Week of November 17, 2008
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The spotlight here is on our readers, presenting their reactions to stories in SiteNet Dispatch and Site Selection. We welcome readers' opinions about any article. To voice your views, simply click on the "Letters to the Editor" link located at the bottom of every online feature, or click on the writers' e-mail addresses included in each story's byline. (Letters may be edited for clarity and length.)
This desalination plant in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, ranks as the world's largest.
Photo: Dept. of Geological Engineering, University of Missouri-Rolla Signing On for Desalination
I read "Decision Time for Desalt Plants" with great interest. My engineering background and 20 years on the Victorville City Council has brought me to the same conclusions for desalination of sea water.
We are just outside Los Angeles in the high desert. We built a new power plant a few years ago, and are in the process of building and owning a second one (permitting to be completed this year). The interesting thing here is that Los Angeles takes 2.5 million acre-feet (about 3.1 billion cubic meters) out of the aqueduct. I would like to see them put their straw in the ocean! Respectfully yours, Mike Rothschild Victorville, Calif. Site Selection Publisher McKinley Conway:
Thanks for your note, Mike. I hope you can convince your City Council to begin now to plan a desalt pipeline route and cooperate with others in building a plant. It will take a long time to arrange financing, energy supply and other details. Keep us posted on your progress!
The Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, Torrey Pines Institute and Mann Research Center are each building a new operation inside the Florida Center for Innovation at Tradition (pictured) in Port St. Lucie.
Photo: Core Communities 'Big Sunshine, Big Subsidies'
"Strong Medicine in Southeast Florida" is a great article. Can you help me with the source information for the yellow box with "Big Sunshine, Big Subsidies"?
Anna S. Pepper Project Coordinator Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc. Orlando, Fla. Site Selection Executive Editor of Online Publishing Jack Lyne:
Thanks for your kind words, Anna. There wasn't one central supplier for the incentive figures cited in those major Florida deals, including Burnham Institute, Max Planck Institute, Scripps Research Institute and Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies. Instead, multiple sources were tapped to acquire that data in the course of compiling proprietary research.
As you undoubtedly know, Enterprise Florida is a valuable source for such figures on major Sunshine State expansions. You can also find more information about those individual projects' subsidies in the online Site Selection and SiteNet Dispatch archives. Thanks for reading. American Visa Limits
Regarding Site Selection's "Billion Dollar Babies": U.S. visa "limits" are excessive and overly elastic. The annual "limit" on H-1B visas, such as it is, is over 85,000, not 65,000. Reporting it as 65,000 would be misleading. . . .
'Excessive and Overly Elastic' 
Photo: movetotheusa.com
The numbers of visas actually issued are what matters. These numbers are available in the State Department's annual reports. For 2005 [the most recent year for which data are available], the total number of visas was 154,690. . . . Hundreds of H-1B visas go to people without the equivalent of a U.S. high school diploma, and thousands to those without the equivalent of a U.S. bachelor's degree. John Miano, a fellow at The Center for Immigration Studies, wrote earlier this year: "Since 1999, the United States has approved enough H-1B visas for computer workers to fill 87 percent of net computer job growth over that period. Since 1999, the United States has had a net loss of 76,000 engineering jobs. Over the same time period, the United States has approved an average of 16,000 new H-1B visas each year for engineers. If current employment trends continue and the H-1B quota remains unchanged, the United States will approve enough H-1B visas for computer workers to fill about 79 percent of the computer jobs it creates each year." There was no shortage of talented U.S. citizen STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] workers. There is no shortage of talented U.S. citizen STEM workers. No credible evidence of impending shortage of talented U.S. citizen STEM workers has been produced. Jeffrey Oleander Cincinnati Site Selection Managing Editor Adam Bruns:
While the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) does make provisions for various exemptions, the H-1B cap of 65,000 appears as an officially documented figure at this USCIS Web page. The nation's shortage of STEM workers, disputed by Mr. Oleander, was most famously documented in the quite credible fall 2005 report to Congress entitled "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," which can be downloaded in sections free of charge at the National Academies Press Web site.
Is a bronze medal good enough for American manufacturers?
Back to the Bronze Age,
Bravo on "Congress to Industry: A Bronze Will Do." Well put. What could Congress possibly have intended?
Congress Tells U.S. Industry I'm sending your column to everyone I know. Kind regards, John F. Krug Vice President Development Advisors Charlotte, N.C. 
Photo: Derek Jensen (Tysto)
'Atlanta Won't Run Out Of Water'
I read "Half Empty or Half Full," a piece about Georgia's water supply that ran in the January 2008 issue of your magazine. Although well written, I believe it unfairly represents Atlanta's water supply situation. The Atlanta Development Authority promotes economic development within the city of Atlanta, and we have a very different perspective from the rural economic developers interviewed for the story on the situation. The story makes it sound like only Atlanta has a water supply issue while the rest of the state of Georgia is fine. In fact, the city of Atlanta has done quite well given the drought situation.
The city of Atlanta is not going to run out of water. Atlanta has proven it is sustainable, having increased in population while at the same time reducing water consumption. Since 2000, the city's customer base has grown by 9 percent, while its water consumption has dropped by 5 percent. How is that possible, you might ask? Under the capable leadership of Mayor Shirley Franklin, dubbed "the Sewer Mayor," $1 billion was committed toward water system improvements in 2004. 
Pictured is the Chattahoochee River as it runs through the Atlanta metro area.
Thankfully, rural areas of Georgia are currently not seeing any interruption in their regular rainfall patterns. However, should the current drought begin to affect them, its effects could be felt more severely in those areas than in Atlanta. Water use in rural Georgia is largely "consumptive," (i.e., water that is used for irrigation is not returned to the rivers, and the predominance of septic tanks means wastewater also is lost to the rivers). Atlanta, on the other hand, returns some 70 percent of the water it withdraws from the Chattahoochee back to the river in the form of highly cleaned and treated wastewater. Clearly, the water supply issue is a regional one that must be and will be solved. . . . A great capital city needs and wants great partners throughout the state. Regards, Charles Whatley Director of Commerce and Entrepreneurship Atlanta Development Authority Site Selection Managing Editor Adam Bruns:
We understand and appreciate the water and sewer infrastructure improvements made under Mayor Franklin's watch. The perspective informing several of Mr. Whatley's comments represents the city of Atlanta proper, and not necessarily the Greater Atlanta MSA, which is variously represented as consisting of 10 counties (visit the Atlanta Regional Commission at www.atlantaregional.com) or even more. The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, whose challenges were addressed in the article in question, consists of 16 counties in the metro area.
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