Crane business

On Thursday, the Lowndes County port received a new crane.

Luke >> now in good evening everyone business is rolling on the river this after the lowndes county port authority'sauthority's needs needs document the mississippi department of transportation awarded only 800 only $800,000 for the work to purchase a new crazy are some people as more and how it impact future business and she joins us now live in the studio with more stephanie that's right joey exporting and importing flats can take some time now those in thessalonica, the waterway allowed and allowed her paingrar materials from barges just got a little quicker.

On thursday, the lowndes county port received a new crane.

" whether you're on the canal or whether you're on the highways or sitting at a port facility, time is money."

John caldwell is commissioner of transportation of the northern district.

He says cost of production will be lower.

"when you can bring in a piece of equipment like this that can speed that time up everyone is going to win on that."

Butt sots " we have only a certain amount of time to get these barges unloaded until they start charging us to merge where the boat is sitting and that's very expensive.

With this here it's made us get it out in a real timely fashion."

Port manager eddie rushing says the crane cost a little over a million dollars.

739-thousand dollar grant is being awarded by mdot.

The port is covering the remaining balance.

Port and waterways director robby burt believes it'll bring more economic opportunities to the area.

"water is the most efficient and safest way to actually move products and it lends itself to larger bought materials like they handle typically at this port.

It's going to continue to grow.

Traffic on the tennessee-tom river is going to grow."

And with a newer model, the time it took to finish a job is cut in half.

"we went from about seven hours of 15-hundred ton barges to about four hours.

We've cut off about 3 hours of time worth unloading so that makes us more efficient.

It makes us more attractive to way we can bid jobs a little cheaper and actually be more competitive with the other parts of the margin bringing materials in."

Port officials say the process of off loading materials will gradually progress as the equipment is used.

Top three national security projects at general atomics are helping create 125 new jobs in shannon.

The company is investing more than 39 million dollars in this expansion.

One hundred thousand square feet of specialized manufacturing space will be added to the lee county facility.

General atomics supports projects for the u.s. department of defense.

This is the company's 12th expansion in 15 years at the site.

Currently, there are three hundred employees work at the plant.

The new jobs will be filled by 2025.

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