Name: WRAL Documentary: Fish Farms
Uploaded: 2021-07-13T20:00:00-0400
Duration: 1282776
Description: Fish Farms, a WRAL Documentary, explores one of North Carolina's best-kept secrets. Aquaculture, or the farming of fish and seafood, is a thriving industry that brings over $60 million in revenue to the state each year.

Crews worked quickly to reopen the road near Hillsborough Street only an hour after an overhead highway sign was damaged. 



 I-440 reopens in Raleigh after overhead highway sign damaged

Have you noticed an unusual smell or flavor in your tap water over the past few days?

What's wrong with Raleigh tap water? Algae bloom at Falls Lake behind the smell, color

'Earthy and musty:' Here's why your tap water may taste strange this weekend in Raleigh

Athens Drive Magnet High School and Conn Magnet Elementary School won national awards Saturday at the Magnet Schools of America's annual conference.

Top two magnet schools in the US are in Wake County

Athens Drive High School

Fish Farms, a WRAL Documentary, explores one of North Carolina's best-kept secrets. Aquaculture, or the farming of fish and seafood, is a thriving industry that brings over $60 million in revenue to the state each year.

<p>Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Three. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. It's north Carolina's best kept secret. Mhm. Mhm. The pigeon river runs through sunburst trout farm. It's damned at lake Logan. One farm sits at the base of the dam, which provides a rush of water into these raceways where rainbow trout are raised. All it is, is just a run Of water going through 6000 gallons a minute. You can fit about 8-10,000 lb of full grown fish in these raceways. Mhm. West Essenes, grandfather Dick Jennings founded the original Trout Farm in 1948. It was the first commercial trout farmer east of the Mississippi River and a pioneer in north Carolina aquaculture Jennings had been raising mink. He knew that food was more stable than fashion Jennings also knew the water here is perfect for raising trout. If you don't have pure clean water number one, the trout just won't make it because they require such insanely pure water. The trout are put in the raceways as tiny hatchlings. This is our politicized feed, which provide the fish with a heavy protein, heavy fat diet, which is good for both growth and flavor. Once they reach a certain size, we will grade the fish, which just simply means to separate them by size. There moved from raceway to raceways. They grow until they reach about 1.5 to £2. It takes about a year and a half to go from hatchlings to harvest. Here's how it works to workers Lleida screen down the race way. So when you walk that screen down, the fish are headed up perfectly. A boom lowers a net into the water and scoops out the trout. Each net full is about 6-700 lb. The fish are dumped into water tanks on the back of a truck. The Trump takes the fish to a nearby facility where workers process them into fillets. Sunburst processes nearly £700,000 of trout a year and sells it to more than 400 restaurants nationwide. Small to medium grocery chains and seafood wholesalers. It's going to have a nice robust flavor to it, but not so strong that you would describe as fishy Sunburst also sells trout in its retail shop in Waynesville and on its website there, you can also buy its other trout products, including smoked fillets, smoked trout dip and even trout burgers. Esen says, demand for trout keeps growing. Over the years. We've realized that you have to have aquaculture to keep the demands off of wild stocks. Wild is fantastic. But if there were no farms, no aquaculture wildwood would be done. You couldn't keep up. Mhm. Yeah, we produce farm raised catfish Carolina classics. Catfish Farm just outside of Aden grows catfish on 27 ponds spanning 270 acres. Were taking a fish that's already 5 to 6 inches long and placing it in the grow out ponds. And we're growing that fish in one season two, about £2 average Rob Mayo founded this business in 1986. I got into aquaculture because I had a personal experience watching a commercial fisherman neighbor have problems continue to work in that industry. Just because of the pressure on global wild fisheries. The farm harvest it's catfish based on customer demand and we'll take a tractor on either side of the pond, will pull large net through that pond. Mhm, smaller fish escaped the net. And so we're only keeping the market size fish in that net basket. Mhm. Once they corral the catfish things really get going and drops them into water tanks on the back of a truck. Today's harvest is about £10,000. The fish are hauled to the processing plant and dumped into holding tanks. We're basically taking those live fish and turning them into mainly fish fillets. Also, a portion that we call a nugget. We're selling fish primarily in the mid atlantic and Northeast market over to the Chicago land area in an eastern Canada. The company sells millions of pounds of catfish a year to grocery stores and restaurants. Catfish is a mild, high protein, relatively low fat fish. It has broad appeal because of that. People who don't even like fish oftentimes like catfish. Mm hmm. Yeah, these hybrid striped bass have just been harvested from a pond in Beaufort County. Workers are using a net to corral them in a holding tank. They scoop them out in baskets, weigh them and load them onto a truck. The fish will make a nearly 800 mile trip to Toronto Canada where they'll be sold live and the reward for the owner of Carolina fisheries money lee brothers used to grow row crops, farming soybeans, corn and tobacco. And then in 1985 I lost $85,000 farming due to a drought. So I said you know it might be time to look at something different. He started working with N. C. State researchers who were creating a hybrid bass. It's a