Rhode Island’s House Speaker William Murphy and House majority Leader Gordon Fox are on the right track, and with a little help they can come up with a satisfactory answer to the question Speaker Murphy raised one day last week; “Where do we have good-paying blue-collar jobs in Rhode Island?”

His intention is to gain support for his announced effort to establish a container handling facility in the Port of Davisville, and in order to deal with those who are determined to oppose his efforts we think he should be directed to what we’ve been saying for the past two years. Contrary to the estimates provided by consultants:

• Our patented storage, retrieval and delivery system would easily handle a modest amount of TEUs … say, about 350,000 or so … on less than 20 acres. That’s a far cry from the “290 to 390 acres” estimate provided by consultants.

• Instead of the additional “126 to 200 acres of ‘filled’ land” consultants insist would also be needed, our patented system would require nothing beyond the 20 acres mentioned above.

• Consultants have also stated that funding in the range of “$ 265,000,000 to $ 350,000,000 would be required” … from taxpayers of course … but our system would be paid for by our own firm. Rhode Islanders would pay nothing.

• Instead of a long, drawn-out period of “3 to 5 years” to construct the facility, according to consultants, our compact patented system would be in operation within one year.

• And regarding the “quite a bit of dredging” as proposed by those consultants, our firm would guarantee that no dredging will be needed for the facility.

That’s not all. Speaker Murphy and Majority Leader Fox have made known their concern about the state’s annual budget shortfalls and the lack of good-paying blue-collar jobs. Rhode Island taxpayers no doubt are also concerned about budget shortfalls, and needless to say, the unemployed are even more concerned about their forced idleness. However …

• The amount of funding contributed annually to the state’s coffers by an efficiently operated container yard (the “gold mine” of today, remember) would easily offset those budget shortfalls that are bothering state officials, and …
• Recall, if you will, the primary reason given by the Port of Humboldt Bay’s governors for the proposed partnership with the Port of Oakland. That board “expressed an interest in developing a container terminal in order to increase jobs” …

[It’s a win-win-win-win situation for the Ocean State. A very, very small container terminal … at no cost … providing millions in annual revenue … and creating thousands and thousands of jobs.]