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Controversy Over Proposed Chicken Plant In Nash County

Some Nash County residents are fighting to stop a chicken processing plant from coming to their area.

Gurnal Scott: Sanderson Farms already has a presence in Kinston.  Now it wants to bring a large poultry plant to Nash County. The Carolinas Gateway Partnership -- an economic development group -- is helping Sanderson. Partnership C-E-O John Gessaman says the company wants to go beyond its employment promise

John Gessaman: Not just the 11-hundred people at Sanderson Farms but a total of 24-hundred jobs coming in over the next 10 years.

The Nash County Landowners Association has opposed the move for the last two years. Co-chairman Con Ward says the plant will bring environmental pollution.

Con Ward: These kind of industries go after these weaker communities with high unemployment and say they've got the magic bullet as a solution.

Nash County's 12-point-4 percent unemployment rat is among the state highest.

Gurnal Scott joined North Carolina Public Radio in March 2012 after several stops in radio and television. After graduating from the College of Charleston in his South Carolina hometown, he began his career in radio there. He started as a sports reporter at News/Talk Radio WTMA and won five Sportscaster of the Year awards. In 1997, Gurnal moved on to television as general assignment reporter and weekend anchor for WCSC-TV in Charleston. He anchored the market's top-rated weekend newscasts until leaving Charleston for Memphis, TN in 2002. Gurnal worked at WPTY-TV for two years before returning to his roots in radio. He joined the staff of Memphis' NewsRadio 600 WREC in 2004 eventually rising to News Director. In 2006, Raleigh news radio station WPTF came calling and he became the station's chief correspondent. Gurnal’s reporting has been honored by the South Carolina Broadcasters Association, the North Carolina Associated Press, and the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas.
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