cross between a striped bass and a white bass. Hybrids grow faster than the original species. Next thing you know, brothers was raising hybrid striped best. He established Carolina fisheries in 1987. They're hatching Now. It all starts in the hatchery where tiny fish called fry emerge from the eggs they go from there to a pond to develop and in about 30 days we'll be about an inch inch and a half long. Then they're taken to these raceways. We bring them up and put them in here to train them to feed and grade them. They'll be moved to three more ponds as they continue to grow. 14 to 18 months later, we have a finished product of around £2. That's when the fish are harvested in much the same way they were at Carolina classics, catfish farm, we'll move about anywhere from 15 to £25,000 a week. The fish are shipped live to markets in Toronto and New York City Brothers started with 33 acre ponds. Now he has 60 of them and the rewards are more than just money. Oh, I love being out and I love working with fish. It is rewarding. Brother says it's also more predictable than the farming he used to do. I still miss it, but I like this better. Next fish farms include crawfish to a whole lot easier grades and Children. Yeah. Mhm. This is marshall berg farm. We raise Russian sturgeon for caviar. Those Russian sturgeon are being raised in tanks inside to Barnes on this 300 acre track of land in Carter County near Harper's Island. There's the one I want right here. This is a male Russian surgeon. Where is about 15 lbs. Yeah, this fish is destined for our meat market smoked fish and he's kept in here until we're ready to harvest. It's not the males that keep this business afloat. It's the females whose eggs called row are harvested and processed to make caviar. We produce etcetera caviar which is noted for its buttery, nutty taste as well as its coloration, which is kind of a light amber brown. We're the only producer of Russian sturgeon caviar in the United States of this scale. We do recirculating aquaculture system, which means that all the water volume that you see in the tanks in this building is recirculated 24 7 Filter 24 7 and maintained and managed For the duration of the fish's life, which can be upwards of 10 years before a successful caviar harvest. We've hatched these fish here from eggs and we've kept them in tanks sorted, graded them In this building, we have about 7 0 fish in our tanks. The number of fish in each tank varies depending on size and age and also the gender identity of the fish. An ultrasound test determines the gender of the fish. Yes, female. The row is harvested from the females. Once it's salted and packed, then it becomes caviar. Before then it's simply fish roe Retails for roughly $2 a gram, depending on the grade of the Caviar and who buys it, customers all over the United States were also licensed to sell internationally. It's not a business to get in to make money quick. You have to wait a long time to get product to get that far and you have to invest a lot overfishing, especially after the collapse of the soviet Union has driven the demand for Russian sturgeon and it's valuable caviar. So did overfishing here In North Carolina 1910 Sturgeon was in the top five most important commercial fisheries today. Few people have even heard of it. There hasn't been lots of wild stock available. And so fish farms have had to come in and take that vacuum and be able to produce. Yeah, it was a beautiful piece of property. It was just so pretty. I couldn't believe it was sitting there empty and it had so much resources to, and I was like, I can't let this sit here and do nothing. Sandra and William Parnell bought this old 36 acre prawn farm in 2015. It hadn't been used in years. The person they hired to stock the ponds with fish suggested putting crawfish in one. Sandra liked the idea. I didn't want to have to go Louisiana and get him anymore. That's all figure. You know, hey, we got this here, let's raise our own. We grow the Louisiana red swamp crawfish. It's a particular breed. They are not natural to our environment, so you are required to have a license to grow those parnell's farm has deeper ponds than most Louisiana farms, allowing her to extend her season. She says, crawfish are pretty easy to grow a whole lot easier grades and Children a lot easier. Parnell says, she adds some grains and grasses to the ponds for feed. But other than that, the crawfish take care of themselves. Crawfish from the time it's born to full grown, adult size would be about six months. They grow relatively fast. The crawfish are caught in traps which are harvested from spring through fall Parnell cells. All she harvests from her three ponds nearly £6,000 a year. I wish I had more ponds. I really do because the demand is so high here crawfish, people are serious about their food. They are very serious about it. They get real upset if they can't buy About 90% of Parnell sales are through phone orders. She also sells crawfish and other products at the store in downtown Kenley. Crawfish can be done a two fe in jabaliya or fried, but most people simply like them boiled. parnell sees a bright future for crawfish farming in north Carolina. You don't have to have a whole lot of land. Your most expensive thing is buying your stock the first time. Then let the crawfish do their thing. They pretty much are self sustaining. I mean they're crafty little things. Yeah. Mm. This is, to me, is the historic district events. The oysters. Yeah, stumps sound anywhere in north Carolina. You go, everybody wants a stump sound oyster. It's a special place. You get a special taste that, that it creates. Ryan gado has three Children. So he called his oyster company Three little spats. It's about the baby or sir Good Elise is about 50 acres of watering stump sound near topsail island to grow oysters from babies