Contributed
Businesses are busier than ever according to Chuck Heustess, Bladen County Economic Director. The Elizabethtown Rotary Club listened to a presentation by Heustess on the local economy.
Smithfield in Tar Heel is the company with the most to report about according to the director’s agenda. The hog industry lawsuits and their appeals were mentioned first.
“These are a bad turn of events, but they may get turned over,” Heustess said about the lawsuits. “Legislatures are making it harder to sue using the nuisance law,” he added.
However, Smithfield is busier than ever according to Heustess. He reported asking the company about the impact of tariffs and Smithfield officials told him the tariffs had no impact on their business.
Heustess went on to report the new Smithfield Distribution Center will be 500,000 square feet of cold storage. The construction of the new center is scheduled to be completed in the fall of this year. Smithfield announced in 2017, the new center will bring about 250 new jobs to the town of Tar Heel.
Next Heustess mentioned Chemours and the latest updates with the chemicals in the water (most refer to as GenX). He said, “The chemicals have been completely taken out of the water. They are spending 100-150 million dollars for water treatment.”
Before finishing his presentation Heustess went over a few other projects in the county. There is a new company in Clarkton trying to hire about 100 people, Cape Fear Vineyard & Winery is adding on new cottages and the incubator in Elizabethtown should be open in the next few months.
Carroll’s Poultry in Bladenboro has been closed now for about two months, Heustess said. The reason he gave to the closure is the fact the company greatly underestimated how much water they would need to use when processing. The Town of Bladenboro can not supply the water capacity the company needs for processing.
There are some poultry processing businesses still interested in being in the industrial park in Bladenboro that may not need to use as much water for processing according to Heustess.
The biggest issue with economic development is finding labor according to Heustess. To overcome the labor deficiency he explained businesses are working towards making jobs more automated. However, the positive is jobs will have higher pay with the automated systems Heustess explained.
“Business is good right now,” Heustess said in closing.
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