BY STEPHEN GAY, Guardian Staff Reporter

There is a sense of new hope for Morton Salt employees residing on hurricane-ravished Inagua, with the announcement of the intention of parent company Rohm and Haas to rebuild the salt manufacturing facility.

This comes days after Managing Director of Morton Bahamas Glen Banister said that the plant suffered damages believed to be in the tens of millions of dollars. The damage raised the question of Morton's future in the country.

The Nassau Guardian spoke with Emily Riley, spokesperson for Rohm and Hass (Morton's parent company) yesterday who said, "We are absolutely working toward bringing the Inagua facility back (on line)."

She added that a timeline for full restoration could not be provided, due to ongoing assessments. The plant employs about 150 people, some 15 percent of Inagua's total population of 1000.

Jennifer Brown, Secretary General of the Bahamas Industrial Manufactures and Allied Workers Union, who represents line staff at Morton Bahamas, said this development has spawned new life in a community whose spirits were extremely low after Hurricane Ike.

She said everybody is elated about the news of possibly having steady employment once again. Brown believes that is what drew union officials and management on the island into a meeting on Wednesday.

"We discussed ways that we can get the plant back in shape to get people back to work to start some sort of production," Brown said. "Hopefully next week we should be able to start something."

"We are making plans to go to work next week to try and get the plant in order, because the plant is in a terrible state. "

Officials of both sides are expected to meet again today to continue charting a way forward.

Officials say that Morton's Inagua facility received extensive damage to its loading docks, and the roof of just about every building on the compound. The majority of the equipment used in the production of the precious commodity was also damaged.

According to Morton Bahamas' Managing Director Bannister, if one looks at all the structural work of all the other buildings, all of the stockrooms and all the roofs are gone and water numerous parts and other machinery were water damaged.

It's why the company was eyeing the acquisition of pre-fabricated buildings to minimize the total downtime of the operation.

"We have started making plans already, and we're looking at pre-fabricated buildings in the United States to set up in the short-term, until we have a chance to reconstruct and rebuild permanent buildings," Bannister said just after the hurricane. "We are working as fast as possible with companies in The Bahamas and companies in the U.S, who can give us the fastest service."

"As soon as they can get the building up, even if it is a 'pre-fab' building or a tent or something, plans are to start work next," Brown said. "As far as production, we cannot put a time on that because we don't know how long it would take to get the building sorted out. But once the equipment is in good shape, that's really all that you need."