Posted on 10/08/2014 5:06:14 AM PDT by thackney
The surge of new construction projects in the petrochemical corridor east of Houston is pumping millions into local economies and adding thousands of new jobs, but also clogging area roadways and sending companies scrambling to find enough skilled workers.
As chemical plants rush to take advantage of the cheap, abundant natural gas unleashed by the U.S. shale boom, industry and local communities like Baytown and Mont Belvieu have been forced to strike a delicate balancing act between embracing the flurry of new construction activity while maintaining good quality of life for residents.
“We have problems 99 percent of the country would love to have,” Baytown City Manager Bob Leiper said.
On Tuesday, industry executives and government officials gathered at Lee College in Baytown to discuss how the multiple expansions happening simultaneously along the Gulf Coast have created both opportunities and challenges.
“It’s a tremendous impact for our industry and communities where we operate,” said Hector Rivero, CEO of the Texas Chemical Council, an industry trade group. “But with that, there’s some major challenges afoot.”
Infrastructure has not kept pace with the rapid development. The drought, combined with population growth, has strained the state’s water supplies, Rivero said. Public education needs to be better aligned with higher education to meet industry’s workforce demands. And Texas is competing for this investment against Louisiana, which is aggressively marketing its expedited permitting and 10-year 100 percent property tax abatements, Rivero said.
“The world has gotten smaller and the competition has gotten fiercer,” he said.
The petrochemical renaissance is having ripple effects across East Harris County and West Chambers County, infusing the region with lots of new cash and ballooning local tax bases, but also straining roads and water supplies.
In industry-dependent Mont Belvieu, population 4,509, sales tax revenues nearly quadrupled in four years from $2.2 million in 2009 to $8 million thanks in large part to massive expansions on the Enterprise Products campus, including five new fractionation units in four years and recently announced plans for another.
But the construction boom has also burdened Mont Belvieu with new problems, sucking up the tiny city’s water supply and creating traffic jams, Mayor Nick Dixon said.
In Baytown, cranes dot the sky at the Exxon Mobil Corp. chemical plant where an ongoing multi-billion dollar expansion is expected to create more than 10,000 construction jobs over the coming years.
hat construction project, and the influx of thousands of welders, pipefitters and electricians who will piece together a new ethane steam cracker at the massive refining complex, will worsen the commute for Baytown drivers, Leiper said.
“Traffic is going to be bad, you heard it here first,” he said. “But we are doing things about the traffic.”
In Baytown and other Houston-area communities at the epicenter of the Gulf Coast’s petrochemical resurgence, the companies investing billions into construction projects are also chipping in funding to expand and repave roadways and hire additional police officers to offset their impact on local infrastructure.
To prepare for Chevron Phillips Chemical Co.’s multi-billion project to add a new ethane cracker, the company coordinated with Baytown on a tax increment reinvestment zone that helped fund the expansion of a two-lane asphalt road to a five-lane concrete road. That partnership helped crews finish within 13 months a road project that normally would’ve taken two years or more, said Jeremy Phillips, senior director of infrastructure for Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Jack Morman.
While these infrastructure investments benefit industry, local residents will be able to enjoy them long after the construction projects are complete, Leiper said.
“We will not have simultaneous projects with 20,000 to 25,000 construction workers again,” he said. “It’s the perfect storm, but it’s great. All these traffic improvements we’re making, and what a lot of these folks in industry will pay for, will be here when the construction workers go away.”
Growth and prosperity, jobs and tax revenue, it can be such a burden on a community....
**sending companies scrambling to find enough skilled workers**
And that is how good paying jobs happen.
A nice “problem” to have, isn’t it?
Infrastructural strain yields growth.
There is a great series on TV called Hell on Wheels. Hell on Wheels was the name of the construction camp following the westward traveling railroad construction crew.
In Wyoming there was a pause and the result of that pause was the growth of a town.... Cheyenne. Cheyenne was the direct result of infrastructural strain
And that is how good paying jobs happen.
Yes, that may be one way for good paying jobs but another way is to increase the minimum wage for unskilled workers to $15 per hour.
I know it's so, Obama said so.
And lefties & Obama supporters absolutely HATE it.
Because those folks are goin’ around actin’ like they don’t need democRats & gubmint to take care of themselves.
They actin’ like they did it on their own!
You didn’t build that!
Obama and his Marxist henchmen heading the EPA and Energy Dept. were no match for our Texas oilmen. They will find a way to make LOTS of money no matter who thinks they are in charge.
The people in Texas are used to these big boys and are happy to cash in on the ancillary jobs and profits they create. It does no good to pout about income inequality, as our CA leftist transplants soon find out.
The article is about petrochem plants using nat gas to produce polyethylene, polypropylene, etc.
As for Obama, he has been quite friendly to natural gas, as an export, as a transportation fuel, and as a fuel to produce electricity, rather than coal.
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