Weeds are often defined as something growing in a place where you don’t want it to grow. If we accept that definition, then the biggest weed problem in Hancock County is “mega warehouses.”
These huge weeds seem to be sprouting up everywhere and those of us who live nearby — or who just plain prefer better scenery on our daily commute — would like some kind of weed killer guaranteed to kill ‘em at the roots and prevent new growth.
This type of weed killer does not exist and if it did, we would be constrained from using it because what is undesirable to us with our NIMB (Not In My Backyard) attitude is highly valued by financial investors and fills a critical national need.
The average warehouse in the United States is 43 years old and a quarter of them are older than 50 years. They’re also smaller and not easily adapted to meet current operations.
The new mega warehouses tend to be larger than 200,000 sq. feet, have high ceiling heights, air conditioning, huge floor plans and layouts that allow for far faster loading and unloading than those older and smaller warehouses. They also incorporate sensors, automation and robotics technology to track, handle and manage inventory, and increase productivity and safety while reducing overhead costs.
The size of these new warehouses sprouting in our county may seem ridiculously huge to us but they’d be dwarfed by the Amazon Warehouse in Schertz, Texas, which is 25 million square feet.
Since warehousing is now a major industry and employer in the United States and is here to stay, we can expect both north and south sides of I-70 – and especially those in the western part of our county – to be viewed as attractive, relatively low cost sites for gargantuan, windowless structures where 18-wheel tractor-trailers will stream in and out of loading bays and down our county roads to I-70.
None of us want this in our backyard but if not here, then where?
Are we going to fight back and forth over this with other counties like adult children arguing over who has to take home the ugly family heirloom that nobody wants?
It’s easy to blame e-commerce for bringing about this seemingly sudden change but is online shopping really that different from the days of mail order catalogs? Instead of logging in and entering keyword searches, we flipped through the pages to find what we wanted, filled out the order form, and either picked it up at the store or paid extra for delivery.
It seems to me that e-commerce is really little more than mail order catalogs retooled and enhanced by modern technology. What has changed, however, and is undoubtedly boosting sales, is the whiplash-inducing speed of delivery to our doors at low or no cost that can make shopping at home not only more convenient, but cheaper than driving to the store and back for our purchases.
The recent pandemic and its associated supply line problems should have driven home for all of us the importance and increased need for warehouses, distribution centers, and large capacity trucks. But we want these in someone else’s backyard because we fear (and rightly so) that these warehouses will adversely affect our quality of life.
So here we are, essentially stuck between a rock and a hard place. Unless we want to revert to our old ways of doing things and can somehow convince companies to bring manufacturing back to the US, how are we going to deal with our county being viewed as ripe for the picking by potential warehouse builders?
First, we vote. Then we remind those elected what we need and want.
If we’re going to be stuck with giant warehouses and increased traffic, we will need our representatives to ensure that each new mega warehouse is built in a place and manner that is going to have the least negative impact on the surrounding community and be a boost to our economy rather than a drain on our tax dollars.
It’s a tough row to hoe but our community has many good gardeners and the onus is on the rest of us to vote them in or out and then remain vigilant and vocal about what we need and want in our communities.
