On Niagara Street this week I happened to see an oversize load go by on a flatbed which looked like a wing of a stealth bomber or something (except without the stealth turned on, or I couldn't have seen it, right?).  It reminded me of the occasional posts I've read along the theme of Big Things spotted rolling down our streets.
 
Well, according to The Buffalo News, the Mother of All Big Things Rolling Down the Street rolled into Buffalo today from Canada, across the Peace Bridge.  It was a 100-ton, 215 foot-long load: a giant girder to be used in the construction of a steel mill.  But...not in Buffalo...not in Lackawanna...in ALABAMA.
 
That's right.  According to The News the gargantuan girder, and several more like it, will roll right on through this community that at one time had more steelmaking capacity than nearly any other place on the planet.  Like much of the freight crossing the Peace Bridge, they will be "just passing through" on their way to the sun belt, which over the last half century has been hijacking our industry, hijacking our college graduates, and now even wants to hijack our architecture.
 
Let's see, if someone's looking to build a steel mill, which apparently requires getting mega-girders from Canada, then instead of spending nearly a week (per The News) trying to ship them hundreds of miles, why not take them to a place right across the river from Canada and build the mill?  A place which has one of the nation's largest hydroelectric projects as a nextdoor neighbor?  A place which is a lake-freighter trip away from the iron ore ranges (for virgin steel), and with abundant heaps of scrap for remanufactured steel (or whatever they call it when they make new steel out of crashed Toyotas and my old furnace).  A place that's at a crossroads of all kinds of transportation: road, rail, water, air?  And close to a lot of North America's biggest cities?  A place whose Official Motto is "We're shovel ready!"  And in the same state as the world's financial capital, to bankroll it?
 
So is anyone else seeing this and saying "What the !@#$ is wrong with this picture??  Someone will say yeah, but the labor costs here are too high, that's why they're building steel mills in Alabama.  But didn't they take that issue out of the equation to secure GM's investment of hundreds of millions in manufacturing here, at the Tonawanda plant?  And someone (lots of someones) will say that taxes are too high for anyone to seriously consider building a steel mill here.  But without doubt the folks at ECIDA as well as every federal, state, and local elected leader would prostrate themselves before the Steel Plant Builders and give them whatever tax break they asked for.  For life.  And for their children and their children's children unto the fourth generation.  Sort of like what was done for Yahoo!, and Bass Pro.  Like 100+ years ago, the level of effort the community leadership (who met in wood-paneled clubs on Delaware and smoked cigars) put forth to lure the original Lackawanna plant here (if I remember my Mark Goldman).
 
Until reading The Buffalo News article, I didn't realize that steel mill construction is still something that happens in America.  I guess I figured that game had been taken over by the Koreans and Chinese.  But if there are steel mills being built in America, why aren't we getting them built HERE IN WNY--especially since the plant builders have to go to great lengths (pun intended) to bring the materials through here anyway?  Then WE would have the steel mill that builds the mega-girders to build the next steel mill down the road, etc. as well as the steel to make wind turbine towers and blades that would help power the mills with green electric, and that we could ship all over using our transportation infrastructure.  And so forth.
 
I say, we take the rest of these girders that come across the Peace Bridge out to somewhere around Lackawanna, and refuse to give them up until someone comes and builds a steel mill out of them.  RIGHT HERE.
 
Consider it a reverse hijacking.