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NATCHEZ — Ground was symbolically broken Thursday morning on the last phase of the almost $7 million project to complete the levee around the former Belwood Country Club property.

The property is under option by Velocys, which plans to construct its Bayou Biofuels facility there.

County, city, economic development, and business leaders, along with Velocys officials, met at the Adams County Port headquarters to kick off the last piece of the puzzle to “close the ring” around the site, as Natchez Inc. Executive Director Chandler Russ calls it, creating one of the most valuable and desirable industrial sites along the Mississippi River.

Glenn Green, president of Natchez Now and vice president of Natchez Inc., provided a history of the property before officials grabbed their golden shovels.

“Adams County purchased the 192 Belwood site in the 1990s,” Green said. “It flooded every year.”

In about 2010, a company named KiOR paid Adams County a non-refundable option of $250,000. However, Green said its business plan never came together, and “the county was left with the $250,000 in its general fund.”

Russ said KiOR also spent about $2 million clearing and grubbing the site, tearing down the old Belwood Country Club clubhouse, and leveling the property.

Green said Natchez Inc. set about figuring out a plan for a levee-protected industrial site in about 2014. In 2016, the county received $2 million from the Delta Regional Authority to begin the first phase of the levee construction, which began in 2017.

In 2019, the county received $1 million from the Mississippi Legislature for the project and an additional  $1 million from the legislature after COVID-19.

In 2022, the county and Natchez Inc. sought and were approved for a $1.95 million Mississippi Development Authority Site Development Grant.

In addition to its $1.4 million in option payments to the county, Velocys has paid $1.2 million toward the levee project.

“Velocys is ready to build a state of the art biofuels plant on the site,” Green said. “The county has received approximately $7 million for engineering, construction and design at the site with almost no match of county funds. When the project is complete, what we will be left with is one of the most attractive industrial development sites on the Mississippi River. It’s got a port, it’s got rail, it’s got industrial electric, natural gas, water and sewer. It’s been a long road to get here, but it is worth the journey.”

“It’s a good day for Adams County,” said Kevin Wilson, president of the Adams County Board of Supervisors. “This is going to be huge for Natchez and Adams County both.”

Wilson said when he ran for his first term as supervisor, he campaigned on the need for change in Adams County.

“The change I was speaking of is being sick of seeing our children go off to college, marrying someone there and never coming back to Natchez. Then, they have children and the grandparents leave Natchez to go be near their grandchildren. I understand wanting to do that. I have grandchildren of my own. But if we don’t have something like this that will pay good salaries, our children won’t come back. I am happy to see this happen today and look forward to several other projects that are in development,” Wilson said.

Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson echoed Wilson’s remarks about it being a good day for Natchez and Adams County.

“While everyone wants to doubt, and I know sometimes it’s easier to doubt than it is to have faith, here we are. Velocys is happening. And in fact, we’ve had good news just these last couple of days on the Eola project,” Gibson said. “We are definitely going in the right direction now.”

Jeff McDaniel, vice president of new projects for Velocys, a United Kingdom-based Company, knows that the Belwood site is a good one.

“When we first came here, we evaluated 11 other different sites across Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama and we chose this one. We chose this one because of everything it has going for it. It has the infrastructure, It’s here at the port. It has abundant pine plantations in the area which haven’t had a customer in a long time and we are going to be that customer,” McDaniel said. ”This plant will bring in 5,000 tons a day of woody biomass from within a 75 mile radius and that’s an awful lot of forestry jobs that will be created.”

McDaniel said Velocys has received great support from the State of Mississippi and here.

He explained that Velocys has developed a way to take materials that are of little value today and turn them into fuel that is of great value.

“The process uses the parts of the tree you can’t turn into lumber, like branches and thinnings. That’s what we will bring into the site,” McDaniel said. “Mother Nature makes it very hard to convert wood chips into jet fuel. There are a lot of steps to make that happen, but that’s what we have done and perfected. We have demonstrated that at two different sites, both here in the U.S. and in Japan. We’ve produced jet fuel. We’ve put it in a plane and we’ve flown with it.”

He said Velocys has secured contracts with Southwest Airlines and the parent company of British Airways to purchase all of the jet fuel it can produce for 10 years on a long-term, fixed-price contract.

“It will be a big plant that will create good jobs. It will create high-paying, steady jobs,”

He said Bayou Biofuels is expected to create approximately 100 jobs at the Adams County plant. An additional 300 forestry jobs will be created to meet the company’s demand for woody biomass.

“These are the kind of jobs that will keep families here in Natchez,” McDaniel said.