to full size. We leased it from the state. And what we've got here is a bunch of bottom cages. Every single one of these flights. At the bottom cage that holds several 1000 oysters that are in, grow out right now. We're just putting them out in their natural environment. They're eating algae and nutrients, Getting all that from the water and just getting bigger and bigger so they can just filter more. Oysters have one goal and that's to get bigger, luckily for us. The oysters grow at different rates, taking anywhere from 4 to 18 months to reach market size. When they reached two inches, Gedo and his son take them out of the bottom cages and move them to another least area with floating cages. That is exactly what we're looking for there. There is a lot of good size oysters out there, raising oysters is a lot of work. You figure we have over a million oysters out here and we have to check every single one at least every two weeks or three weeks and just see what they're doing whenever you're at an oyster bar, paying a premium for a farmed oysters as opposed to a wild oyster. What you're paying for is that labor? That makes it that perfect shape singles not very dirty, you're just paying for all that very happy with this. At the floating cages, the oysters are put into a tumbler that sorts them by size. What we're looking for is to get all this white lipped knocked off right here. Once we get that knocked off, the oyster grows a little bit more hardy and and widens out of this in the floating cages. The wave action helps the oysters grow and take on a more rounded shape before they are sold. So this section is extremely fluid. Oysters are constantly moving in and out being sold. Our oyster is created for the half shell market. Currently we're shipping them anywhere from new york city down to savannah Georgia. A big difference between us and the wild is that, you know, we're year round where the wild guys are from. You know, you know, at the end of september until March, I call it the Carolina gold rush. Right now, there's a lot of people getting into it. Good. Oh, doesn't see himself in competition with watermen who harvest wild oysters, a different product. Everybody owns this water and you know, we, we love the wild guys and hope they love us too. Next, what's the future of fish farming in our state and nation? Humans need more fish to eat. The only place that can come from is fish farming. So we're sorting these oysters by size so we can separate out the ones that are ready for market, ready to be eaten. David sereno chairs, the aquaculture technology program at Cartwright community College in Morehead City so that tub over there is went through one and three quarters and retained on one and a quarter. The college created it in 2005 in partnership with Brunswick Community College students come from a variety of different fields and backgrounds so we're doing millimeters. Generally they have a love for the marine environment or love for a specific species that they want to get into. The college offers a certificate and a two year associates degree in aquaculture for students looking to work at an aquaculture operation, Start their own or supplement an existing career. No 15 year old Isaac Beasley is in the early college program pursuing an associates degree. I live by the water. I want to stay by the water. This is one of the ways I can do it and there's a necessity for it. Agriculture is one of the biggest growing businesses in the world as it stands And it's much more sustainable than wild caught fish. North Carolina has about 300 fish farms, generating around $60 million 35% is trout, 25% is hybrid striped bass, 20% catfish, with the remaining 20% being other finfish and shellfish. It's a multi, multi million dollar industry. That's a stealth industry that most people don't even know is there. And it's going to become No doubt in my mind, much, much bigger. One reason is because traditional commercial fishing can't keep up with demand for fish right now, over 90% of the seafood that the US consumes is imported. So as you look at the growing trend for seafood and the demand for seafood, how would that be met? The belief is through aquaculture? Anderson says aquaculture is supplementing not competing with traditional commercial fishing. We're all in this game together and our goal is to produce a safe, reliable source of food for this growing population. And aquaculture can do that. But our state's aquaculture industry needs to overcome some challenges to grow. There are a lot of misconceptions out there about aquaculture, many tied to questionable conditions at foreign fish farms, north Carolina fish farmers say quality control standards here are much higher the trends in hours to sustainable to make sure that product is something that's environmentally focused and going through and being raised correctly. And it's just really about people understanding it better and realizing that it is not a lower quality product than the wild caught. Unlike wild caught fish supply is not a subject two seasons or weather and fish can get to your plate quicker with our culture. You harvest it when you need it and so you can have a much fresher, higher quality product. And that is something that chefs are starting to realize and that is trickling down to the rest of the consumers. The growth of aquaculture in our state and nation depends on those consumers choosing domestic fish over imported. That means looking at labels, not just prices. You just have to stop do a little research and look for those options as for the future of the industry in our state. I think it's unlimited. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Watch this and many more award winning documentaries anytime go to W. R. Real documentary dot com or stream it from any of these platforms. Mhm. Yeah.</p>

