Argus Leader excerpt:
The group behind the Gorilla project fears rivals could buy up land in the Elk Point area, which is partly why secrecy is needed, Gov. Mike Rounds says.
Meanwhile, a University of South Dakota professor said Thursday that he and others at the school have been contacted by a Houston firm requesting help with research.
David Carr, an assistant professor of economics in the Beacom School of Business, said he and others at USD were contacted in April by an economic consulting firm in Houston "and asked if we were interested in doing an economic and social impact study for what is known as the Gorilla project.""The Department of Economics bid jointly with the Business Research Bureau," Carr said. "We didn't get it. And they didn't tell us what it was for."
Other local residents have done work connected to the project. A lawyer at one of Sioux Falls' largest law firms, for instance, drafted the real estate documents landowners near Elk Point have been asked to sign.Rounds, in Sioux Falls on Thursday to announce increased state funding for the Lewis & Clark water project, would not say when a Gorilla announcement might be made.
But the governor did say the secrecy was partly to prevent others from buying land in the area.
"It's because there is a very competitive industry that this particular organization's going to be competing in," he said.Speculation about the project has ranged from a large manufacturing plant to a refinery. It reportedly would create as many as 2,000 jobs, and up to 5,000 acres of South Dakota farmland would be used.
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