It's Recovery-Act-in-Action time again, and this time the action takes place at the Port of Albany, where an upgrade to an old wharf is creating new jobs today and new, global commerce tomorrow.
Improving the nation's infrastructure is a key purpose of the Recovery Act, and the dollars devoted to these improvements are multitasking. Most urgently, they're providing people with jobs, in this case, workers from one of the hardest hit sectors in the job market: construction.
Upgrading this old wharf -- a project made possible by a $5 million Recovery Act grant -- will create 60 construction jobs for the life of the project. Better yet, even once the project is complete it will support 50 permanent new, private-sector jobs handling the new business that the upgrade to the wharf will generate. The port itself supports more than 4,500 jobs across the state from operators and maintenance people, to railroad and trucking workers and merchandise vendors.
But to understand the far-reaching potential of an investment like this, you have to examine the motivation for improving the wharf. On this point, I spoke to Jay Ryan, the general manager of the contracting firm that's doing the work: CD Perry and Sons, Inc.
"The reason to expand the port is to get a lot more cargo right out to sea," Ryan told me.
Once this project is done, the port will be able to handle the "heavy-lift" cargo that's so important to kicking up the long-term level of economy activity, and the jobs, that the port can support.
Ryan particularly emphasized huge windmill components -- generators and turbines -- built by GE's plant in Schenectady, NY. They load these components onto rail at the factory, and head for the refurbished port, where a massive, heavy-lift crane will be able to load them onto three ships at the same time (the new rail siding's on-load and off-load capacity is "really the key to the advantage of this new wharf," according to Ryan).
Now we're talking. Here's a project that's creating jobs today to put some construction workers back on the job in the short term, but will, in the longer term, provide a key link in the economy's supply chain. Once the port's capacity is upgraded to move these large components, this critical, clean-energy technology can not only move throughout our nation's waterways, but can be shipped into export markets as well.
That means more jobs for American workers.
The Albany wharf project is but a microcosm--but it's one that shows the scope of the Recovery Act in action, creating good jobs today and great opportunities tomorrow.