Sydney Franklin

Kevin Kuzminski

WRAL Documentary: Fish Farms

Fish Farms: Aquaculture industry thriving in North Carolina's backyard

crawfish,documentary,farming,fish,oysters

WRAL-TV News Broadcasts: Watch each newscast live or watch the most recent newscast on demand.

WRAL Late News 

Get the latest WRAL WeatherCenter Forecast whenever you need it, including the DUALDoppler5000 and the 7-Day Forecast.

Here comes summer. I'm meteorologist K Campbell and the Wral severe weather center tracking a big warm up on the way next week, the eighties will begin on Sunday and we're likely to see the upper eighties through much of next week. Perhaps the 1st 90 degree day of the year at least coming awfully close. 88 Tuesday, 89 Wednesday and 88 again on Thursday, a very warm week, all due to this big ridge of high pressure that begins to build in next week. So the jet stream lifts well to our north. We're on the warm side of the jet stream. You couple that with an area of high pressure building in. It's warm and mostly dry, high temperatures near 90 degrees. We're tracking a front to our northwest that's not likely to impact us, but we are seeing some clouds moving with this system out ahead of the warm front. The mountains sink some showers today. The good news is your weekend looks pretty dry. 77 in Fayetteville, Saturday, mostly cloudy. 82 partly cloudy on Sunday in Fayetteville for the Dogwood Festival happening there. Always a good time. We've got Brugal happening in downtown Raleigh as well. It will be in the upper sixties early on this evening. But by 11 o'clock, right around 60 degrees and the dueling dinosaurs, the exhibit opens up Saturday at 10 a.m. at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Such a cool event. I'm so excited that I got to go preview it. I highly recommend heading that way. It's completely free 59 at 10 a.m. And by the end of the event, it ends at five o'clock. It'll be in the seventies. It's a mostly cloudy day on Saturday. So some indoor activities are welcome, but at least it looks dry out there. We also have spring days happening at a Bond Park in Kerry should be a great day for the event. 11 a.m. It's 60 degrees, mostly cloudy 3 p.m. 73 degrees and still mostly cloudy. Don't expect to see a lot of sunshine Saturday, but it's pretty comfortable temperature wise. Sunday, we will warm back up into the lower eighties, partly cloudy skies with a southwest wind helping to drive us up into the eighties. Then comes the big warm up next week with highs in the upper eighties all week long. Low temperatures only dip into the sixties as for rain chances they are very low for the next seven days. This warm pattern is also a dry one for us. Just a 20% chance of rain Tuesday night. There is some concern that if we see this continue. We could be headed for a flash drought so we'll be keeping a close eye on the next opportunity for some decent rain.

WRAL WeatherCenter Forecast

Daytime Pick 3 and Pick 4 drawings are held at 3 p.m. daily. They can be seen as live or on-demand video.

Good afternoon. I'm Grace Holland. Welcome to this afternoon's drawings for Thursday, April 25th, 2024. Let's get started with the Carolina pick three. Your first pick three number is five followed by seven then seven and your fireball is eight. Joining me for this afternoon's drawing is our auditor from A L LP. Now let's move on to the Carolina pick four. The first pick four number is seven followed by one 60 and your fireball is five. The North Carolina Education lottery has contributed over $10 billion to education. Thank you for your support. You can get your winning numbers each day at 3 p.m. and again at 1122.

Daytime Pick 3 and Pick 4 Drawing

Boviet Solar plans to spend $294 million by the end of 2027 as part of the deal, state economic development officials said Friday. Commerce officials approved an incentives package worth up to $16.4 million.

