The recipe for keeping a secret has few ingredients. Don’t tell anyone. And don’t start buying up real estate in a small county with an eye toward locating a factory that Paducah officials thought was in the bag. Bill Bartleman broke the story on Saturday that Clean Coal Power Resources is looking primarily at Carlisle County to build their coal to liquid fuel refinery. Paducah Mayor Paxton had no comment. 

Carlisle County seat Bardwell Mayor Phillip King had no comment when we called him on Saturday. He’d just read the story in the Paducah Sun. King was surprised the story had broken weeks before any announcement was planned.

The proposed facility, to be located in the northwest corner of Carlisle County, is scheduled to take up 3500 acres. Job projections are for 1800 construction workers and initially 800 production line workers. Over the course of ten years, nine new lines could be added for a total of 8000 jobs.

Early reports had McCracken as having the lock on the project, but for undisclosed reasons, Carlisle County is now number one on the company’s agenda. Speculation is that with fewer land owners in Carlisle County and fewer tax issues, Carlisle County has a commanding lead over other sites which include Cairo in southern Illinois, Metropolis’ new port development and an area east of Paducah along the Ohio River.