Inola City Council members took action this week that could interrupt the state-endorsed $4 billion aluminum smelter that has become the center of a fight.
The council met Monday night and adopted a moratorium on the proposed smelter, first considering a six-month delay to allow time to study the impacts of the project, then deciding a 60-day time for the study. Before a large crowd, the council members debated the issue and agreed they wanted more data obtained about its possible impact on the region near the Port of Inola.
As KJRH TV reported, the vote came after state and federal officials encouraged approval of the project, saying it would lead to economic growth for the community and do so largely through the creation of hundreds of jobs.
Residents, many who oppose the project, also had their say, and claimed their lives were not being prioritized as the smelter project was being considered.
The smelter, proposed by Emirates Global Aluminium, is in the process of seeking an environmental review by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality which received the firm’s air quality construction permit in late March. EGA also has a new partner, Chicago-based Century Aluminum. Ownership is 60% for EGA and the remaining 40% for Century.
Prior to Oklahoma’s primary election, the smelter became the center of a political issue when Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced his opposition to the project and filed a petition in Rogers County District court to block it.
In his petition, Drummond wrote, “The controlling hand behind the largest smelter ever proposed on American soil belongs not to Oklahomans, nor even to Americans, but to a foreign sovereign more than 7,000 miles away.”
However, Drummond’s opponent in the primary election runoff, former Sen. Mike Mazzei, is a supporter of the project and was also endorsed by President Trump who supports the project.
“Projects like the aluminum smelter in Oklahoma are exactly the kind of project our state needs more of,” he wrote in a social media posting “When I’m Governor, I will strongly support this project, and I will work with the Trump administration to bring more projects like it to Oklahoma.”
The project’s name is the Oklahoma Primary Aluminum which if constructed, would become the largest primary aluminum production plant ever built in the U.S. It would have a capacity of 750,000 metric tons of aluminum per year.
