of a second plant that the owners wish to move from Slovenia to the Dupont site next door. That means additional construction jobs and if it is similar in size, an additional 50 full time very well-paying jobs. Seeing as this plant is expected to take only a year to get up and running, this will mean that roughly 100 jobs will be added to the tax base for Dunbar/Institute and Kanawha County. May seem small to a lot of places but that is basically half million dollar payroll every week that was not there before!
The story and development has a hidden gen inside in the form of a second plant that the owners wish to move from Slovenia to the Dupont site next door. That means additional construction jobs and if it is similar in size, an additional 50 full time very well-paying jobs. Seeing as this plant is expected to take only a year to get up and running, this will mean that roughly 100 jobs will be added to the tax base for Dunbar/Institute and Kanawha County. May seem small to a lot of places but that is basically half million dollar payroll every week that was not there before!
That would be a nice "get", that's for sure. What does the relocated plant produce?
Both of the plants produce Methanol and the company that owns them states in the article that Dupont is a major consumer of the product for them. So, it reads to me that the second plant is more of a direct dedication to Dupont and this first plant going up is going to service Dupont until the second comes online and then switch over to general sales. That was my read from the story and a few Google searches on the company.
The county had no idea this was happening until this was happening, that is nice and sad at the same time.
If you are paywalled, the summary is: WV desperately needs to diversify its industries and work to prevent brain drain, since there is very little compelling economic reason for young, educated people to stick around. Pretty sad state of affairs, since the headline of the WSJ today is: Inside the Hottest Job Market in Half a Century
It’s a great article. A bit of a hit piece on coal but in no way does that invalidate what is being said. The chemical industry losses have hit very hard too.
My biggest gripe is that there has been a total lack of vision and planning. Not trying to remake itself. Not trying to attract new things. Grow what we have. I think their mentality is that as long as Charleston is doing better than Huntington who cares. And the apathetic population has no idea what’s going on outside of the state’s borders much less this valley.
A bunch of wealthy idiots in South Hills run the town. I live there. I’m around them. I know them. As long as they are ok they don’t give a rats butt about anything else.
You hit the nail on the head John. The chemical industry decline is what really hurt the Kanawha Valley. Coal was always a part of the economy especially up towards Cabin Creek and south of town but to my recollection never really a huge player right in the immediate Charleston area. I think I read somewhere where the chemical industry once employed as many as 50k people in and around the city and many of those jobs were more white collar. I remember when Union Carbide (now Dow) laid off 2k people alone right as I went to college around 2001.
And yes there is a strong lack of vision and planning. The 'well this is just West Virginia' mentality is alive and well as if many people are fine being second or third class economically. It really comes down to poor leadership and nothing else. The mall debacle was just the latest in a million opportunities squandered. The local mindset that things like this are happening in small cities across the country is simply not true. The city/surrounding area is similar in size and many other characteristics to places like Roanoke, Virginia and Asheville, North Carolina. The other two are doing just fine while Charleston continues a slow steady decline. It's sad really and didn't have to be this way. One can only hope the remaining youth can band together and work to make great things happen- similar to the progress that has started over in Elk City. It won't be easy. Decades of poor leadership have made sure of that. So many of us are already gone and many aren't able to return but still hope for great things for Charleston.
Last edited by NOVAmtneer82; 03-02-2019 at 08:14 AM..
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