Smelting operation's day is done
Saturday, April 10, 2004 12:12 AM PDT
By Associated Press
Printable version
E-mail this articleSPOKANE -- Kaiser Aluminum Corp. will sell its Mead smelter to a St. Louis company that specializes in demolishing and cleaning polluted industrial properties, leaving little hope the huge factory will ever restart.
Commercial Development Co. will pay $7.4 million for the Mead smelter.
Commercial will attempt to restart a small part of the smelter that makes carbon anodes, but smelting aluminum is likely over, said Randy Jostes, Commercial's director of acquisitions.
Instead, the company plans a cleanup of decades of pollution at the plant before selling the property or leasing the buildings to small manufacturers.
Commercial outbid Vancouver, Wash.-based Columbia Ventures Corp., which announced in late February that it was willing to pay $4 million for the smelter.
Columbia Ventures planned to restart the plant's carbon-bake unit, which makes special anodes that are used to conduct electricity through smelter pots.
Although Jostes said Commercial is interested in making anodes, the company's top priority is solving Mead's environmental problems. He estimated cleanup costs at between $6 million and $25 million.
"We think we can abate the environmental problems, reposition the property and put it back on the market," Jostes said.
If Kaiser's bankruptcy judge approves the sale at an April 26 hearing, Commercial would begin work on the property soon.
Dan Russell, president of Steelworkers Local 329, said Commercial's takeover of the smelter doesn't bode well for jobs. Only seven employees remain there.
"Some of us, including some Kaiser managers, hoped the other company would buy it because at least they had a plan to restart the carbon bake," Russell said.
Besides the loss of more than 1,000 jobs in the past few years, Steelworkers and retirees have had their medical plans deeply cut and pension plans altered.
Kaiser is attempting to emerge from bankruptcy later this year and cut benefits to workers and retirees to save money and shed financial liabilities.
Washington state is seeking $22 million from Kaiser to remove rubble and clean up groundwater polluted by PCBs.
The federal government built the smelter in 1942 to make aluminum for World War II military needs. After the war ended, the plant was purchased by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.
The smelter was a steady performer for five decades, supplying molten aluminum to the nearby Trentwood rolling mill.
The smelter helped define north Spokane for decades, with thousands of jobs that paid enough for workers to own homes, raise families and retire comfortably.
Until the late 1990s, Mead was among 10 smelters in the Northwest pouring 40 percent of the nation's aluminum. The companies were a potent economic and political force that, along with Boeing, had the highest blue-collar payroll in the region.
But manipulation of the West Coast's electricity markets wiped out the cheap power advantage of the smelters. Since then, all the Northwest smelters have been idled.
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