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Section 9, Pago 6	Sunday. January 25. 19X1_Hie Times-.'icayunc
$450 million ammo plant going up in Miss.
county
—Staff photo by Lionel Cottier
The $450 million large projectile metal parts building at Mississippi Army Ammunitions plant is more than 80 percent complete
By LARRY CIKO Staff writer
BAY ST. LOUIS. Miss — Projects totaling more than $500 million are under construction in Hancock County.
The largest, costing an estimated $450 million, is being financed by public money in the form of the Mississippi Army Ammunition Plant going up at the sprawling National Space Technology Laboratories.
The biggest private industry investment in the county is taking shape at Port Bienville Industrial Park as a $50 million Borg-Warner Chemicals plastics plant is set to go into production in late 1981.
Construction of the two projects already is resulting in beneficial economic impact to the surrounding area.
In addition to Hancock, Pearl River County and St. Tammany Parish also are enjoying the boost in business provided during construction stages.
The plastics plant is within a mile of the Louisiana-Mississippi boundary in southwestern Hancock while the ammo plant is less than two miles from the state line a few miles south of Picayune.
The ammo plant will produce what the Army calls its 155mm Improved Conventional Munitions, a projectile which carries 88 small grenades in a cluster.
The huge building where the projectiles will be produced is 82 percent complete, according to Lt. Col. Robert Bowers, commander of the Army installation.
More than 1 million pounds of production equipment presently is being
installed in the projectile building.
Bowers said the Load-Assembly-Pack building is 25 percent complete and is on schedule. It will be finished, he said, in May 1982.
Construction recently was started on a cargo building where the grenades will be manufactured.
Its projected completion date is August 1982.
The. first ammo plant cosi estimate was around $325 million when site preparation began in January 1978
By the end of 1979, however, the projected cost rose to $406 million Now, officials are saying the price will top $450 million.
Bowers said the entire plant will be operational by 1983 or 1984. but cer-
tain sections will be in production much sooner. Manufacture of the projectiles could begin by 1S82, he said.
During peacetime, about 1,500 employees would work five days a week on one shift eight hours a day, the commander said. The plant would have an annual payroll of more than $25 million. During wartime, the plant’s
capacity could be doubled.
The Borg-Warner plant will open sooner than first announced, but company officials recently said completion of the entire plant would be delayed, resulting in fewer employees being hired initially.
When the plant opens at the end of this year, only about 21 employees will be hired. Eighty more would be hired
when the plant is completed in 1983.
The plant, which recently began taking job applications, will produce a type of plastic used in a number of consumer products, including telephones, home appliances and automobiles.
The plant will produce about 150 million pounds of plastics per year, and will contribute about $12 million a year to the area’s economy.