In two years, Adams County has gone from being out of the economic development game to now being fully engaged and immersed in the process.

The speed of that process — and the number of zeroes behind the checks being written — is enough to leave a citizen’s head spinning.

This week county supervisors agreed to borrow up to $7.5 million for what amounts to a pile of dirt.

Critics, no doubt, will cry foul over this move and question every nuance of it.

The dirt in question, however, is critical to development of a $350 million alternative fuels production facility in Natchez. It will build a protective levee for what could become our area’s next major industry.

For several years, the area’s most primed site for development — the former Belwood County Club location — was listed with a small, but important, asterisk next to its name.

Reading the footnote would have been enough to send most investors headed for higher ground.

You see, the asterisk pointed to a simple fact — one that made golf unpredictable at the site — “floods when the Mississippi River gets a little high (which typically happens each year).”

While it takes a bit of nerve to get comfortable with the idea of spending money on dirt for someone else’s project, the benefits for Natchez-Adams County could be huge in terms of hundreds of jobs, increased tax base, etc.

Even if the KiOR plant is a bust, at least the county will wind up with a piece of land that’s protected and developable.

That’s something we’ve needed for a long, long time. Ditto for politicians with a little vision and some guts to put some money on the table.