Downside to smelter

WITH ALCOA, the world’s leading producer of aluminium, owning 60 percent of the proposed billion dollar smelter at La Brea, we may safely assume that the project would not suffer the dismal fate of TT’s misadventure into steel manufacturing. One expects that with Alcoa’s experience and knowledge of the aluminium industry, together with easy access to abundant raw materials, the economic prospects of the Union Estate plant would be virtually assured. We can only rely on these assumptions since the Government in making its decision to establish such a huge plant has not been as forthcoming and transparent as it should be. For one thing, we know little about the market, both in the short and long term, for aluminium and alumina. We remember the ISCOTT nightmare, when the state-owned plant turned into a costly white elephant because it could not sell its products abroad, having made no proper market arrangements.

With regard to the operation of aluminium smelters, however, there is one potential danger that is well established and about which we must issue a serious warning, that is the volume and variety of toxic waste generated by these plants and the threat these emissions pose to the surrounding environment and water supply. It is impossible not to be disturbed by reports and studies made on the effects of smelters built in different parts of the world, particularly in Australia and Canada. How aware or alert the Government of Trinidad and Tobago is to this experience and to this threat we do not know but, with the warning we now issue, we expext that the National Energy Corporation, partners of Alcoa in this project, will fully acquaint themselves with this potentially hazardous aspect of smelter operations and take every measure to protect the LaBrea environment and the safety of the local community.

It is an established fact that aluminium smelters produce as waste products large amounts of toxic gasses such as hydrogen fluoride, sulphur dioxide, sulphur tioxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and volatile hydrocarbons. In addition, they discharge such particulate matter as alumina dust, carbon dust, particularly burnt hydrocarbons and fluorides. The National Research Council of Canada has reported that a smelter at Kitimat, emitting huge amounts of fluorides in the atmosphere, “has a 20-plus square mile death band of dead trees surrounding it.” Another report blames the plant located southwest of Cornwall Island, Ontario, for being “the major source of fluoride emissions impacting on Cornwall Island.” Hydrogen fluoride and sulphur oxides affect the community by causing acid rain. “In conclusion” says the report, “Alcoa’s planned atmospheric emissions are unnecessarily high and potentially hazardous.”

Reports on the serious respiratory afflictions suffered by workers at various ALCOA smelter plants in Australia are also quite disturbing. After just 25 months in operation, 65 workers “at one of the most modern aluminium smelters in the world” - established at Portland, Victoria, in 1986 - had been affected by mysterious agents in the pot room. Mr Royce Bird, state secretary of the Federated Iron-workers Association, called for a national inquiry into respiratory ailments of aluminium smelter workers after a report by New South Wales researchers found evidence of long term irreversible lung damage. Bird, who has worked in the industry for 18 years, claimed the findings had serious implications for aluminium industry workers world wide. Can we depend on Alcoa to eliminate these risks at Union Estate?