<p>To, to all of you and we bring you greetings. I would like to also extend gratitude to other elected officials who are joining us today. If you'll please stand. Thank you. I want to also start by expressing how thrilled we are to have you here today. We are proud of our city here in Greenville. And I think that pride is evident in this room today and why wouldn't we be proud? Greenville is a thriving hub of, of eastern North Carolina. We have a growing population, a diverse based manufacturing manufacturers, top notch educational institutions, state of the art, medical facilities and vibrant art and entertainment scenes. The people in Greenville are as friendly and as talented as they come. We all work well together and that is a tremendous, tremendous key to progress. There are so many reasons to be proud of Greenville and today I'm thrilled that our city is getting even better with all of that being said, I would like to introduce to you a Greenville native and Chief Deputy Secretary of Commerce Jordan Richard. Well, thank you so much. Uh Mayor Pro Daniels. Uh it is a beautiful day and uh uh especially great day to be back home in Greenville, North Carolina. Uh So, on behalf of uh our North Carolina Secretary of Commerce Michelle Baker Sanders, uh Good afternoon. Uh Today really is not only the celebration of an incredible partnership uh with the city of Greenville, Pitt County, uh the Greenville Eastern North Carolina Alliance, the Department of Commerce, our, our partners across the state. Uh But it's also calls to celebrate uh some really exciting news and the first uh such announcement this year in Pitt County across the state in North Carolina, we are uh already ahead of our pace from last year. Uh Having a wonderful year in terms of economic development. Today is a wonderful announcement of that. Since January across the state, we've announced uh 39 projects and this will be our 40th, more than 3600 jobs across North Carolina and over $2.5 billion in economic development investment statewide. And today's news uh is also great as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of Greenville, North Carolina. Over those 250 years, we've seen Greenville change and evolve and the evolution of Greenville as a community is parallel to what we've seen across the state from an economy once dependent on agriculture and tobacco. Pitt County and Greenville is transformed into an economy that's supported by medicine uh and advanced manufacturing and clean energy jobs like we're here to talk about today. Uh having grown up here and watch that evolution and watch Downtown and Dickinson Avenue evolve and having gone to school across the street at CMXS Middle School, it's especially gratifying to be back and to be working on wonderful announcements like this. Uh And today, it's also an incredible honor to introduce uh someone who I've had the great pleasure of working for in Raleigh for the past 7.5 years. Uh He's been working to build a stronger North Carolina uh where everyone has as an opportunity to live in safe communities, get a quality education, uh have good access to great jobs and great health care. Uh And where everybody has a chance to live lives of purpose and abundance. And today he'll share with the Greenville community some outstanding news. Uh that'll help get us closer to North Carolina, North Carolina. That's more diverse, more inclusive works uh even more for all the people of this great state. Uh So it's my honor now to introduce to you the 75th governor of North Carolina Roy Cooper. Thank you so much, Greenville, aren't you proud of Jordan Witcher? Let me just say, Chief Deputy Secretary of the Department of Commerce. And uh you might notice that I have a lot of people in my administration who are from Eastern North Carolina. It's because I grew up here and I know the kind of people that they are. So I am so happy to be here. With you today, seeing so many friends and familiar faces uh and to celebrate what's gonna happen today. Uh Thank you Marquita for being here, Representative reader. Thank you for, for, for being here. Thank you representative for you. Uh Thank you, appreciate all of you guys candy. Thank you for coming. Very grateful for you coming and being part of this. Um II, I wanna thank Mayor Pro TEM Daniels and say thank you very much for your hard work here. But it's great to join with you today with an outstanding announcement for the city of Greenville, Pitt County, eastern North Carolina and I am our entire state. I am so proud to announce that Bovi at Solar, an international renewable energy company has selected North Carolina for its first North American solar panel manufacturing facility that will create 900 jobs and invest $294 million right here in Greenville, North Carolina. Our economists predict that this project will lift North Carolina's economy by more than $2.9 billion over the next 12 years. This economic development. When shows us how teamwork, teamwork and that's a fitting word here in front of Dowdy Ficklin Stadium, teamwork and our amazing workforce. Keep bringing advanced manufacturing jobs to our state here in Pitt County. You have a great legacy of manufacturing, making everything from life saving pharmaceuticals to packaging personal care products and now comes important components for clean renewable energy. North Carolina is becoming an epicenter for clean energy that's putting money in the pockets of North Carolina families and small businesses. And