Smelting Plant Pins Hopes on Power Play

The metal, which is used in everything from automobiles to windows to beverage cans, is refined from bauxite, a mineral mined in South America. Huge quantities of electricity are necessary to create an electrolytic reaction that separates the metal's atoms from oxygen molecules. At Eastalco, about 350 megawatts flow through the plant continuously -- about enough to light up Baltimore, Kazadi said.

Eastalco turns out about 190,000 metric tons of aluminum each year. The plant, which operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, has been producing aluminum since April 1, 1970, when it was known as Alumax, said Earl H. Robbins Jr., an Alcoa spokesman.

The company was purchased by Alcoa and a Japanese consortium in 1998 and now employs about 600 people. That represents a decline from about 700 last year, when the company was forced to lay off some employees, Kazadi said.

Eastalco is Frederick County's biggest manufacturer -- and one of its biggest polluters. Of the nine companies that must report under an EPA program, Eastalco discharges the most pollutants, EPA spokesman Bill Reilly said.

On June 23, the EPA released 2002 statistics for its Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program showing that Eastalco had introduced about 2.6 million pounds of toxic emissions -- aluminum, chromium, hydrogen fluoride and other chemicals -- into the air, water and land. That was up sharply from 564,970 pounds of all such emissions in 2001.

Ronald S. Flain, director of Eastalco's environmental and technical services, and Reilly said the company had mistakenly calculated that about 1.7 million pounds of hydrogen fluoride had been emitted, mostly into the air. In fact, Reilly said, the company wrongly included calcium fluoride -- which is not subject to reporting in the TRI inventory -- that had been disposed of on land.

Blain said that although the plant's biggest concern is the emission of hydrogen fluoride gas, more than 98 percent of what it produces of the gas is reduced through filters and scrubbers.

Although the current high price for aluminum has benefited Eastalco, the company's other concern remains the rising cost of power. Its East Coast location keeps the company within a day's drive from important customers, but the price of energy, water and labor continue to go up, company officials said.

"At this point, we're making money," Kazadi said. "But this is a time you have to position yourself for when the price goes back down."

The Frederick Board of County Commissioners has scheduled a public meeting for July 12 on the power plant proposal. Although the commissioners do not have the authority to approve or deny the proposal, the county government can make its views known to the Public Service Commission, which has the final say on the plant.