New business will bring new jobs to the parish

Joseph Mount of Infinity Water addressed the St. Mary Parish council Wednesday to announce plans to build a new plant in Morgan City.
Mount said, “What we hope to manufacture here are, chopes—air to water harvesters; and what they do is they capture moisture from the air and make potable drinking water.”
He explained that chopes could capture to manufacture anywhere from 15 to 10,000 gallons of drinking water per day. But, Mount did not stop there. He said his company possesses water cleaning technology as well, which “can clean just about any water there is.”
“We are going to be an international company and we are going to bring some new technology here, and jobs,” he said.
“Our first year we predict about 34 to 36 jobs and about 15 indirect jobs with most of our starting salaries at $15 per hour and above, with healthcare.”
Mount closed by saying he hopes to have the new facility completed by October.
Ahead of Mount’s address, Frank Fink, director of the St. Mary Parish Office of Economic Development, provided councilmembers with a brief update on the parish’s economic outlook.
Fink expressed that the parish is showing signs of recovery from the 2014-2015 oil crash, but also said that recovery is happening slowly.
According to Fink, the prevailing mood among oil company executives seems to be one of optimism amidst rising oil prices.
He went on to say the parish has new parcels of land coming up for sale, rental percentages have gone up in comparison to this time last year, and sales tax collections are up one percent, quarter to quarter, from last year.
“Look, it’s no secret we lost over 5,000 jobs since the oil field collapse, and today, believe it or not, there is a shortage of workers and fitters in the shipyards,” Fink said.
He went on to point to parish-wide gains in industry, as well.
“We’ve had requests for expansions from Lapco in Morgan City,” Fink said, “Bollinger put in for an industrial tax exemption and they added 29 employees last year, and they are coming in for another expansion this year for $1.5 million with an additional 25 employees.”
And, Fink said, add to those the culmination of the Cleco/Cabot project, the West St. Mary Port expansion project and a new truck stop planned for Centerville, showing that the parish’s industrial economy is growing.
In other news, Parish Councilman Craig Mathews requested and was approved an allocation of $13,000 to go toward Recreation District 5 for the 2019 Raintree Preperatory Academy Summer Camp.
Mathews also requested and received an allocation of $5,000 to go toward the town of Baldwin to purchase communication equipment for Baldwin Fire Rescue.
Parish Councilman J Ina requested and received an allocation of $3,250 to go toward the city of Franklin for the Fun Foundation Unlimited Necessities Summer Program.
All three allocations came from Wards 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 10s 3/10 percent sales tax fund.
In execution of old business, Mathews appointed Deborah Aymond to the vacancy on the board of commissioners of Recreation District 5.
Lastly, classmates from the Franklin Senior High School Class of 1992 presented fundraising checks to St. Mary Council on Aging and FSHS. The donations were accepted by Beverly Domengeaux, executive director of SMCOA and Ty Burdett, principal at FSHS.