as we've learned in North Carolina the last few years, a clean energy economy is a strong economy, providing American security. North Carolina is a leader in that 19 billion in capital investments and nearly 16,000 good paying manufacturing jobs created here since 2021 with the fourth largest producer of solar energy in the country. And with our bipartisan clean power plan that will get us producing zero emission clean energy by 2050. That means a lot more solar panels need to be made right here in North Carolina. This announcement means that they're going to be made right here. And North Carolina's emergence as a clean energy leader has fueled our growth and helped set us apart as the number one state to do business in the country for two years in a row, we all get to celebrate that recognition and much of the credit goes to our well trained, dedicated and diverse workforce, the people of North Carolina, they make up the best workforce in the country. And Bovi at solar is gonna find out about that. And our university Chancellor Rogers, thank you for hosting this today. Our university and community college systems including East Carolina Pitt community College and our research institutions and workforce partnerships help North Carolina stay first in talent coupled with our central east location, East coast location and includes easy access to transportation infrastructure by land, plain sea. And of course our excellent quality of life. North Carolina continues to be a top choice and we don't take opportunities and announcement like these for granted because we know that companies like Bovi at solar can choose to locate anywhere in the world, but they chose us. And that's why we must continue to increase our investments in education, workforce training in our public schools and in early childhood education, that is absolutely critical. This announcement is the result of strong collaboration by company executives, elected officials across both aisles and economic development professionals. In addition to Secretary Sanders and the Department of Commerce, I'd like to thank our Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina that works so well led by Chris Chung works so well with our Department of Commerce, our North Carolina General Assembly. Those members are here today, our Golden Leaf Foundation, our Greenville Eastern North Carolina Alliance, Pitt County Electric Cities, Greenville Utilities Commission and the city of Greenville. At this time, I would like to, to welcome to the podium, the CEO of Bovi at Solar, Jimmy Shea. And I'd like to present him with a gift on behalf of the people of North Carolina, Jimmy. If you could come forward, Jimmy, this is a piece of pottery made one of our, by one of our famous artists uh Ben Owen. And on it has the great seal of the state of North Carolina and it has a part of it. Our, our motto, Si Quam Beri, which means to be rather than to seem, we want you to know in North Carolina we are who we say we are. And we look forward to this partnership for years and decades to come. Congratulations. Thank you for being here. Uh This is uh cup of the Chinese tea. Oh, outstanding. Thank you very much. Well, on behalf of the people of North Carolina, we accept this gift and hopefully we can sit and drink some tea and talk about the great success of this company. Thank you, Jimmy very much. Thank you. Mm Let uh let me begin to say uh by saying, thank you to the press, our partners and everyone who took the time to join us at today's event. Uh We are around to be receiving this investment grade and uh we are excited uh for how it uh will enable us to get our first us solar panel manufacturer facility up to and running and uh created, created uh economic uh uh our opportunities for the pul air. Yeah, for those who uh who aren't familiar. Let me introduce the about the poet founded in 2013 poet, solar head office in Unite, unite us Germany and our group uh headquarters in Vietnam. We have a proven track record of successful working with many of the industrial leading players. And our PV module are known for their power performance. And quality. This is evident because Bo has uh maintained its uh pos uh position at a Bloomberg new energy financing T one solar module manufacturers. Since 2017, we have been written at the top performance on people's PV module reliability uh score card since 2019 BB. Successfully completed. And in the independent e estimate of bo uh uh water solar manufacturers facility in 2022 the US uh solar industrial had been in K for water solar since we first uh entered the uh in 20 17 as of 2020 f uh three world solar PV sales and the PV models manufacturing capacity is more than three gigawatts and it's a shar a total of more than 6.6 gigawatt since uh in fabric, manually operating in us. Marketing. We are dedicated uh to helping to build uh American solar manufacturers uh with our new facility and uh filing, you know, cutting power in uh petit county, North Carolina and the, the natural. Uh let me tell you more about our plan for the manufacture plant. First one of the project, we use the building to manufacture our solar modules per to will including contracting uh start uh start off the art 500,000 to 60 thou uh 100,000 square foot factory on 34 acres to manufacture of PV cells which are used to build the solar panels. The location is expected to output the two gigawatts of solar and the two gigawatt uh PV cells since the future, uh uh will