quote:
Originally posted by CowboyNick:
Whenever you live in Lawrence County, you can have a say in Lawrence County economics. Until then...
My parents met at International Paper, where they both worked at the time. I grew up in a middle class family because of International Paper. The paper mill has given my family so much. The mill put me through college, helping my dad to pay for my B.S. degree. It also bought me a couple of vehicles when I was younger, not to mention put a roof over my head and provided me with so much more.
Does a plant producing 1500 jobs make an enormous difference? Ask the people that work at the Chevron in Courtland. Ask the truck drivers at the facility across from the mill. How about the 500+ contractors who work at the mill everyday and aren't included in the total job count of the mill. What about the grocery stores open nearby that many of these individuals buy their groceries from?
I guess you could say that I owe everything to International Paper. Does one industry make a difference? You bet it does. TVA's shoreline development policy is screwing a lot of people over. TVA has become a tyrannical dictatorship.
Well, CowBoy, you sure do read Mr. Goen's stuff with a closed mind, don't you? By that, I mean it is obvious that you question none of his "facts" or premises. Has it occurred to you that when an alleged journalist uses the term "reportedly" without further detail or qualification, and without even a generalized attribution (e.g. "Sources close to...."), such "journalist" is asking you to believe something that he has in no way given credibility to? SO the big un-named steel company "reportedly" backed off the Lawrence County site upon learning no more than that TVA "began considering changing its shoreline development policy to forbid certain developments."?? Don't count on that conclusion without more than a vague "reportedly" to back it up.
Goens continues his predictably pro-development diatribe by asking, "Was TVA's new policy right, at least as it applies to this situation?" Well, Goens could have found an answer to that if he had actually read and correctly understood the policy. The only actual prohibitions in the policy are those against commercial and residential development, and decidedly NOT against INDUSTRIAL development! The policy expressly retains the opportunity for industrial development on TVA reservoir lands. From the policy--verbatim:
"The TVA Board recognizes that property with water access, for either navigation or water supply, is a limited resource in the Valley and has preference for businesses that require water access. Future reservoir land management plans will consider industrial development opportunities as land allocations are made. TVA shall consider disposing of non-waterfront reservoir properties in industrial parks for any purpose permitted by the industrial park covenants. TVA shall not allocate lands or landrights for retail use or dispose of reservoir land or landrights for such use."
THAT proviso essentially negates the already bogus concerns that Goens alleges in the skein of questions at the end of his column.
Goens needs to read the policy and get his facts straight. But he is so hell-bent-for -leather the perpetual pliant shill of developmental interests, that he might not even care to do that, since it could taint his tunnel-visioned view of things.
By the way, it is not even certain that the land at issue is actually "TVA Reservoir Land," which is the only land to which the new TVA policy applies. If that indeed is the case (and your humble correspondent is researching the matter), then it will be interesting indeed to find who was the source of the information "reportedly" provided to Goens, and how such a source could have applied a TVA land policy to land that is not even within the realm of the policy itself! We shall see.
Meanwhile, for those who blindly continue to believe that TVA has shut the door to industrial development, take a look at the map and list of industrial sites in Lawrence County that are currently being promoted by TVA on the agency's own web pages. Site number 7 is of particular interest, since it seems to have all the features necessary for the kind of big-time steel operation Goens is hairshirting about.
http://www.tvasites.com/ed.asp?cmd=findsites&maxx=36945...®ion=&x=194&y=171 Now, what say you, CowBoy? Is this kind of industrial promotion the work of a "tyrannical dictatorship?"
