ALVARADO - We all know about rising unemployment numbers but one little town south of Fort Worth is bucking the trend.

It's adding new manufacturing jobs that are also green.

They're the kind of jobs that will be needed if the Obama administration focuses on rebuilding America's infrastructure.

At the plant you can see a 60-foot long utility pole plunged into what might be North America's largest kettle of molten zinc - some 2.6 million pounds of zinc heated to 840 degrees.

Zinc galvanizes the steel, making it resistant to corrosion.

The Sabre galvanizing plant opened a few months ago in Alvarado south of Fort Worth.

The company already employs about 40 people and hopes to go to 60 by the end of the year on a full three-shift operation.

They are trying to use local people to work here. Even the people who built the building are local.

The jobs aren't clean, but they are green.

Plant manager Carrol Baynard says solid waste goes into fertilizer, while a series of scrubbers clean the exhaust.

"It pulls all the particulate out in the smoke out of it."

So what comes out of the smokestack?

"Clean air. Cleaner than in your office probably," Bayard added.

Right now this plant is galvanizing 50 to 60 poles a day.

But by the end of the year, the company hopes to have three shifts running round the clock, and at that point they could galvanize 80 to a 100 poles a day.

And they'll be needed if a new economic stimulus package focuses on roads, bridges and power grids.

E-mail jdouglas@wfaa.com.