help bring our top performance PV modules to our variable clients to foster stronger connections with the independent uh power products. EP CS product uh developers, solar in, in installs and the contractors. We will have product uh they need uh in increase the deve deployment of uh uh U utilities, commercial industrial and uh dangerous solar project. We will require a strong workforce to product pro produce these solar panels so we will hearing about uh 900 employees uh over the next five years, job are expect expected to increase engineers, product workers. And so on, on behalf of uh B solar, I would like to thank everyone in involved in making this uh weight of product uh possible. The first is the governor uh Rio Cooper and uh and the secu uh secondary security Sanders and the North Korea development of the commerce tr uh territory uh D feature and the e economy uh economic uh developer partners of the North Korea Carolina, North Carolina General and Een North Korea uh communi Community College System, Go Goen Le found uh Foundation, Yanda down uh and the team at the Greenville East, North Carolina Islands, Kelly Andrew and the Peter County developer office, as well as the Pitter county government, Kathy Howard and the leadership team at the Greenville Utilities Commission City of the Greenville Electricity of the North Carolina and our advances today, our dream are coming true. We are upon the to begin pro product in our pe models in the US, bring our manufacturers exciting excellence to our most important uh solar market, creating jobs and the ma uh making up in impact. Solar energy in the United States is a bombing driving by its many benefits. Solar is an economic engine, a source of clean cheap um produce energy set and make a electricity affordable for customers and improve the air quality for health uh communities. We are surrendered to help uh future wills rep reputation for the green. I I can economic and uh manufacturing. We look forward to working with all of our partners, our path towards a cleaning future in the United. Thank you. I wanted to make sure I recognized Senator Candy Smith and Representative Glory Steam Brown and Representative reader, the legislature helped us a lot with this too. So, thank you very much for. Ok. Mhm. Good afternoon. My name is Anne Lord Huggins and I serve on the Pitt County Board of Commissioners. In conclusion of this momentous announcement, we must emphasize how truly honored we are that Pitt County was chosen over the many communities that were under consideration for this project. We are not only announcing the selection of Pitt County for a new industry that will bring strong economic growth to our community, but we are celebrating the collaboration that have developed and will continue to develop among Pitt County. Our partners and this esteem company. This announcement is the culmination of shared vision. This company's vision for its first us manufacturing facility in a business friendly asset, rich and welcoming community and Pitt County's vision for growth through strong industry partners that create highly skilled high paying jobs for our citizens. This vision will come to life in the, in the gr in the green corporate park and we look forward to our continued partnership to make this project successful. Beyond expectation. On behalf of Pitt County and the Board of commissioners, we extend our appreciation to each and every individual who has contributed their time, expertise and passion to make today possible. Most importantly, we extend heartfelt thanks to Bovier Sola for choosing us to communicate, to commemorate. Excuse me, this day, we would like to present a sculpture crafted by local artist Jordan Pera titled Connecting the Links May this day be a continuation of connections that will ensure your continued success. We are honored to be your partners and your chosen community. Welcome to your new home, Pitt County. OK. And I accept this on behalf of pick him and now and welcome to the podium, Thomas Taft Junior Board of Directors of Greenville, NENC Alliance for a toast. That's good. Not a force of guys. II, I had a prepared speech, but I'm gonna take this in a slightly different direction because II I, everyone has, has talked so much about the relationships and everything else. That got us to this point. But all I can say on behalf of Pitt County and on behalf of the Greenville NC Alliance is we won. We have won, we have beat out other communities, phobia technologies to come here. It's everything that we've all been working for, for years and years and years. I look at so many of you out here that uh were participants in that. And again, all I want to say is we won. Pitt County won North Carolina won. Thank you, Governor Cooper. Cheers, everyone. Cheers. Thank you. I don't mind. That's fine. No, no, no, no. Well, I would just add that this is the single largest jobs announcement in Pitt County's history. Uh, I don't believe we've had a governor here in, uh, about 15 years to announce anything, uh, economic development, a new, a new, uh, I'm sorry. But, uh, but either way we're proud to have you here. We're proud to have you guys here. Cheers again to a victory for Pitt County here here. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ok. Thank you so much. I'm ready to provide. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. They see. All right. Right. Yes. That's first. He said going across the way, come back in time.</p>

