At every level, the recent announcement of the closing of the Norsk Hydro extrusion facility in Ellenville has hit the community particularly hard. The struggle that 260 families now face to find new jobs, in a region that no longer offers such skilled work, will force most to radically rethink what they do and who they are. Some will find jobs elsewhere and move on, many more will be forced to accept the diminished opportunities that exist locally, and settle for less. A lucky few will use the disruption as the starting point for something much better – like starting a new business or going back to school. Fortunately, most families are adaptable enough to make a change, and they will survive. The same cannot be said for an entire community.

For the region, the implications of the latest factory closing go far beyond the loss of jobs and the personal turmoil it creates. Hydro's closing marks the end of an era locally and symbolizes, sadly, what has become of the American economy. Hydro was the last major manufacturer in Ulster County, and its demise changes once and for all the character of our local economy, a character that defined who lived here, what was done here, and where we thought we were going. That economy no longer exists, and we are struggling to find what, if anything, we can replace it with.

How perverse it is to live in a country where it is too expensive to produce most of what we need. The nation is so rich that our time is too costly to be used to produce the most basic necessities of life. What a strange, strange wealth it is, when we are provided the fruits of someone else's labor, but none of the satisfaction or security that comes from growing it ourselves. Rather than trucks heading out of Ellenville, loaded with those gleaming silver pipes used throughout the world, we will instead turn the trucks around to haul in cheap socks, underwear and more belts than there are waists from here to Albany. We have traded our capacity to produce for something much more coveted in a global economy, our unlimited capacity to consume. America, once the arms and hands of the world, has transformed itself into the mouth. The choices facing us are heartbreaking. Unlike a family a community cannot pick itself up and move. But it can choose whether to just accept diminished opportunities and settle for less, or do something more proactive and guide its own destiny. The capable men and women of Hydro have proven that we have much more to offer the world than just an appetite. It is time to figure out just what that is.

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