Planning urged to prepare for La.’s chemical boom

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Planning urged to prepare for La.’s chemical boom
TIMOTHY BOONE
tboone@theadvocate.com

With nearly $84 billion in petrochemical plant construction projects and thousands of workers in the pipeline for Louisiana over the next few years, officials say it is time to start planning how to handle the impending boom.

“We better get ready,” said Boo Thomas, president and CEO of the Center for Planning Excellence . “We have thousands of new workers coming. Where are they going to live? Where are they going to get their McDonald’s? Where are they going to get their healthy food?” she said during a panel discussion Wednesday at the 2013 Louisiana Smart Growth Summit in the Shaw Center for the Arts.

Dan Borné, president of the Louisiana Chemical Association, described it as one of the “great tsunamis of investment” to happen in U.S. history.

An ample supply of cheap natural gas has triggered the boom, with most of the activity centered between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and around Lake Charles.

Susana Schowen, a workforce initiatives manager for the Louisiana economic development department, said the state will need an estimated 130,000 workers by 2020 to build all of the new industrial projects on the horizon. It won’t be just craft workers such as welders and carpenters. Engineers, managers, accountants and support staff will also be needed, she said.

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