Gov. Cooper announces major economic development deal in Greenville

A lockdown has ended at Enloe High School in Raleigh, police said Friday.

Good afternoon. My name is Lieutenant Jason with the Public Information Office of the Raleigh Police Department. Deputy Chief Boyce is going to provide an update on the incident that happened at a high school today. Uh Good morning, uh Deputy Chief Rico Boyce of the Raleigh Police Department. I want to provide an update of the incident that occurred here at in low high school this morning. I'm joined here with Major Harrison of the Field Operations Division as well as major latour of the field operations division. I want to begin by saying that everything and everyone is safe at Inlow High School. There's no students, no staff that has been injured as a result of this. Obviously with uh with the allegation of a firearm on campus, it really has an effect on the students and staff, but I want to alert the public that everything is ok. Uh Wake County schools have been very helpful in investigating this matter with the Raleigh Police Department. So what happened just after 10 a.m. this morning, a student approached the principal and made the principal aware that there is a subject on campus with a firearm. The principal immediately placed a school on code red lockdown and with the assistance of the school resource officer, additional officers were called to the scene. Once officers arrived on scene, they began to do a systematic search of the entire school interior and exterior of the school to determine that there was no one on campus with the firearm. Obviously, when you talk about a firearm on campus, it has a very large impact in our community and that's why we had a very large presence of law enforcement. But I will say Raleigh PD working with the Wake County public schools, we have determined that there is no threat on campus. We took this matter very seriously. We're going to continue to investigate and see how this all originated. But at this time, I just want to let the community know that this threat is unfounded, right? There's no threat, there's no firearm, there's no one injured at in high school. So we're going to continue to make sure that the message get out and Wake County public schools will put out an update of how the rest of the school day is going to go as far as any potential early release. I cannot say that right now, what I can say is a student made the principal aware that there is a potential of someone on campus with a firearm. The principal took that information very seriously and placed the school on a code grade lockdown and we began to investigate from there. So at this time, I can't determine if it was a hoax or not. Are you looking for anyone else? I mean, there have been a report that there was a student who said her boyfriend was with a gun. Are you looking for that person? Since no one was found in the school with a gun? We're investigating right now, like say this originated from a student and the information was shared with the principal. So we're still trying to determine what exactly was shared with the principal to lead to the core lockdown. So right now that is like say under investigation, did you guys do a systematic room by room search? Yes, we did. Like I say with this being a school and the threat of a firearm on campus, the Raleigh Police Department's selective enforcement unit, state capital PD County Sheriff's office, they all responded to help us do a systematic search of the entire campus, not only inside the school but it outside school in the surrounding neighborhoods is the lockdown lifted currently. No, it's still code red lockdown right now. We're just finishing up like say some last minute details with Wake County public schools and they will update us when they're going to lift that code red. One more question. I just want to make sure I'm clarifying this correctly. A call from the principle that a student had reported this. Are you still on the lookout for someone who might have been on campus and then left or are you investigating this in a different way? We're investigating this in a different way that this was a alleged threat of someone with a gun on campus. So right now, there's nobody on campus, but we're trying to get the exact details. Like what else was involved in this communication with the student and the principal. Can you really quickly just talk about the response? I mean, this is a massive response to something like this and the impact that has on officers, parents, students out there actually has a huge toll, a huge effect on our officers responding to any school with the potential of a firearm b on a campus. That's why you saw the response to get today. Uh We work very well with our law enforcement partners and we're very thankful for them helping us to clear the school. Uh And obviously with parents, of course, this is going to have a huge impact on parents as well as student and staff. Anytime you see a large police presence on a, on a school campus, but it's all to make sure that everyone is safe. Uh And then we're quickly, we'll try to get the school back to normal operators uh operating as soon as possible. So yes, we came with a lot of resources if there was a threat or would someone would have gone, we wanted to quickly mitigate that. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you.

No threat at Enloe High School, releasing students early

Sky 5 flies over code red lockdown at Enloe High School 

Enloe High School is under a code red lockdown. Sky 5 is flying over the school.

Nightly N.C. Education Lottery drawings during the 11 p.m. News.

Good evening. I'm Gail. Hi, welcome to tonight's drawings for Thursday, April 25th, 2024. Well, let's get started tonight with our Carolina pick three. Our first winning number is a one. Our second number is eight and our third number tonight is a nine and our pick three fireball number is eight. Again, join me for tonight's joining us on Auditor from mcconnell and Jones L LP. Now let's move to the Carolina pick four. Good luck. Everyone who's their first winning pick four number. It's a six. Our second number is eight. Third number tonight is eight again and our fourth number is a three in our pick four fireball number. There it comes. It is a one. Well, turning now to the Carolina cash five and no one wins our prize tonight. Tomorrow's, our prize is estimated at $721,000. Good luck. Everyone here's our first winning cash five number. It's the number eight. Our second number is five third number. Tonight is seven. Our fourth number here it comes. It's a 41 in the final number, NRC five. This evening is 27. The North Carolina Education Lottery has contributed over $10 billion to education. Get your winning numbers right here every night in your exclusive station for the North Carolina Education lottery. Thanks for playing. Have a great night.

WRAL Documentary: Fish Farms

More On This

Fish Farms: Aquaculture industry thriving in North Carolina's backyard

Related Topics

More Videos

WRAL Late News

WRAL WeatherCenter Forecast

Daytime Pick 3 and Pick 4 Drawing

Gov. Cooper announces major economic development deal in Greenville

No threat at Enloe High School, releasing students early

Sky 5 flies over code red lockdown at Enloe High School

Sky 5 flies over code red lockdown at Enloe High School

Evening Pick 3 Pick 4 and Cash 5