The Navajo County Board of Supervisors approved the receipt of $104,265 in grant money last week for assistance in economic development for coal communities in the county.
The Navajo County Economic Development team applied for the grant from the U.S Department of Commerce. “From Alaska to Mexico, there was only $700,000 available,” said Assistant County Manager Paul Watson. He explained the county’s intentions with the money in his presentation, beginning with a study to identify needs to be done by a consulting firm, Highland Economics, with experience in the area.
“First,” he said, “an economic update on the adverse impacts of the coal industry in our area will be done. We know we have three coal plants and coal mining and other coal related industry.”
The next step, according to Watson, is to identify compatible industry, “so that we can do more targeted marketing when trying to attract additional industry to the area and as a part of that, we want to work with existing coal plants to identify resources they have available. For example, at Cholla (Power Plant in Joseph City) we know they have excess land. We think that land could be developed and utilized for compatible industries.”
The next step of the project, Watson said, will be to identify infrastructure needs that will provide direction for future applications for assistance. “We know that broadband issues in this region are significant. We also learned that natural gas in the area is insufficient. Those are a couple of things that we will work to identify and make improvements on,” he explained.
Phase two of the project includes development of marketing and funding plans to attract industry to the area, and to begin building a workforce pipeline to operate said industry. “The grant allows us until 2019 to spend the money,” Assistant Economic Development Director Stephanie Ray said, “but we are going to move a little more quickly than that. We do have a kickoff meeting planned for November.”
She went on to say that the consulting group would perform its study from December through February, with a final draft report due in April 2018. “Once they have that draft report done, we can start working on phase two, the hope being that by May or June we have phase two ready to go and are ready to move to the next stages of implementation,” said Ray.
District III Supervisor Jason Whiting said, “This is kind of a big deal. It isn’t just noise, it is a step in the right direction. There are a lot of people in Navajo County that are worried right now. This is showing that leadership is hearing that, and looking for a solution and ways forward. I would like to see you come back and give updates as you continue down this path.”
