Volkswagen's Decision Has Environmental Impact

Today we went to the Society for Conservation Biology's annual meeting to find out how the new Volkswagen plant will affect the environment around the Enterprise South Site.

"You can't escape that basic fundamental conflict between growing the economy and protecting your environment," says Brian Czech.

Czech, with the Center for a Steady-State Economy told us today's decision can mean a boom to helping sustain a local economy.

"It's good for Chattanooga to consider diversifying and depending less on trade especially international trade. Depending more on developing a self-sufficent sort of integrated economy," he says.

Czech adds with this integrated economy, comes environmental responsibility.

And Rob Dietz, also with the Center for a Steady-State Economy says the decision is going to have a long-term impact on the environment, even if Volkswagen's operations are environmentally-friendly.

"The more efficently you can run that throughput process...less input for greater output--go for it, do it. The difficulty is that there's a limit to that," says Dietz.

That's because alongside the new Volkswagen plant will come more businesses and more residential development to help accommodate the VW workforce.

"We all want employment and jobs and progress, but progress is not necessarily the same thing as growth," says Dietz.

Czech adds, "there's so much cost of economic growth--congestion, pollution and so forth. That's something that a conference like this would encourage the city of Chattanooga and the state of Tennessee to consider too."

Read the Volkwagen Official Announcement