Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, December 30, 1994                   TAG: 9412300111
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WEST POINT                                  LENGTH: Medium

STEEL MILL MAY BRING 600 JOBS TO KING WILLIAM COUNTY

The nation's fourth-largest steel company has taken an option on several hundred acres near West Point, one of two potential sites for a $450 million steel mill that would employ about 600 people.

Kenneth Iverson, chairman of the Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor Corp., confirmed rhis week that Nucor has acquired a one-year option to buy 525 acres of farmland along the Pamunkey River near Cohoke, about seven miles northwest of West Point in King William County.

The company also is considering property near Charleston, S.C., Iverson said.

``We're looking, but we haven't decided yet on any location,'' he said.

The proposed mill would use electric furnaces to melt scrap steel into slabs that would be rolled into sheets, Iverson said. It would likely produce 1.8 million tons of steel annually, he said.

If the plant comes to Virginia, about 80 percent of its workers would be hired locally, Iverson said. At similar plants in Indiana and Arkansas, the average employee earns up to $45,000 a year.

County Administrator David Whitlow said Nucor has not submitted an application for the mill and would not elaborate on what he knew about the company's plans.

``We're really limited in what we can say. We don't want to upset the process,'' he said.

Iverson's announcement already has touched off a major economics-vs.-environment debate in what is now a quiet farming community.

``If this area hasn't had a high profile in the past, it certainly is about to get one,'' said Bill Tanger of Roanoke, chairman of Friends of the Rivers of Virginia, a conservation group. ``Obviously, this is a big, big project that a lot of people are going to be looking at.''

The Pamunkey River feeds the York River, which empties into the Chesapeake Bay.

``I can't really think of a nice way to say it, but I'd prefer that they wouldn't come in at all,'' said Tyla Matteson, chairwoman of the York River group of the Sierra Club.

Iverson said that environmental approval, as well as negotiated prices on utilities, would be a major factor in site selection.

``Steel mills, historically, have caused environmental problems for water, but we don't have that,'' he said.

Iverson said a holding pond would keep wastewater out of the river. Water used to cool molten steel would be recycled in the pond and later fed back into the mill.

Iverson said Nucor hopes to choose a site and begin construction next year. He said the company has not ruled out other sites in addition to the King William and South Carolina locations.