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MEMPHIS - The news this week that the Federal Aviation Administration has postponed until next spring the release of its final environmental impact study on the proposed FedEx air cargo hub no doubt leaves more time for advocates and opponents to debate the merits of the massive $500 million project.
Questions such as the hub's actual economic impact and the potential for sprawl, noise pollution and air pollution continue to finger.
To get a better idea of what the answers to those questions might be, take a look at Memphis, FedEx's home base and the largest of its three existing hubs.
While any comparisons drawn will necessarily be loose ones, considering that the hub is Memphis is much larger than the one planned for the Triad, it could be a useful tool nonetheless.
The feeling about FedEx in Memphis was summed up by Don Richardson, the chair of the local Sierra Club chapter "In Memphis, for every person who says, 'Listen to that noise!' you've got another person saying, 'Ah, I hear the sound of money.'"
While there are scattered complaints about noise pollution and sprawl associated with the Memphis hub and the companies it attracts, most residents view FedEx as a benign employer of thousands of the city's workers, much as many Triad residents view the tobacco industry, which is vilified outside tobacco-producing states.
Memphis economics
"FedEx is the largest single employer in Memphis, with ballpark figures reaching 30,000 people," said Ernest Nichols Jr., a professor at the University of Memphis and himself a beneficiary of the generosity of FedEx. He's the director of the university's FedEx Center for Cycle Time Research. "Memphis is a FedEx town," he said.
The economic impact of the many purple and white FedEx planes leaving Memphis International Airport every day cannot be disputed, said Larry Henson, research director for the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce.
Although he has not performed an indepth capital investment study of FedEx's presence on the local economy, Henson said a rough calculation reveals that between 1995 and 1999, the shipping company was directly or indirectly tie to $462.8 million in capital investment, 8.3 million square feet of commercial space and 6,400 jobs being. added to the Memphis economy by businesses that are...