Schwarzenegger praises $220 million Stockton port drywall plant deal

Schwarzenegger praises $220 million Stockton port drywall plant deal Pointing to the confluence of environmental awareness and jobs creation, Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger praised officials from the Port of Stockton and Chicago-based USG Corp. at a press conference on Thursday for signing a deal to bring a $220 million wallboard plant to the port.
   USG said Monday it would build the new facility on a 90-acre site at the Port of Stockton, an inland port located about 75 miles east of San Francisco Bay. Scheduled for completion in 2010, the facility will convert imported gypsum into about a billion square feet of Sheetrock-brand wallboard per year. Close to 2,000 construction workers will help build the plant, which will employ a full-time staff of about 150 workers once it’s built.
   The governor praised the USG project as “a tremendous boost for California’s economy” and “environmentally terrific,” pointing to the plant's proposed design that will use 100 percent recycled paper for the finished wallboard products’ surfaces and will recycle 100 percent of its production waste, discharging nothing to local waterways and fills.
   USG Corp. President and Chief Operating Officer Jim Metcalf, appearing with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday, pointed to the hard work by the state's Labor and Workforce Development Department, city and port officials in Stockton, as well as area business groups for making the deal possible.
   When pointing to the benign environmental nature of gypsum, Metcalf asked the governor if he remember that the snow in the 1941 film 'It's A Wonderful Life' was actually gypsum flakes.
   'I didn't know that,' said the former action hero. 'I just remember breaking through a lot of drywall in my stunts.'