To The Reader’s Forum:

Cummins Engine Co. recently announced a major new investment at their Jamestown Engine Plant. It’s been nearly 40 years since we all became aware of Cummins and their potential of achieving the status of a great local company.

The initial attraction and the retention of Cummins has a litany of stories around both challenges to locating and then keeping them in the 1,000,000 square foot plant in the town of Busti. One of those stories centers around a business requirement for a municipal water supply rather than the well field then serving Cummins. With county leadership, the CCIDA, working with Busti and the town of Ellicott, drove the project responding to the critical problem of getting city water to Cummins. Coordination and cooperation were everywhere, including and especially the City of Jamestown BPU, who came up with the answer for an acceptable supply and the crisis was averted.

This is a lesson going forward.

Jamestown sits on a liquid goldmine in the form of excess water available to new customers.

The leaders in Jamestown should market their asset far and wide –and join again with the county, the IDA and the towns to replicate the 1975 success that today results in the massive new investments by Cummins.

Jamestown