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Support
sought to avert Intalco smelter closure
By
Soren Velice
People
from all over Whatcom County packed the Mount Baker Theatre
in Bellingham last week to hear about the Intalco smelter’s
future in the face of a Bonneville Power Administration
(BPA) request to shut down for two years.
“You
can’t put all of the aluminum industry in one bucket,”
said chief shop steward Vicki Henley, referring to Kaiser
Aluminum closing its works and selling its power at inflated
prices. “We sold power back to BPA so they wouldn’t
have to go to the open market.” She described BPA acting
administrator Steven Wright’s request that all 10 northwest
aluminum smelters shut down for two years as “ridiculous.”
“It’s
not like a light switch,” she said. “It’s
just an unrealistic request altogether; you wouldn’t
just ask Boeing to shut down for two years.”
International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) local
business representative Clarence Harper agreed. “That’s
not a plan,” he said. “That’s a guaranteed
commitment that you’ll go away.”
Plant
manager Jim Frederick said the plant is one of the cleanest,
most efficient smelters in the country, citing a recent
governor’s award for pollution prevention and the state
Department of Fish and Wildlife’s naming Intalco landowner
of the year. Lloyd Jones, president of Intalco’s U.S.
smelting division, said BPA’s stereotype of an old,
inefficient industry is simply not true. “That’s
something that’s been thrown at them by some of the
competitors for energy,” he said. “It doesn’t
fit with Intalco at all.”
Closing
the plant would be a serious blow to local economies, Frederick
said, since its value of $150 million translates to 4.2
percent of local property taxes including $730,000 of Ferndale
school district’s budget. He added Intalco’s share
of salmon mitigation has amounted to more than $200 milion
since the last big power crunch 25 years ago.
Frederick
bemoaned BPA’s blended rate proposal, saying $80 per
megawatt hour was exorbitant. “I don’t care who
you are, nobody can make aluminum profitably with that kind
of rate,” he said. Instead, Jones proposed a tiered
rate for all customers, industrial or otherwise, that charges
$22 per megawatt hour of cheaply produced hydroelectric
power and $80 for that bought on the open market to reflect
what the power costs BPA. “If you have a certain amount
of cheap power and a certain amount of very expensive power,
it’s going to encourage everybody to conserve,”
Jones said.
IAM’s
western general vice president Lee Pearson rallied audience
members to do everything they could to save the plant and
their jobs. “Every one of you needs to write a letter
to your senators and representatives,” he said, “and
especially to secretary of energy Spencer Abraham; this
plan is not acceptable, and we’ve got to let everybody
know Steven Wright is really wrong. IAM cares deeply, and
we intend to help you with this fight.”
County
executive Pete Kremen said Intalco would need everybody’s
help to survive the crisis, including the Bush administration
and the community. “I think in the long term, Alcoa
has a plan to step up and do what they need to do,”
he said, “but in the short term we need BPA to help.”
He declared his intent to push conservation throughout the
region and gave an example of what the county has done.
“I just got the power bill for March two days ago,”
he said, “and despite complaints of how cold it is
in the courthouse, we reduced our power consumption 31 percent;
if everyone in the region was able to conserve 20 to 25
percent, we would not be in a crisis. Conservation, although
not a panacea, will go a long way to get over this hump.”
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